Ever since it came out, Back in Action has topped the Netflix Top 10 Movies ranking as the most-watched film on the streaming service... but that run could be broken by a 20-year-old thriller.
Back in Action stars Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz as spies-turned-parents who have to return to their old life of danger, and bring their kids too, for one more mission. It has just 27% on Rotten Tomatoes but it's topped Netflix's movie chart, both globally and in many individual regions, for three weeks at the time of writing.
However second place isn't taken up by another Netflix original, like late-2024 hit Carry-On or recent addition Bogota: City of the Lost, but a surprising 2006 pick that most people likely don't remember.
This film is called The Sentinel, and it's the second-most watched movie on Netflix's charts. It has fewer than half the views of Back in Action but it's only been on Netflix for a week and is already jumping past all the other competitors, so could it supplant Back in Action too?
The Sentinel is about an assassination attempt on the President of the US. We follow Pete Garrison (Michael Douglas), the bodyguard to the first lady who becomes framed in the plot, as he tries to get to the bottom of the case. He's up against his former best friend David Breckinridge (Kiefer Sutherland) who leads the Secret Service's Intelligence Division, who tries to pursue Garrison for his job but also for personal reasons.
Also in the cast are Eva Longoria who plays Breckinridge's new rookie, Kim Basinger who plays the First Lady, David Rasche as the president and Martin Donovan as the president's personal Secret Service agent.
The fact that The Sentinel is giving Back in Action a run for its money would be seen as surprising, given that it barely made back its budget and only has 34% on Rotten Tomatoes, but apparently this latter stat helps propel movies into Top 10 spots!
Critics felt it a little too dry and conventional, with many plot holes in its story, and it's definitely one of those stories that'd be solved by characters simply communicating with each other. It's also a shame to see Kiefer Sutherland used so little, given that The Sentinel came out in the middle of his 24 fame.
What's weirder about this top-10 placement is that, even though The Sentinel was only just added to Netflix's staggeringly easy to watch online whether or not you subscribe to Netflix. In the US it's on Prime Video while in the UK it's on Prime Video, Disney Plus and the free streaming service Plex.
Perhaps propelling The Sentinel onto the top-10 list is that it was released onto Netflix on many different regions around the world. That's quite rare for non-Originals on the streamer, where the library varies dramatically between regions for older shows and films.
Plus, it sometimes takes old films being added to Netflix and billed as new arrivals to remind viewers about their existence, which I imagine is the real reason The Sentinel is suddenly trending.
The last Netflix Top 10 Weekly ranking was pulled on Tuesday, February 4 and so we'll have to wait until Tuesday, February 11 to see if The Sentinel can dethrone Back in Action, or if we'll have to wait for one of its Valentine's Day picks later in the month for that to happen.
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