Aaron Eckhart fans are currently gearing up for a turbulent flight, as The Dark Knight star’s next project opens in theaters on May 1. An action-packed survival thriller from Deep Blue Sea director Renny Harlin, Deep Water follows a flight from Los Angeles to Shanghai that, while coasting over the middle of the Pacific, enters a terrifying storm that sends everyone on board into the cold ocean below. Just when things couldn’t get worse, along come the sharks. Alongside Eckhart, the movie also stars the likes of Ben Kingsley(Iron Man 3), Angus Sampson (Insidious), Lucy Barrett (Charmed), Kelly Gale (Plane), Richard Crouchley (Evil Dead Rise), and more.
In anticipation of Eckhart’s latest release, fans have been flocking to one of his lesser-spotted recent projects. Thieves Highway, a 2025 neo-Western that made very little impact upon arrival, is perhaps one of the more underrated entries in Eckhart’s impressive catalog, thanks simply to it falling so far under most radars. Directed by Jesse V. Jackson, who also worked with Eckhart on the 2024 conspiracy thriller Chief of Station, Thieves Highway also featured performances from the likes of Devon Sawa, Brooke Langton, and Lochlyn Munroe.
At the time of writing, and seemingly against the odds, Thieves Highway has risen to the very top of the Hulu movie streaming charts in the U.S., outperforming the likes of Gaten Matarazzo‘s new comedy Pizza Movie, the original The Devil Wears Prada, and Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice. A synopsis for Thieves Highway reads:
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“Lawman Frank Bennett uncovers a massive smuggling operation after a deadly confrontation. Cut off from cell service and without his truck, he’s forced to take on a dangerous gang led by a deranged ex-military commander.”
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Collider Exclusive · Taylor Sheridan Universe Quiz Which Taylor Sheridan Show Do You Belong In? Yellowstone · Landman · Tulsa King · Mayor of Kingstown
Four worlds. All of them brutal, complicated, and built on power, loyalty, and the price of survival. Taylor Sheridan doesn’t write heroes — he writes people who do what they have to do and live with the cost. Ten questions will reveal which one of his worlds you were made for.
🤠Yellowstone
🛢️Landman
👑Tulsa King
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⚖️Mayor of Kingstown
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01
Where does your power come from? In Sheridan’s world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.
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02
Who do you put first, no matter what? Loyalty in Sheridan’s universe is always absolute — and always costly.
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03
Someone crosses a line. How do you respond? Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it’s crossed.
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04
Where do you feel most in your element? Sheridan’s worlds are as much about place as they are about people.
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05
How do you feel about operating in the grey? Nobody in a Sheridan show has clean hands. The question is how they carry the dirt.
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06
What are you actually fighting to hold onto? Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they’re defending.
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07
How do you lead? Authority in Sheridan’s world is never given — it’s established, maintained, and constantly tested.
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08
Someone new arrives and tries to change how things work. Your reaction? Every Sheridan show has an outsider disrupting an established order. Sometimes that outsider is you.
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09
What has your position cost you? Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.
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10
When it’s over, what do you want people to say? Sheridan’s characters all know the ending is coming. The question is what they leave behind.
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Sheridan Has Spoken You Belong In…
The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you’re complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.
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🤠 Yellowstone
🛢️ Landman
👑 Tulsa King
⚖️ Mayor of Kingstown
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You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world’s indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you’re willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family’s weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what’s yours, you don’t escalate — you finish it. You’re not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone’s world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn’t make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.
You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You’re a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they’ll do to get it. You’re not naive enough to think this world is fair. You’re smart enough to be the one deciding who it’s fair to.
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You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you’re not above reminding people that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they’d be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they’re more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don’t need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.
You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you’re the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky’s world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You’ve made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.
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What Did Critics Say About ‘Thieves Highway’?
So under-seen that it doesn’t even have a rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, those who did catch Thieves Highway in 2025 responded with mixed reviews. Whilst some praised the movie’s gripping lead performance, saying, “Eckhart anchors the film with a world-weary, classic sense of morality,” others were not so impressed with the project as a whole, saying, “Johnson and Mills do some fun maneuvering with their characters and Eckhart is a sturdy enough lead. But the storytelling takes too many shortcuts and the overall lack of suspense keeps us one step ahead.”
Thieves Highway is streaming on Hulu. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates, and check out Eckhart’s next movie, Deep Water, in theaters on May 1.
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