Russell Crowe is having a banner month. With the crime drama The Get Out climbing the Paramount+ charts and the psychological thriller Unabomber set to hit Netflix later this month, the Oscar winner now adds a new Western to his resume—one that's earning him his best reviews in nearly three decades.
That film is The Weight, a stripped-down frontier thriller co-starring Ethan Hawke. The movie, which marks the directorial debut of Padraic McKinley, follows an incarcerated man who goes to extraordinary lengths to reunite with his daughter while battling a menacing warden. It's a tense, character-driven story that has clearly struck a chord with critics.
Currently sitting at a 93% "Certified Fresh" score on Rotten Tomatoes, The Weight is Crowe's highest-rated movie since The Insider (1999), which holds a 96% rating. His breakout hit, L.A. Confidential, remains his best-reviewed at 99%. The consensus on The Weight praises it as "a gripping, hard-hitting thriller, elevated by Ethan Hawke's magnetic performance and Padraic McKinley's assured direction."
At the domestic box office this weekend, The Weight debuted in the top 10, pulling in $2.5 million from roughly 1,500 theaters. While that's a modest haul compared to blockbuster openings, it's a solid start for an indie Western, especially one that's generating this kind of buzz.
Crowe is no stranger to the genre. He made a memorable impression in Sam Raimi's underrated The Quick and the Dead (1995) and later starred alongside Christian Bale in James Mangold's acclaimed remake 3:10 to Yuma (2007). Hawke, too, has Western roots, having appeared in Ti West's In a Valley of Violence and Antoine Fuqua's The Magnificent Seven remake, as well as the limited series The Good Lord Bird.
The Western genre has seen a resurgence in recent years, and The Weight adds to that momentum. With its strong reviews and a promising box-office start, it's likely to find an even wider audience when it hits streaming and home video. For Crowe, it's a welcome return to form after a string of smaller projects that often flew under the radar.
For more on Crowe's recent work, check out our coverage of the film's release date and his upcoming Kraven the Hunter appearance. And if you're curious about other streaming hits, see how Tom Hardy's MobLand is performing on Paramount+.
Stay tuned for more updates on The Weight and its journey through theaters and beyond.
