Poster © Vertical. Shown at reduced size for review and commentary.
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GenreAction, Adventure & Crime
RatedR
Runtime1 hr 53 mins
ReleasedSeptember 18, 2026
StreamingIn theaters now
DirectorPadraic McKinley
StarringEthan Hawke, Russell Crowe, Julia Jones
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The Weight (2026)
| ▶Stream It | ★The Numbers |
| 🎫Get Tickets | ✎Edit History |
| iIMDb Profile | %Rotten Tomatoes |
| WWikipedia | LLetterboxd |
| TTMDB | +Add to Top 8 |
| The Weight's Details | |
| Genre | Action, Adventure & Crime |
| Rated | R |
| Released | 01/26/2026 (Sundance); 09/18/2026 (United States); 11/19/2026 (Germany) |
| Streaming | In theaters now. |
| Running Time | 1 hr 53 mins |
| Budget | Not reported |
| Box Office | Updated daily from Box Office Mojo. See the numbers below. |
| Country | Germany, United States |
| Language | English |
| The Weight's Interests | |
| General | Gold bricks, Depression-era Oregon, convict road crews, deep woods, a little girl's teddy bear. |
| Music | Shelby Gaines and Latham Gaines |
| Movies | The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). Gold makes everybody a little worse. |
| Television | 1883. Another long walk where the land wants you gone. |
| Heroes | Penny Murphy. The whole reason her dad signs up for any of this. |
| The Weight's Crew | |
| Director | Padraic McKinley |
| Writers | Matthew Booi, Shelby Gaines, Matthew Book (story), Leo Scherman (story), Matthew Chapman (story) |
| Producers | Simon Fields, Nathan Fields, Ryan Hawke, Jonas Katzenstein, Maximilian Leo |
| Cinematography | Matteo Cocco |
| Music | Shelby Gaines, Latham Gaines |
| Edited By | Padraic McKinley, Matthew Woolley |
| Production | Fields Entertainment, Under The Influence, Augenschein Filmproduktion |
| Distributed By | Vertical (United States), Capelight Pictures (Germany) |
You can spot the double cross in The Weight from the first campfire, because the armed guards escorting four convicts and a pile of gold bricks have the shifty eyes of men who already know how the trip ends. The story is old-fashioned to a fault. It’s also gripping. Ethan Hawke plays Samuel Murphy, a World War I veteran and widower in Depression-era Oregon who lands in a convict labor camp while his daughter Penny is sent to a children’s home. Russell Crowe’s warden offers a way out: lug a mining boss’s fortune on foot across the wilderness. Hawke is magnetic, a worn-out man who keeps solving problems because quitting isn’t an option. The best sequence has him standing in the middle of a rope bridge, catching gold bricks and tossing them across one by one. Padraic McKinley keeps it lean and tough. Critics gave it 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. A 7.1 because Hawke makes every step feel heavy. $3,668 says the next time you carry all the groceries in one trip, you call it a six-day journey.
What works: Ethan Hawke is magnetic as a desperate father, and the rope bridge sequence is a genuinely nervy piece of filmmaking.
What doesn’t: The double cross is easy to see coming from the first night on the trail, and the guards are thin, one-note villains.
Who it’s for: Fans of tough, old-school survival adventures and anyone happy to watch Ethan Hawke carry a movie on his back.
Spoilers
The trek was a robbery all along: the mining boss Taggert is stealing the gold, the warden was in on it for a cut, and the convicts were never meant to walk away. Murphy and the survivors turn the tables, force Clancy into an even split that includes a share for Olson’s family, and Murphy drives home to Penny with her teddy bear.
Oregon, 1933. Samuel Murphy (Ethan Hawke), a World War I veteran raising his daughter Penny (Avy Berry) alone, is getting flattened by the Great Depression. He is evicted, then jailed after plainclothes police goad him into a fight, and Penny lands in a children's home. At a convict labor camp, Warden Clancy (Russell Crowe) offers Murphy early release in exchange for one dangerous job. He and three other inmates must haul a mining boss's gold bricks through six days of wilderness. Padraic McKinley directs. One hundred thirteen minutes, every one of them heavy.
Anyone who's ever carried more than their share. Bring good boots.
| Ethan Hawke | Samuel Murphy |
| Russell Crowe | Warden Clancy |
| Julia Jones | Anna |
| Austin Amelio | Rankin |
| Avi Nash | Singh |
| Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen | Olson |
| George Burgess | Letender |
| Cameron Brady | The Man |
| Avy Berry | Penny Murphy |
| Alec Newman | Taggert |
| Sam Hazeldine | Amis |
| Jeffrey Lee Hallman | Big |
| Dylan Page | Mrs. Akers |
| Peter Lewys Preston | Ed Akers |
| Caspar Steinbeck | Joe Akers |
- (cur | prev) 14:30, 18 October 2026 DataBot +480 Numbers refreshed: Worldwide box office $2.6M; Domestic box office $2.3M; Opening weekend $2.3M; profit note now waits on a budget; Rotten Tomatoes 94%; CinemaScore B+; box office chart updated; Rotten Tomatoes critics 94% (142 reviews); Metacritic 70 / 100; CinemaScore B+; IMDb users 6.9 / 10 (3,852 votes); movie.guru score 6.9.
- (cur | prev) 12:00, 18 October 2026 DataBot +2,000 Profile created from Wikipedia and Box Office Mojo: cast, crew, release dates, budget, official trailer.