10 Awesome Recent Movies Nobody Saw Coming
6. Rebel Ridge
It's not unfair to say that the pre-release sentiment surrounding Jeremy Saulnier's new film Rebel Ridge... wasn't great.
It all started with original star John Boyega's sudden departure from the project after weeks of shooting, citing dissatisfaction with the film's script. This caused production to be shut down for almost an entire year before it restarted with Aaron Pierre replacing Boyega.
Couple this with Saulnier's previous film, 2018's Hold the Dark, being something of a disappointment and his early exit from working on the third season of True Detective, and some suspected that the filmmaker had basically fallen off.
It certainly didn't help that Rebel Ridge spent roughly two years in post-production despite featuring minimal VFX elements, and was then rather quietly released on Netflix last September.
None of this suggested that Saulnier had a banger on his hands closer to his earlier works like Blue Ruin and Green Room, but what a pleasant surprise it was to see the film receive rave reviews from critics.
Between Saulnier's taut direction and Aaron Pierre's superb, even star-making performance in the lead role, Rebel Ridge clawed its way out of a potentially disastrous production and came up smelling of roses.