The Order (2024)

Movie · 2024 · Crime, Drama, Thriller · 1h 56m · R · English

Curator score: 5.1/10 (209.6K ratings)

Based on the chilling true story.

Overview

A string of violent robberies in the Pacific Northwest leads veteran FBI agent Terry Husk into a white supremacist plot to overthrow the federal government.

Ratings

Director

Justin Kurzel

Production

Riff Raff Entertainment, Chasing Epic Pictures, AGC Studios, Arcana Studio

Cast

Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Jurnee Smollett, Alison Oliver, Odessa Young, Sebastian Pigott, George Tchortov, Victor Slezak, Phillip Forest Lewitski, Matias Lucas, Bradley Stryker, Morgan Holmstrom, Marc Maron, Daniel Yip, Daniel Doheny, John Warkentin, Vanessa Holmes, Bryan J. McHale, Rae Farrer

Where to watch

Hulu

Curator Review

Verdict

A tense, muscular crime thriller that uses a real domestic-terror backdrop to deliver both procedural momentum and a bleak political edge. It’s strongest when it leans into the cat-and-mouse investigation and the eerie banality of extremist brotherhood, though it can feel more effective as atmosphere and warning than as deep social diagnosis.

Best for

  • viewers who like gritty FBI-versus-criminal-network thrillers
  • fans of 1970s-style procedural tension and hard-boiled pacing
  • audiences interested in white supremacist extremism and American political rot
  • people who enjoy austere, muscular filmmaking with strong performances

Skip if

  • you want a lighter or more hopeful crime movie
  • you’re looking for a deeply nuanced sociological portrait over genre propulsion
  • you dislike violence, hate-group subject matter, or bleak endings
  • you prefer fast, glossy, or twist-heavy thrillers

Overview

The Order plays like a throwback in the best and worst ways: a lean, grim procedural with the texture of a 1970s manhunt movie, but updated for a specifically American nightmare. Justin Kurzel stages the investigation with patience and menace, letting the landscape, the score, and the men’s hard faces do a lot of the work. The result is less a conventional cop thriller than a slow-burn portrait of organized hate as a social force.

Worth noting

What gives the film bite is its refusal to make extremism feel abstract. The robberies, the recruitment, the coded language, and the false promise of brotherhood all feel disturbingly ordinary, which is exactly the point. The movie is at its best when it shows how violence grows out of community, grievance, and permission, not just ideology.

Bottom line

It doesn’t fully transcend the familiar beats of the genre, and some viewers may want a sharper or more expansive political argument. But as a piece of mood, craft, and performance-driven tension, it’s effective and often unsettling. If you like your thrillers hard-edged, morally sour, and rooted in real-world menace, this is worth your time.

Top Letterboxd reviews

Inshallah (4★) · 2933 likes

Shaking my head every time something racist happens so the theater knows I don’t agree

Justin LaLiberty (4★) · 2349 likes

love it when foreigners make films about the worst aspects of america and don’t sugar coat it — nobody is good in this, not even the “good guys” and, when the coda rolls at the end, it’s evident that nothing has changed in four decades; a potently rendered self fulfilling prophecy of hate, about and for those that keep allowing true evil to shape our country

Amanda the Jedi · 1659 likes

I don’t think a good guy landed a single shot in this movie holy shit

Kit Lazer (4.5★) · 1523 likes

Was not expecting a New Hollywood-style beatdown about the malignant tumor that is white supremacy. I could easily imagine this was made in 1974 and starred Steve McQueen or something. The score was incredible, was than an organ? Nicholas Hoult is having one hell of a year.

Joe A (4★) · 1430 likes

The poison of white supremacy invading the mountains and rivers, existing in the bedrock of American society— funny how movies like this are usually at their best when they are made by a bunch of non-Americans.

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Topics

crime thriller, FBI, domestic terrorism, white supremacy, procedural, 1970s style, bleak tone, political violence, neo-noir, manhunt

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