What makes a Darren Aronofsky film at this point? He’s become a director who is incredibly hard to nail down, especially in the 15 years since earning his Best Director Oscar nomination for Black Swan. In the last decade and a half, he’s made his highest-grossing film with the bold biblical epic Noah, crafted the divisive and bonkers mother!, and earned Brendan Fraser an Oscar for The Whale. He’s even made a film specifically for the Sphere in Las Vegas with Postcards from Earth. But one factor that connects many of Aronofsky’s films since the beginning of his career is obsession and addiction, whether it’s for food, love, greatness, drugs, or some combination of these, and how it can completely change your life, for worse more often than better. On its surface, Caught Stealing seems like the most un-Aronofsky film the director has made yet; an After Hours-esque crime thriller comedy that looks like his most accessible film, maybe ever. Indeed, Caught Stealing, written by Charlie Huston, who is adapting his own novel of the same name, is what you get when you mix Aronofsky’s core sensibilities into a more accessible, straightforward project. The final product manages to show what a mainstream Aronofsky project looks like, without skimping on his usual themes and ideas, and the result is an absolute thrill.
What Is ‘Caught Stealing’ About?

Set in 1998 New York City on the Lower East Side, Hank Thompson (Austin Butler) was once a promising young baseball player back home in California. But now, he’s spent the last few years working until four in the morning at a bar, drinking and having a good time while trying to avoid the tragedy that led him down this path, which keeps cropping up in his head. Hank is seeing Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz), a paramedic who takes him home every night from the bar, and who warns Hank he shouldn’t run away from what he’s afraid of — whether that’s the memory of his past that keeps waking him up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, or his commitment to her. Hank has cultivated a life for himself that seems adequate, one where he can mostly ignore his past, primarily filling his head with baseball (Go Giants). But one day, Hank’s punk neighbor Russ (Matt Smith) tells him he’s got to go back home to England quickly to take care of his dad, and asks Hank to watch his cat for him. With Russ gone, however, there are plenty of people in New York City who want to find him. Hanks runs into two Russian thugs (Yuri Kolokolnikov and Nikita Kukushkin), and the confrontation leaves Hank in the hospital and without one of his kidneys. As more people try to find out what’s going on with Russ and look for him, including Detective Roman (Regina King), an unpredictable gangster (Bad Bunny), and two Orthodox gangster brothers (Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio), Hank gets sent down a path of violence and danger he desperately wants to escape. And all the while, he has to take care of Russ’s damn cat.
Darren Aronofsky Is Having a Blast With ‘Caught Stealing’

It’s weird to watch Aronofsky “have fun,” but that’s exactly what it feels like is happening with Caught Stealing. From the bar Hank works at that plays ‘90s hits by Smash Mouth and Semisonic, to the grimy streets of Giuliani-era New York City, to the end credits that shift and scatter along to the music, Aronofsky is playful here, and it’s infectious. The director also isn’t hiding where the inspiration for this film comes from, as the film thematically and directly pays homage to Martin Scorsese’s pitch-black comedy, After Hours, right down to having that film’s star, Griffin Dunne, as the owner of Hank’s bar. Yet even though Caught Stealing does have moments of levity, it’s still quite dark in the way that Aronofsky usually is. Hank seemingly can’t go anywhere without death following him, and the cinematography by Aronofsky’s usual collaborator, Matthew Libatique, makes the dirtiness of the situations Hank gets caught up in permeate through the screen. But that is the exact tone a comedy like this needs. We need to feel the loss and pain when the film does get extremely dark, so that the moments of humor hit even harder. Caught Stealing gets grim, for sure, but by playing to the reality of Hank’s situation, we’re able to understand what is truly at stake and feel the danger, while also often laughing at the ridiculousness of the situations Hank is in. In addition to the external conflicts, it’s Hank’s internal conflicts that make this right in line with Aronofsky’s other work. After losing his kidney, Hank is told he can no longer drink, and his problems with alcohol are what send him down several negative paths throughout the film. Aronofsky’s films are packed with characters who are told they can’t do the one thing they want to do, only for them to do it anyway. While this might not be an original script by Aronofsky, it certainly fits nicely within his addiction-focused filmography. Huston’s screenplay is also going at a mile-a-minute, and he’s always got a twist on this concept, or some surprise to jolt you out of your seat. Every scene furthers this mystery and makes us even more curious about how the hell Hank is going to get out of the nightmare he finds himself in. Match that with the thumping original songs by IDLES and the always-on-the-go pressure of the film, Caught Stealing is propulsive in a tense, but always ridiculously fun way.
Austin Butler Leads a Fantastic Ensemble in ‘Caught Stealing’

