Forget 'Se7en,' Jake Gyllenhaal's Apple TV Thriller 'Prisoners' Is Even Better

Published Nov 7, 2026, 12:08 AM EST Erik Hawkins is an award-winning writer and editor who's been obsessed with cinema since he was old enough to hold Roger Ebert's Video Home Companion in his hands. He lives in NYC, where he rabidly watches everything from the newest releases to the more odd and obscure, and regularly shares his thoughts on Letterboxd. From ghost-writing fiction and webisodes in South America to local news, trial coverage, and politics in NYC, he's rarely put down his laptop over the past 15 years. A 150-minute-plus, dark-as-night kidnapping thriller isn't an instant recipe for box office success, yet Denis Villeneuve's 2013 film Prisoners handily made almost three times its budget back, while also landing on numerous year-end Top 10 lists. And the sprawling, dour crime film is still proving to have legs, as it's currently rocketing up the charts on Apple TV. While Prisoners doesn't have any actual supernatural elements, Villeneuve and master cinematographer Roger Deakins (Blade Runner 2049, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) conjure such an enveloping atmosphere of menace that when villainous characters who may actually be related to a Satanic cult are introduced, it doesn't come as much of a shock at all. The film is long, unpleasantly themed, and generally hopeless. It's also a modern masterpiece, and currently receiving its due ahead of Villeneuve's eagerly anticipated Dune Part Three. What Is 'Prisoners' About? Image via Warner Bros. The story of Prisoners actually dates back to 2009, when Aaron Guzikowski penned a script based on his own short story, making that year's Black List. It was shopped around to stars and directors, reportedly including Leonardo DiCaprio and Antoine Fuqua, before landing in the capable hands of Denis Villeneuve. Fresh off the critically acclaimed (and extremely dark) dramatic thrillers Polytechnique and Incendies, Villeneuve proved the perfect match for the story of suburban Connecticut dad Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman), whose young daughter, along with his neighbor's child, vanishes into thin air on a chilly Thanksgiving. While Jake Gyllenhaal's Detective Loki works the case, Dover takes matters into his own hands. Prisoners takes on an even darker tone once Dover becomes convinced that a young man with an intellectual disability, played masterfully by Paul Dano, is the culprit and takes matters into his own hands. Torture, amateur investigation, false leads, and an apparent occult kidnapping conspiracy dating back decades take over the final half, as the film keeps viewers' hearts pounding for over two and a half hours. What Makes 'Prisoners' So Special? The story of Prisoners is fairly standard kidnapping thriller material (until it takes some dark and, arguably, unnecessary turns toward the occult and conspiratorial), but it's elevated by the sheer mood and craft that Villeneuve and Deakins bring to its world. The opening disappearance sequence is a perfect model of grey, chilly suburban banality that's nevertheless suffused with menace. Deakins lights abandoned buildings, streetlights, and parking lots like they're nestled somewhere within one of Dante's seven layers of hell. Lighting aside, Deakins' still, observational frames at time evoke another all-timer of a thriller featuring Gyllenhaal, Zodiac. And frankly, despite its rather conventional story beats, Prisoners is rivaled by precious few American thrillers of the past several decades, including Zodiac, The Silence of the Lambs, and Se7en, a film from which it apparently borrows much of its hopeless, Satanic atmosphere. Jackman's role has been turned into a meme by many at this point, but his anguished father is actually astonishingly visceral work. In the film's famous torture sequence, in which Dover tries in vain to get information out of Dano's intellectually disabled suspect, Jackman reportedly improvised a few brutal swings of his hammer — with one landing so close to Dano's head it legitimately terrified the actor and caused him to cower to the floor. Standing proudly alongside Se7en and The Silence of the Lambs as a potboiler elevated to high art through the magic of cinematic craftsmanship, Prisoners remains a compelling rewatch today. It's no wonder audiences are flocking to it on Apple TV. Release Date September 20, 2013 Runtime 153 minutes Director Denis Villeneuve