Animals Review

Here's an odd split. Animals, the new kidnapping thriller from Ben Affleck, shot to the top of Netflix's global movie chart soon after it dropped. At the same time, critics have been lining up to knock it down. Both things are true at once, and the gap between them says a lot about what people actually want when they flop onto the couch on a Friday night and scroll for something that looks exciting.

The film reached Netflix on October 9, 2026, following a brief release in a handful of theaters. It runs 106 minutes. Rated R. Affleck directs, co-writes and leads, and the supporting names are strong enough to sell it on their own.

The scorecard so far

Start with the numbers. They're blunt. Forbes reported that roughly a day after release, Animals sat at 36% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 47 reviews.

For most directors that would be a disappointment. For Affleck it's a real outlier. His track record behind the camera has been close to spotless, and the scores prove it, because on the same site Gone Baby Gone holds 94%, The Town 92%, Argo 96% and Air 93%. The one weak spot until now was Live by Night, his 2016 gangster picture, at 34%. If the early score for Animals doesn't move much, it'll finish right down there with it.

Viewers aren't rescuing it either. Screen Rant has reported that the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is also low. So this isn't just a case of snobby reviewers missing what regular people enjoy.

A ransom, a campaign and not enough cash

Affleck plays a man running for mayor of Los Angeles in a close race. His son, played by Christopher Woodley, is taken. The kidnappers want money. Fast.

The twist in the setup is that the family is broke on paper. Most of their savings went into the campaign, which leaves the candidate and his wife, played by Kerry Washington, with only a few hours to scrape together the ransom before the deadline runs out. Getting there means making drastic choices, and each one drags out something from their private lives they'd much rather keep buried.

Netflix's official description reads: "When their son is kidnapped, a Los Angeles mayoral candidate and his wife find themselves drawn into a web of deception."

So it's really two films stacked together. One is a ticking-clock thriller about getting a child back. The other is a political story about how much a public man will hide, and how much he'll gamble, to keep his image clean.

What went wrong, according to reviewers

The harshest notes are about energy, or the lack of it. Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times called Animals "an extraordinarily flat political thriller." Nick Schager at The Daily Beast was even sharper, describing "an unoriginal and suspense-free tale of the haves and the have-nots."

Jake Coyle of the Associated Press was kinder about Affleck himself, calling him a thoughtful filmmaker. He still felt the movie comes across as "narratively underpowered and melodramatically forced."

The recurring word in these takes is flat. For a kidnapping story, where tension is the whole job, that hurts. Several critics also called it predictable.

Is anyone defending it?

A few voices are. The Financial Times described the plot as "a cluster bomb of secrets and hidden agendas," which at least sounds like a fun ride. David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter suggested it could play nicely as a Netflix pick, the sort of thriller you can enjoy without picking it apart.

And nearly everyone agrees the cast is the bright spot. Rooney called them "highly watchable actors." Danny Leigh at the Financial Times gave special credit to the supporting players, Gillian Anderson among them.

The cast carrying the load

Kerry Washington is on familiar ground here. She spent seven seasons playing a Washington fixer on Scandal, so a story about political secrets suits her. The fun twist is that this time she isn't the fixer. That job goes to Gillian Anderson, cast as a powerful political operator.

Steven Yeun plays the campaign manager. He's been on a hot streak since Minari and Beef, and for a lot of younger viewers who discovered him through those projects, his name alone will be enough of a reason to click on the poster. Luis Gerardo Méndez, Adriana Paz and Ray Fisher fill out the rest of the supporting roles.

Affleck's own casting makes sense too. A polished but complicated public figure is close to the image many people already have of him.

Behind the camera

This is a project from Artists Equity, the company Affleck runs with Matt Damon. Affleck wrote the script alongside Connor O. McIntyre and Billy Ray, who wrote Captain Phillips. Robert Elswit, the cinematographer on There Will Be Blood, shot it. Harry Gregson-Williams composed the music.

The road to filming had a detour. When the project was announced in January 2024, Damon was attached to co-star. He stepped away in February 2025 to focus on Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, and Affleck took over the lead. Cameras started rolling in Los Angeles the following month, in March 2025.

The Gone Baby Gone shadow

It's hard not to hold this one up against Affleck's debut. Gone Baby Gone was also about a missing child, and it also lived in a world where powerful people were hiding things. Critics loved that film for its slow tension and its hard moral calls.

Most reviewers feel Animals never gets close to that grip. The parallels just make the gap more obvious. When you echo your own best work, people notice what's missing.

That's also why the low score feels bigger than it is. A 36% from a first-time director might slip by unnoticed. From the man who made Argo, a Best Picture winner, and the much-loved The Town, it reads like a stumble. Fans of those films will likely come in with high hopes, and that sets the bar in a place this movie can't reach.

Why it's topping the chart anyway

MovieWeb reported that Animals hit No. 1 on Netflix worldwide shortly after release. That kind of disconnect happens on the platform all the time. Thrillers with famous faces tend to do well whatever critics say. A clear hook and a runtime well under two hours make it a low-risk click when you're scrolling after dinner.

In other words, the chart reflects curiosity, not quality. People see the names and the premise and give it a shot. I would guess a good chunk of those viewers never read a single review before hitting play, and that's fine. Sometimes you just want a familiar face and a simple setup.

Our take

I'll be honest, the drop-off surprises me. This is a director with some of the best crime films of the last two decades, working with a cast that's stacked from top to bottom. Still, a great roster doesn't guarantee a great result.

If you like Washington, Anderson or Yeun, it's an easy enough watch, and even the negative reviews credit the actors with real effort. Just don't press play expecting The Town. Go in thinking of it as a glossy, star-heavy streaming thriller and you'll probably be fine. Maybe even entertained. And if it leaves you cold, Affleck's earlier films are a much safer bet for the same itch.