Austin Butler as Hank, leaning against a dumpster next to Bud the cat in Caught Stealing.
Image via Sony Pictures

Post-Elvis, Austin Butler has gone down some very interesting paths, showing that he can be more than just the King of Rock and Roll. In just the last two years, he’s been a mysterious biker in The Bikeriders, a WWII pilot in Masters of the Air, a terrifyingly monstrous villain in Dune: Part Two, and a COVID-era cult leader in this year’s Eddington. But Caught Stealing is arguably the greatest example that he’s a star since his Oscar-nominated turn in Elvis. Not only is he charming when he needs to be, and someone we feel compassion for, but he also just makes an excellent lead that we want to follow to the ends of the earth (or New York, at least). Here, Butler proves that he’s the kind of actor who could make a very convincing action star, but also really sell the emotional scenes when the film calls for it. Equally great is Zoë Kravitz, whose Yvonne helps center Hank in their time together, showing him that he shouldn’t run from what scares him. Together, their dynamic is both incredibly sweet and overwhelmingly sexy — a couple that we can tell truly cares for each other, and is on their way to becoming something special. Kravitz takes a role that could’ve easily been just a standard girlfriend archetype, and turns Yvonne into a fully fleshed-out person, even when her story is directly tied to Hank’s. Much like After Hours, Caught Stealing is packed with an ensemble of weirdos popping out of every corner, but they’re all pitch-perfect in their approach to this material. Huston’s screenplay makes us enjoy our time with these characters, even when we know they’re capable of terrible things and have caused immense pain to others. For example, it’s great to spend time with Matt Smith as the mohawk-wearing punk Russ, even though we’ve already seen how his actions have led to awful things for Hank. King, Schreiber, and D’Onofrio are all fantastic at presenting one side of themselves, then altering our perception of who they are on a dime, which only adds to the excitement of the film. Caught Stealing, on the surface, doesn’t look like what we expect from an Aronofsky film, and yet, once you dive deeper, it seems like the most obvious version of a dramedy crime-thriller that the director could make. The film isn’t afraid to get its hands dirty and go to some truly dark places, yet it always manages to come back to a place where this story becomes entertaining again. It’s what Aronofsky has done his entire career, in everything from Pi to The Wrestler, and it somehow works in a genre that seems entirely unlikely. For years, we’ve heard Aronofsky has worked on major unrealized projects that never came to be, films like Robocop, Batman: Year One, or The Wolverine, and it always seemed like an odd direction for him. Yet, Caught Stealing is proof that maybe Aronofsky really could thrive in projects that skew a bit more conventional, like this — even if they are as strange and dark as we’ve come to know from him. Caught Stealing comes to theaters on August 29.

Caught Stealing

Caught Stealing is a phrenetic, exciting crime thriller that also manages to feel like a Darren Aronofsky film.

Release Date

August 29, 2025

Director

Darren Aronofsky

Writers

charlie huston

Producers

Ari Handel, Jeremy Dawson

Pros & Cons

Darren Aronofsky is having a lot of fun with his ’90s version of After Hours.
Austin Butler and the rest of the ensemble cast is pitch-perfect.
Writer Charlie Huston knows how to keep this story propulsive and twisty.