Netflix doesn’t lack for fantastic thrillers, but there are few that can be compared to The Guilty, a 2021 movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a cop desperate to save a kidnapped woman. That doesn’t sound terribly unique — Gyllenhaal has played cops before in movies like Prisoners and End of Watch — but The Guilty has a gimmick that’s too interesting to pass up: it’s set in a single room, and Gyllenhaal is more or less the only actor we see.
The premise by itself makes The Guilty worth a look. That the movie makes it work is more impressive still.
What is The Guilty about?
A lot goes down in this room
In The Guilty, Gyllenhaal plays Joe Baylor, an LAPD officer who is working a late shift as a 911 operator. From the start, we get the idea that he’s not happy about it. He’s brusque, irritable, and not terribly helpful to some of the people who call in with their problems, chastising some for getting themselves into difficult situations. Maybe it’s because police resources are spread thin, or maybe there’s something personal bothering Joe. The screenplay, by True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto, is smart enough to parcel out information carefully over the length of the film.
But then, Joe gets a call that has him paying rapt attention: a woman named Emily (Riley Keough) calls him from a car, and seems to be talking nonsensically. But Joe figures out that she can’t talk openly because she’s with someone who may have kidnapped her: her husband Henry (Peter Sarsgaard). Joe is on the case, frantically calling people — including Emily’s young daughter at home (Christiana Montoya) — to try and figure out what’s happening and whether the police can track Emily down with limited information.
Without spoiling things, there is much more to the story than it seems, and we learn that Emily’s situation is much more complicated than it feels. We learn about it along with Joe, sticking with him from start to finish. And as that drama unfolds, we discover that Joe is here in the first place because he stepped out of line while on duty, and can’t be allowed back in the field until a court case against him is resolved. He’s set to appear at a hearing tomorrow. These two threads come together rather elegantly in the emotional finale.
Everyone brings their A-game in The Guilty
Especially Jake Gyllenhaal
For a movie that didn’t make much of a splash when it debuted, The Guilty is stacked top to bottom with top-tier talent. In addition to Gyllenhaal and Pizzolatto, the movie was helmed by Antoine Fuqua, the director behind movies like Training Day, The Equilizer, and Michael, which is one of the most successful movies of 2026 so far. Although Gyllenhaal is the only actor who appears onscreen (save for a brief glimpse of David Castañeda as Officer Tim Gervasi on a screen), if you listen closely, you’ll hear some celebrity voices on the other end of the line, including Ethan Hawke, Paul Dano, and Bill Burr.
That said, Gyllenhaal is the big draw here. He’s fantastic in the early scenes, where he’s giving us just a peak of the roiling anger bubbling up underneath the surface of Joe’s psyche. After the plot with Emily gets going, he gets intense in a way that makes you forget the movie basically takes place in a room.
All told, it’s one of the best performances Gyllenhaal has ever given, rivaling his work in dramas like Nightcrawler and Brokeback Mountain. Had Netflix given The Guilty more promotion and maybe put it in theaters, something it famously hates to do, Gyllenhaal could have scored an Oscar nomination. As it stands, it feels like a lost great performance waiting to be discovered.
The Guilty is dated (in a good way)
There’s a reason no other actors are around
That said, there was really no way that The Guilty could ever have gotten a wide release in theaters, because it was released during the COVID pandemic when many theaters were practically shut down. It was also made during the pandemic, which accounts for why the cast is so sparse; the movie was made under some severe restrictions.
But sometimes restrictions are wonderful for the creative process. 12 Angry Men is another movie set almost entirely in one room, and it’s considered a towering classic today.
The Guilty also touches on issues that were bigger talking points in 2021, like police misconduct, which was then in the spotlight thanks to the Black Lives Matter movement. But The Guilty uses a light enough touch that it still resonates several years later, since the topic is still relevant even if it isn’t in the news as much today.
This fantastic detective series has quietly become the biggest show on Netflix
Please ignore the hilarious name.
The source
The Guilty is a remake of a Danish film of the same name, starring Jakob Cedergren in the Gyllenhaal role. Calling the movie “creative” may feel a bit like a stretch when someone else executed on the idea first, but many wouldn’t have seen the movie had it not been made over for English-speaking audiences.
In fact, a lot of people still haven’t seen it! At only 90 minutes long, The Guilty is a quick watch, and definitely worth your time.
- Release Date
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October 19, 2018
- Runtime
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85 Minutes
- Director
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Gustav Möller
