Gerard Butler's Action-Packed 2025 Heist Movie Is Dominating Netflix

Gerard Butler's Nick "Big Nick" O'Brien has one of the best entrances in film history in "Den of Thieves." Upon rolling up to the aftermath of a deadly shoot-out at a local breakfast joint, the profoundly ethically-questionable Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Detective (whose blood is seemingly 50 percent alcohol at all times, even when he hasn't been drinking) then proceeds to casually pick up and munch down on a frosted donut from a blood-splattered box on the ground.

Big Nick is a lot like the movie around him. Written and directed by Christian Gudegast, 2018's "Den of Thieves" is a sleazy, booze-soaked tale of badly-behaved cops and charismatic robbers that's both extremely derivative (it's "Heat" with a hangover) and so aggressively heterosexual (between all the machismo and gun fetishizing on display) it comes off as homoerotic, but that's also part of the charm. It was an unexpected hit to boot, pulling in more than $80 million at the box office on a $30 million budget in theaters.

Seven years is a long time to wait for a follow-up, but Gudegast's magnificently-titled sequel "Den of Thieves 2: Pantera" finally arrived near the start of 2025. And though it was notably less lucrative than its predecessor in terms of ticket sales (something that can be at least partly blamed on the death of mid-budget theatrical releases intended for adults in the pandemic era), the "Den of Thieves" sequel was also better-reviewed, as evidenced by its 63 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes (versus the first movie's 41 percent score).

Even better? "Den of Thieves 2" is now a streaming success on Netflix, keeping hopes alive that Big Nick may yet ride again.

"Pantera" picks up more or less in real-time with Nick as Butler's perennially scruffy, loopy antihero tracks down his old nemesis Donnie Wilson (O'Shea Jackson Jr.) from the first "Den of Thieves" to France, where the latter is planning an elaborate heist on the World Diamond Center ... a job that Nick declares to a shocked Donnie he wants in on, tired of being the (sort of) good guy with nothing to show for it. From there, Gudegast ditches the original movie's macho posturing for bromantic hijinks in a vibes-heavy sequel that's far more amiable and less scuzzy than its predecessor. The final result is very much the "2 Fast 2 Furious" to its precursor's "The Fast and the Furious," and it succeeds in evolving the larger "Den of Thieves" property into what /Film's Chris Evangelista has appropriately deemed the mid-budget, dirtbag version of "Fast & Furious."

Sounds like fun? It appears Netflix's subscribers would agree, with FlixPatrol reporting "Den of Thieves 2: Pantera" (yes, the film explains what that subtitle even refers to) claimed the top spot on the streamer in the U.S. as of March 21, 2025, and continues to hold strong there as of the 24th. That puts it ahead of Alexandra Lacey's unexpectedly popular documentary "The Twister: Caught in the Storm," which is currently in second place after its surprise upset over the Russos' expensive misfire "The Electric State." Big Nick himself is something of a human tornado, so that checks out.