Jon Bernthal and Taylor Sheridan’s 100-Minute Intense Thriller Officially Sets Netflix Record

Five years after Taylor Sheridan sent Angelina Jolie and Jon Bernthal into a murderous Montana wildfire, Those Who Wish Me Dead has found a sizeable second wind on Netflix. The 100-minute thriller amassed 323 million U.S. viewing minutes from September 7-13, landing at No. 4 on Nielsen’s weekly streaming movie chart. Nielsen’s official Top 10 confirms the figure, while The Hollywood Reporter published Nielsen’s complete weekly rankings. 

For a movie released back in 2021, that is a formidable Netflix revival. Since Sheridan’s thriller runs almost exactly 100 minutes, 323 million minutes amount to roughly 3.23 million complete-runtime equivalents during the measured week. That is a mathematical comparison, not Nielsen’s reported view count, since its ratings measure minutes watched rather than completed streams. The film also outran several much newer streaming releases, proving that an older, hard-edged Sheridan thriller can still elbow its way into a crowded chart.

Those Who Wish Me Dead Outran Several Newer Movies

Nielsen’s movie chart makes the scale of the comeback easier to appreciate. Those Who Wish Me Dead finished behind only Netflix’s Why Did I Get Married Again? and The Whisper Man, plus Disney+’s Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu. 

Nielsen measures U.S. viewing through television sets, so these figures exclude viewing on phones and computers. The Hollywood Reporter also notes that limitation in its weekly ratings report. The achievement becomes more striking further down the table. Sheridan’s five-year-old thriller beat the new Supergirl movie by 19 million minutes and Apple TV’s Mayday by 28 million.

The comeback also lasted beyond Nielsen’s measurement window. Netflix’s weekly U.S. chart had the movie at No. 2 for September 7-13 and No. 5 the following week, while daily tracking kept it in the Top 10 through September 24.

Taylor Sheridan Made a Leaner Thriller Before His TV Empire

Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

Those Who Wish Me Dead arrived before Sheridan’s television dominion expanded into 1883, 1923, Lioness, Landman, and the broader Yellowstone universe. Adapted from Michael Koryta’s novel, the movie follows traumatized smokejumper Hannah Faber (Angelina Jolie), who encounters Connor (Finn Little), a boy fleeing assassins after his father uncovers damaging information. Sheridan co-wrote and directed the film, while Bernthal plays Ethan Sawyer, a sheriff’s deputy drawn into the hunt alongside his pregnant wife Allison (Medina Senghore). RogerEbert confirms the 100-minute runtime and principal cast. 

The film’s hook is brutally economical because Sheridan combines two threats that keep closing in at once: professional killers and a forest fire consuming the Montana wilderness. That approach earned mixed reviews on release. The film currently carries 63% on Rotten Tomatoes. Yet several critics admired its old-school muscularity. Time Out praised Sheridan’s “pacy, stylish direction” and Jolie’s assured performance, even while acknowledging the plot’s more preposterous turns.

The Los Angeles Times found something more distinctive beneath the genre machinery, describing the film as part eco-thriller, Western, noir, and soulful drama while praising Sheridan’s ability to give familiar archetypes recognizably human quirks. Five years later, Netflix viewers seem willing to give that combustible mixture another look. 323 million U.S. viewing minutes in one Nielsen week is quite a resurrection for a 100-minute thriller that had already completed its original theatrical and HBO Max run years ago.

Have you revisited Those Who Wish Me Dead on Netflix, and does Sheridan need to direct another stripped-down thriller between his sprawling TV projects? Tell us in the comments and follow FandomWire for more Netflix streaming records.