You can’t miss this forgotten Michael Douglas and Brittany Murphy thriller taking over Netflix charts
More than two decades after its original release, Brittany Murphy and Michael Douglas’ psychological thriller ‘Don’t Say a Word’ is suddenly back in the spotlight. And streaming audiences can’t seem to get enough. The 2001 film, directed by Gary Fleder, has surged to the #6 spot on Netflix’s Top 10 movies list in the US. It proves that even older thrillers can find new life on modern streaming platforms. Originally released just weeks after the 9/11 attacks, ‘Don’t Say a Word’ tells a tense and twist-filled story set in Manhattan, as per BGR.
The film follows Dr. Nathan Conrad (played by Douglas), a psychiatrist and devoted father who is drawn into a chilling mystery when a group of ruthless kidnappers targets his family. Their demand? To extract a secret from Elisabeth Burrows (played by Murphy), a young psychiatric patient harboring a piece of information they’re willing to kill for. The thriller’s renewed success highlights a recurring trend on Netflix: older, overlooked films are routinely outperforming newer releases. Despite the streaming giant’s massive investment in original content, long-forgotten titles often resurface and climb the platform’s rankings after being rediscovered by new audiences.
‘Don’t Say a Word,’ which only recently landed on Netflix, is the latest example of this phenomenon. When it first hit theaters, the film received a lukewarm response from critics. Based on Andrew Klavan’s 1991 novel of the same name, ‘Don’t Say a Word’ holds a 23% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, drawn from more than 100 reviews. Audiences were slightly more forgiving, giving it a 49% audience rating out of over 50,000 votes. The site’s consensus sums it up bluntly: “‘Don't Say A Word’ is slick and competently made, but the movie is routine and stretches believability with many eye-rolling moments.”
However, time seems to be working in the film’s favor. Modern viewers have found new appreciation for its suspenseful pacing. For fans of classic thrillers, ‘Don’t Say a Word’ offers everything that defined early-2000s suspense cinema: a brooding New York setting, morally gray characters, and a race-against-time story filled with deception and psychological mind games. The renewed popularity of ‘Don’t Say a Word’ also speaks to the power of Netflix’s algorithm in resurfacing forgotten gems.
In recent years, several older thrillers, action flicks, and crime dramas have dominated the platform’s Top 10 list, often outperforming new Netflix originals. While ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ currently holds the #3 position, ‘Don’t Say a Word’ is only a few spots behind, holding strong among much newer titles. As streaming audiences continue to explore decades-old hits, ‘Don’t Say a Word’ serves as a reminder that cinematic rediscovery can happen anytime. Nearly 25 years later, what was once dismissed as a middling thriller is now finding a fresh audience.
