Forgotten Gerard Butler Action-Thriller is Dominating Netflix’s Top 10

As Netflix users tend to let happen, a surprising movie has made its way into the streamer’s Top 10, a picture that some may have never seen the first time around and many might have forgotten was even released. This time we refer to the 2009 action-thriller Law Abiding Citizen, a Gerard Butler vehicle that also featured Jamie Foxx, Viola Davis, Leslie Bibb, Colm Meaney, and Regina Hall. Directed by F. Gary Gray (his previous film to 2015’s Straight Outta Compton) the film follows Butler’s character Clyde Shelton a man who is forced to watch his family be brutally murdered at the hands of two criminals that manage to get a reduced sentence. Years later Shelton’s master plan for revenge is carried out implicating Foxx’s DA character Nick Rice and much of the rest of this ensemble cast. 

If you haven’t heard of Law Abiding Citizen or simply forgot about it in the 11 years since its release, no one would blame you. The film debuted to negative reviews upon its release, sitting at just 26% on Rotten Tomatoes (even with some reviews as recent as January of this year) and with a critical consensus that reads in part: “Unnecessarily violent and unflinchingly absurd.” Law Abiding Citizen did open to $21 million in its first weekend of release, going on to make $126.6 million worldwide, which is to say, better than other Butler films like Gamer and RocknRolla but not quite to the level of Olympus Has Fallen or its sequels.

So what boosted Law Abiding Citizen into Netflix’s Top 10? It’s really unclear. The film was added to Netflix on December 1st along with a host of other movies and has been sitting there ever since. Starting on Tuesday, December 7th the film leaped up into the Top 10 though, landing at the #6 slot, on Wednesday, December 8th it jumped up to #4, and on Thursday, December 9th it was the #1 movie on Netflix in the United States. As of today it has fallen to #2, so its domination of on Netflix will no doubt continue.

Check out the rest of Netflix’s Top 10 below.

#1 Peter Rabbit 2

#2 Law Abiding Citizen

#3 Red Notice

#4 The Power of the Dog

#5 Single All The Way

#6 A Boy Called Christmas

#7 Stepmom

#8 LIFE

#9 The Cat in the Hat

#10 Think Like a Man