Didn’t watch ‘Apex’ on Netflix? It’s time to fix that
Didn’t watch ‘Apex’ on Netflix? It’s time to fix that
Charlize Theron fights her way through the Australian wilderness in a tense thriller that deserves another look.
Tara and I watched “Apex” on Netflix because it was already 9 p.m. and we wanted something short – that was pretty much the entire criterion. I went in knowing almost nothing, and for the first few minutes, I thought it was going to turn into something closer to “127 Hours,” where you’re watching one person get trapped in the wilderness and try to survive through sheer will. But then the movie shifts, and suddenly this is a tense, brutal, extremely watchable survival thriller with Charlize Theron fighting for her life in the Australian wilderness.
“Apex” was a big hit for Netflix when it dropped, so this isn’t some tiny movie nobody saw, but streaming moves so fast now that even a No. 1 movie can feel buried a month later. If it slipped past you, here’s why “Apex” is the best under-the-radar thriller movie on Netflix right now.
Best under-the-radar thriller movie on Netflix
Why ‘Apex’ is the most underrated thriller movie on Netflix
The funny thing about “Apex” is that it probably shouldn’t feel under the radar at all. It stars Charlize Theron, Taron Egerton, and Eric Bana. It came out as a big Netflix movie. It even hit No. 1 after its release. But that’s kind of the weird Netflix problem now. A movie can be watched by millions of people, sit at the top of the chart, and then vanish from the scroll almost immediately. Unless something turns into a full cultural event, it gets treated like one more thumbnail you meant to click on and forgot about.
That’s why “Apex” is worth circling back to. It’s not trying to reinvent the survival thriller, and honestly, that’s part of why I liked it. Charlize Theron plays Sasha, a rock climber who heads into the Australian wilderness looking for something that feels like escape. The movie starts with that quiet, rugged, grief-in-the-wild energy, but then she meets Ben, played by Taron Egerton, and the whole thing turns into a nasty cat-and-mouse game. The hook’s simple, which I love. One woman. One dangerous stranger. A giant wilderness full of cliffs, rivers, ravines, and nowhere easy to hide.
Theron is exactly who you want in this kind of movie. She makes physical survival feel dramatic without overselling it. Watching her climb, run, jump, paddle, think, panic, and keep moving through this gorgeous but brutal landscape is basically the whole point. She’s not playing Sasha like some invincible action robot. She’s tired, she’s scared, and she looks like someone whose body is taking a beating but whose brain keeps trying to solve the next problem. That’s what makes the movie work. The terrain matters, the gear matters, the distance matters, and every choice feels like it could go very badly very fast.
But Egerton was the surprise for me. He’s genuinely chilling here, and I didn’t know he had it in him. I knew him previously from the Apple TV series “Black Bird,” but it was Paul Walter Hauser’s incredible performance that stole that show. Here, Egerton doesn’t play Ben like a normal charming stranger who slowly reveals something creepy. He feels off almost immediately, but in that way where you can understand why someone in a desperate situation might not want to believe their gut right away.
Now, during the movie, I did have that little voice in my head asking, “Do we need another horrible violence-against-women thriller?” And yeah, there’s an argument on both sides. But I can’t pretend I wasn’t locked in the whole time. “Apex” is short, nasty, relentless, and way better than the disposable Netflix thriller label makes it sound.
Apex
A grieving woman pushing her limits on a solo adventure in the Australian wild is ensnared in a twisted game with a cunning killer who thinks she’s prey.
What is ‘Apex’ about?
“Apex” follows Sasha, a grieving rock climber who heads into the Australian wilderness for a solo adventure and quickly finds herself in something much more dangerous than she expected. After crossing paths with Ben, a stranger who seems helpful at first, Sasha realizes she’s been pulled into a deadly survival game where she’s not just lost in the wild; she’s being hunted…
Other underappreciated thriller movies on Netflix
If you’re into “Apex” and want more underappreciated thrillers on Netflix, there are a few other movies worth adding to your queue. “Inside Man” is still one of the sharpest heist thrillers of the 2000s, with Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, and Jodie Foster turning a bank robbery into a battle of control, ego, and secrets.
“The Stranger” is much slower and darker, following an undercover operation that gets more unsettling the longer it goes, with Joel Edgerton and Sean Harris making every quiet conversation feel like a threat. And “A House of Dynamite” is the kind of political thriller that runs on dread, pressure, and people trying to make impossible decisions when the stakes are already too high. Different kinds of thrillers, same basic deal: movies that are easy to miss in the endless Netflix scroll, but absolutely worth watching once you find them.
Netflix
Netflix is a leading subscription-based video streaming service that offers on-demand access to an extensive library of over 3,000 movies, 2,000+ TV shows, and a growing collection of acclaimed Netflix originals. Renowned for producing groundbreaking content, Netflix has become a cultural powerhouse with hit originals like “Stranger Things,” “Wednesday,” “Squid Game,” “The Crown,” “Tiger King,” “Bridgerton,” “The Witcher,” and “Black Mirror.”