An Underrated 123-Minute Guy Ritchie War Drama Is About to Exit Netflix

A war thriller can miss the mark theatrically and still win later, and this 123-minute Guy Ritchie war thriller is the perfect example. It landed with a thud at the box office, but streaming turned it into a word-of-mouth favorite, especially back in December 2025, to the point that people were recommending it as one of the strongest modern war thrillers. That’s why it matters right now: if it’s been sitting in your queue, it’s about to become one of those titles you always meant to watch and suddenly can’t.

The movie’s hook is simple and brutal. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Sgt. John Kinley, whose unit is ambushed in Afghanistan, and his interpreter, Ahmed (Dar Salim), drags him roughly 100 miles across hostile terrain to get him out alive, where most war films would roll credits. Instead, the story restarts: once Kinley makes it home, he learns Ahmed and his family are being hunted by the Taliban for helping him, so he chooses to go back and repay the debt the hard way. Release-wise, it also had an unusual path: in many countries, it effectively leaned into streaming early, while the U.S. gave it a wide theatrical run that had the bad luck of colliding with Evil Dead Rise and The Super Mario Bros. Movie — and it ended up at about $21.9 million worldwide against a reported $55 million budget.

The title being discussed is The Covenant, and it is now scheduled to leave Netflix (U.S.) on March 5, 2026, only a few months after it arrived. So consider this a short, real deadline if you want to catch it there. And the “why should I care?” case is unusually strong: the film is sitting at roughly 82% critics / 98% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, and it’s been framed as Ritchie’s highest-rated film on that platform, a tight, well-acted war thriller with more heart than people expect, not just action.

Guy Ritchie's New Action Thriller With Jake Gyllenhaal Is Set to Hit Theaters in 2026

Ritchie’s next film, In the Grey, is another Gyllenhaal-led project, and it is shaping up to be yet another intense extraction thriller. The story centers on two extraction specialists, played by Gyllenhaal and Henry Cavill, who are tasked with aiding in the escape attempt of a female hostage negotiator. The film was originally scheduled to hit theaters a year prior, in January 2025, but production delays pushed it back. It is now set to arrive in theaters on April 10, 2026.

Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant is available to stream on Netflix until March 4, 2026. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.

Release Date April 21, 2023

Runtime 123 Minutes