Writer-director Jeremy Saulnier’s pulse-pounding thriller “Rebel Ridge” is one of the best Netflix original movies of the year, and both critics and audiences have responded to its exciting action set pieces, fascinating characters and engrossing, twist-filled story. It boasts a stellar 95 percent rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and it’s currently the No. 1 movie on Netflix.
Aaron Pierre gives a breakout performance as former Marine Terry Richmond, who faces immediate hostility from the police in the Louisiana town of Shelby Springs when he attempts to bail his cousin out of jail. Don Johnson is entertainingly despicable as the power-hungry police chief, who comes to regret making an enemy of the resourceful, determined Terry.
If you appreciated the immersive action and furious indignation of “Rebel Ridge,” here are five more movies with the same type of thrills to stream next.
‘First Blood’
The first movie starring Sylvester Stallone as Vietnam War veteran John Rambo is much more thoughtful and subdued than its bombastic, action-packed sequels. Like Terry Richmond, Rambo is a brooding loner who enters a small town just minding his own business but is quickly harassed by local law enforcement. Rambo travels to rural Washington to visit a friend who served with him in the war, and after learning that his friend has died, he moves on to the ironically named town of Hope.
Sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy) immediately tries to run Rambo out of town, then arrests him on bogus charges when he won’t comply. The traumatized Rambo eventually snaps, setting up a brutal showdown between the local cops and the hardened warrior. Although there’s plenty of violence, it’s more about Rambo’s desperation and anger than the glorified retribution of the later movies.
Watch on Paramount Plus
‘Blue Ruin’
Saulnier’s breakthrough film is another tense thriller about an unassuming man bent on revenge, although protagonist Dwight Evans (Macon Blair) is the opposite of the calm, efficient Terry Richmond. When he finds out that the man who killed his parents has been released from prison, Dwight embarks on a chaotic mission of vengeance, setting off a grim chain of events that highlight the futility of such efforts.
The violence in “Blue Ruin” is messy and viscerally unpleasant, and Saulnier sustains the sickening suspense from the moment that Dwight first attacks his target. Taking out the man he holds responsible for his family’s misfortune is just the first step in a nightmarish descent. The film is intense and nasty, but it also finds empathy for characters on both sides of a blood feud, which can only end in tragedy for everyone involved.
Watch on Tubi
‘Assault on Precinct 13’
The siege of the police station in “Rebel Ridge” is only a small part of the battle between Terry and the Shelby Springs police department, but it echoes John Carpenter’s gritty thriller, which takes place almost entirely within a decommissioned precinct house. The handful of staffers left to close up the facility are ambushed by gang members, and they’re forced to team up with a group of prisoners to fend off the attackers.
Like Saulnier, Carpenter places unprepared characters in an untenable situation and then raises the stakes, observing how they react to constant threats. There’s just enough backstory to get a basic sense of who these people are and to care about what happens to them, as they fight back against a relentless, seemingly unstoppable enemy.
Watch on Prime Video
‘Earth and Blood’
French filmmaker Julien Leclercq is a master of contained, economical action, which he demonstrates in this thriller pitting an upstanding sawmill owner against a group of armed drug dealers. Saïd (Sami Bouajila) is already dealing with a terminal cancer diagnosis and planning to sell the sawmill he inherited from his late wife’s father, when one of his employees inadvertently makes him a target for angry criminals trying to retrieve a bag of stolen cocaine.
Saïd’s top priority is the safety of his employees and his teenage daughter, and when the gang converges on his property, he decides to take them on alone. He turns the industrial facility into a giant deathtrap, weaponizing the machinery against the invaders who consistently underestimate him. Saïd is quietly heroic as he protects the people he cares about from anyone who wants to do them harm.
Watch on Netflix
‘The Quick and the Dead’
The righteous outsider who takes on the corrupt leadership of a small town is a Western staple, and director Sam Raimi uses that sturdy plot structure for his visually inventive tribute to the genre. Sharon Stone plays the nameless drifter who arrives in the frontier outpost of Redemption, where the sadistic mayor John Herod (Gene Hackman) rules via intimidation and fear.
She teams up with Herod’s eager son (Leonardo DiCaprio) and a pacifist ex-outlaw (Russell Crowe) to defeat Herod in a quick-draw contest and end his reign of terror. Stone brings a sultry swagger to the archetypal gunslinger with no name, and Hackman is diabolical and menacing as the ruthless villain. Raimi’s stylized approach enlivens the familiar Western plotting, bringing energy and creativity to a well-worn story.
Watch on Netflix
