Five years after its release, Cillian Murphy’s lesser-known spy-themed action-thriller Anna is currently making its way up Netflix’s top 10 list, despite having negative reviews.
Anna is ranking as the site’s fourth most-watched movie globally for the week of April 15-21. According to Tudum, the movie has been watched 5,900,000 times over just one week - that’s 11.7 million hours. The movie is behind new true crime documentary What Jennifer Did in third, live-action family comedy Woody Woodpecker Goes to Camp in second, and taking first is Zack Snyder’s new Netflix movie Rebel Moon - Part 2: The Scargiver.
Directed by Léon: The Professional’s Luc Besson, Anna follows a beautiful Russian assassin working for the KGB, whose life is turned upside down when she becomes a double agent for the CIA. Murphy plays American Agent Leonard Miller who acts as Anna’s handler when her identity is uncovered. Alongside the Inception star, the cast includes Sasha Luss, Luke Evans, and Helen Mirren.
Despite the movie recently racking up numbers on the streamer, it has very divisive reviews and an even more perplexing Rotten Tomatoes score of 33%, compared to its 87% audience score. Anna is not a big hit with the critics, as Peter Sobczynski from RogerEbert describes it as a "startlingly lazy bit of by-the-numbers hackwork," with Benjamin Lee from The Guardian adding, "What ultimately sinks the film is its overwhelming blandness."
The movie came out during a film trend of bleach-blonde female-led spy thrillers alongside Atomic Blonde and Red Sparrow. But when Anna was first released it was considered a box office flop, grossing just $31.6 million worldwide against a production budget of $30 million.
But it looks like Murphy’s recent success from starring in the hit BBC gangster show Peaky Blinders which came to an end in 2022, to winning his first Oscar for best male actor in Christopher Nolan’s epic Oppenheimer, has led to Anna's recent increase in popularity. Next for the Irish actor is his upcoming drama Steve, a Netflix movie following a headteacher of a home for disturbed young men. Filming for Steve is expected to start in Spring 2024.
Anna is available to watch on Netflix right now. For more, check out our list of the best movies on Netflix, or keep up to date with upcoming movies.
