Caught Stealing
Directed by Darren AronofskyWhen his neighbor asks him to take care of his cat, a former baseball prodigy now working as a bartender finds himself in the middle of gangsters without knowing why. He must use all his cunning to survive and understand what is happening.
Caught Stealing Ratings & Reviews
- Jeremiah1d agoPretty tight script, with set up and payoffs aplenty, even with small things. Characters do logical things and have personal stakes, motivations, and arcs. Fun and interesting and overall a good time. Sure you can nitpick but if you have just a bit of suspension of disbelief you will be more rewarded. Weakest part of the movie is when the Russ the Punk explains the “why, how and all the backstory” part of the plot. Pretty essential for the audience to know. It’s just one big dump of exposition in a heavy british accent that could easily be misheard or heaven forbid you hit the bathroom then and then miss the critical plot info to the entire movie. Cool to see director DA do something very out of his wheelhouse too, something much more mainstream and do a good job with it all. Its nothing amazing but its solid as all get out and good watch for 2 hours of entertainment.
- UatuTheWatcherMarch 21, 2026Caught Stealing is definitely a departure for Darren Aronofsky but in the least exciting ways. It's full of familiar tropes and story beats we've seen before but Aronofsky just doesn't do much of anything to differentiate it or raise the script above feeling so generic. It's entertaining here and there but overall there wasn't much of a personality on display. Because I kept waiting for the film to come into its own and give me a hint as to why Aronofsky was drawn to this story and it honestly just never came. Every new character feels increasingly more one-noted and the whole plot that the Austin Butler character gets dragged into is disappointingly straight forward. Austin Butler is great and I liked the fact that the movie never lost sight of this being a truly normal character totally out of his depth and they never took a convoluted jump with his skill set which I appreciated. He has a self destructive nature that I never really felt came to ahead and where they leave him off didn't really feel that set up to be a satisfying conclusion Honestly it felt like it was trying to set up a sequel that I doubt is ever going to happen. It's a really stacked cast over all but the colourful characters the trailers teased never really come about on screen and ended up feeling like a massive waste of some amazing talent. Zoe Kravitz has great chemistry with Butler but her character just fizzles out of the narrative after a while and she just ends up feeling like the standard girlfriend archetype. Matt Smith doesn't get much to do after an intriguing set up and Regina King is let down by the writing of a character who feels like she belongs in a different movie. Liev Schreiber and Vincent D'Onofrio end up feeling like the only ones who get real characters to play and the script actually capitalises on their potential. The energy of the whole film just shoots up every time they're on screen and a development surrounding those two characters raised the third act up quite a bit higher for me. While not perfect the first half is where the movie most captivated me. It really does effectively put you in this period and it's where the chemistry between Butler and Kravitz is on full display and the film is all the better for it. It's got a lot of that signature Aronofsky griminess and the violence is a lot more effective than I expected it to be. But as soon as it's revealed what all these characters are fighting over it just never truly regained my interest. The pacing slows down as the few characters I like have their appearances cut down and there's very few surprises. It's well directed but the visuals are surprisingly flat and the pacing just lagged on more and more as the runtime went on. Caught Stealing isn't a bad movie but it's middling in the most disappointing ways and sometimes that's so much worse. I kept waiting for the movie to do anything to set its self apart and not only did it never come but the more it went on the more surprised I was to see this many people of this calibre attached to something so without its own identity. I don't mind familiar beats but this film doesn't do anything interesting with them and nothing about the craft on display improves the final product. A departure for Aronofsky without a doubt but not a satisfying one.
- Tyler SSeptember 30, 2025This movie movie checks a lot of boxes for me i.e. taking place in the 90's, an everyday normal guy protagonist thrust into a crazy situation, insane over the top villains, a British punk who swears constantly, an awesome cat (I'm a cat guy) and a slew of twists I didn't see coming. By far Aronofsky's most audience friendly movie with a taste of some of the fucked up sensibilities of his past work. Austin Butler is a certified leading man now, he is in nearly the entire runtime and keeps us invested from start to finish. The supporting cast is top notch too with fun small roles from Griffin Dunne and Action Bronson. If you've seen the trailers then you know of some of the other actors that are scary and hilarious in equal measure that I don't want to spoil here. To cap it all off Aronofsky's regular DP Matthew Libatique gives the movie a pulse and vibe that makes this a must see big screen experience to end the summer season with a bang. Highly Recommended! 👍👍 8.5/10
- arnoldo20021612October 4, 2025Probably the most enjoyable and possibly mainstream Darren Aronofsky movie to date, but not the best in a technical sense. Different genre to his usual, but it worked really well in the most part. Excellent lead and supporting cast specially lipa and shmully and russ. Also nice to see a little humour in the movie. Recommended. Also loved the end credits. Rare that I watch the entire credits, but these were a little mesmerising.
- Joe GDecember 2, 2025Darren Aronofsky is my favorite director. No one else comes close, and I will defend every film he makes on artistic merit—except this one. This feels like a project funded by someone who wanted a Guy Ritchie film but couldn’t get him, so they threw money at Aronofsky, assembled a cast eager to work with him, and everyone simply took the paycheck. Nothing in the film is redeemable, and there is nothing worth highlighting. Even the constant baseball references, which should at least offer thematic coherence, are so trite they become distracting. If anyone else had directed this, it would never have been on the watchlist. And if anyone else had directed it, it would have been turned off immediately. But it wasn’t. And while there’s no regret in seeing it through, it’s impossible to recommend this to anyone who has ever appreciated Aronofsky’s work. Absolutely awful.
Caught Stealing Trivia
Caught Stealing was released on August 27, 2025.
Caught Stealing was directed by Darren Aronofsky.
Caught Stealing has a runtime of 1h 46m.
Caught Stealing was produced by Darren Aronofsky, Ari Handel, Jeremy Dawson, Dylan Golden.
When his neighbor asks him to take care of his cat, a former baseball prodigy now working as a bartender finds himself in the middle of gangsters without knowing why. He must use all his cunning to survive and understand what is happening.
The key characters in Caught Stealing are Hank Thompson (Austin Butler), Detective Roman (Regina King), Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz).
Caught Stealing is rated R.
Caught Stealing is a Crime, Thriller, Comedy film.
Caught Stealing has an audience rating of 8.3 out of 10.
Caught Stealing had a budget of $40M.
Caught Stealing has made $32.7M at the box office.