Sally Field‘s 1996 psychological thriller has become a global Netflix hit nearly three decades after its release. Field is a highly decorated actress whose career has spanned over six decades, starting during the 1960s with the sitcoms Gidget and The Flying Nun before transitioning to acclaimed dramatic roles. Field won her first Academy Award for Best Actress in 1980 for Norma Rae, her second for Places in the Heart in 1985, and earned an additional nomination for Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln in 2013.

Though she’s best known for starring in acclaimed dramas, Field has shown some versatility and also ventured into darker territory with roles in thrillers. This includes suspenseful projects such as Sydney Pollack’s Absence of Malice in 1981, in which she played a journalist entangled in an ethical dilemma. At the height of the genre’s popularity in 1996, Field starred in the psychological thriller, Eye for an Eye, delivering a gripping performance as a grieving mother seeking justice after her daughter’s murder, though the movie itself saw mixed results.

Eye For An Eye Becomes A Global Netflix Hit

It Ranks 8th For This Week

Eye for an Eye has become a global Netflix hit nearly three decades after its release. Directed by John Schlesinger, with a script written by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (Planet of the Apes, Avatar) adapted from Erika Holzer’s novel, the 1996 psychological thriller stars Sally Field as a woman seeking her own form of justice after the courts fail to imprison the man who raped and murdered her daughter. The cast also includes Kiefer Sutherland, Ed Harris, Beverly D’Angelo, Joe Mantegna, and Cynthia Rothrock.

Now, nearly three decades after its release, Sally Field’s 1996 psychological thriller has become a global Netflix hit. Eye for an Eye ranks eighth on Netflix’s Global Top 10 movies for this week with 4.4 million views and 7.4 million hours viewed, ranking below Carry-On, Ma, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, and above The Six Triple Eight. The film finished in the Top 10 in 20 countries, mostly in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Our Take On Eye For An Eye’s Netflix Success

It’s One Of Sally Field’s Worst Films

With an abysmal 8% score on Rotten Tomatoes, Eye for an Eye is easily one of the worst films of Sally Field’s otherwise accomplished career. However, it’s difficult to find much fault with her gripping performance. At the time of its release, director John Schlesinger, who won an Academy Award for Midnight Cowboy and earned additional nominations for Darling and Sunday Bloody Sunday, was blamed for the film’s failures, with critics calling it the cruelest and most hollow work of his diverse career.

At the time of its release, Roger Ebert was one of Eye for an Eye‘s harshest critics. In his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, he rated the film one out of four stars, describing it as “a particularly nasty little example of audience manipulation.” He goes on to criticize it for being “intellectually corrupt because it deliberately avoids dealing with the issues it raises.”

Ebert also drew a comparison to the successful 1995 crime drama ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Man Walking, which Susan Sandron won an Oscar for. He states that “ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Man Walking challenges us to deal with a wide range of ethical and moral issues. Eye for an Eye cynically blinkers us, excluding morality as much as it can, to service an exploitation plot.” The New York Times‘ Janet Maslin was also one of Eye for an Eye‘s harshest critics.

Maslin argued, “Never in his varied career has Mr. Schlesinger made a film as mean-spirited and empty as this.” She also believes that “the sole purpose of Eye for an Eye is to excite blood lust from the audience.” It wasn’t just these two critics that took issue with Eye for an Eye. With an incredibly low 8% Rotten Tomatoes score, the overwhelming majority of critics consider Eye for an Eye an excessively dramatic, poorly crafted, and deeply unappealing film that shamelessly capitalizes on every parent’s worst fear, resulting in an offensively manipulative movie.

What Eye For An Eye’s Netflix Success Means For The Movie

Audiences Are Finding Something To Enjoy 29 Years Later

When Eye for an Eye was released in 1996, it had a modest performance at the box office, similar to its standing as eighth on Netflix’s Global Top 10 movies. The film debuted at No. 3 at the box office during its opening weekend, earning approximately $7.8 million, and went on to make $26.9 million domestically during its theatrical run against its $20 million budget. While not a major hit by any means, it performed reasonably well for a mid-budget crime thriller.

Eye for an Eye‘s success on Netflix means that, 29 years later, audiences are finding something to enjoy about the film. Evidenced by its 55% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, which is still considered Rotten, audiences do have a more favorable view of the film compared to critics. Its success on Netflix is mostly limited to Latin America and the Caribbean, where the film likely wasn’t released in theaters in 1996.

Perhaps Eye for an Eye is resonating with these viewers in ways it didn’t with domestic audiences in 1996. Nevertheless, crime and revenge thrillers do remain wildly popular, or perhaps the presence of Sally Field is enough to intrigue audiences. Whatever the reason, it seems audiences are rediscovering, and perhaps reinterpreting this divisive film.

Source: Netflix