Two decades after he played the hostage negotiator in Inside Man, Denzel Washington is the one robbing the bank.
The two-time Oscar winner leads The Take, a heist thriller from director Fernando Meirelles (City of God, The Two Popes) and writer Simon Kinberg (Mr. & Mrs. Smith). Robert Pattinson and Daisy Edgar-Jones co-star, and Netflix dropped the teaser poster and first-look photos on Nov. 9 and announced a Jan. 15 release date. Read on for everything to know about The Take.
The plot
Pattinson plays Noah, a former Army captain struggling to adjust to civilian life when master thief Christian Carter (Washington) recruits him for the score of a lifetime: robbing the richest bank in Manhattan. The plan is airtight except for one problem. Noah’s girlfriend, Rose (Edgar-Jones), works at the bank as a teller, and with time running out, Noah has to figure out who he can trust if he’s going to make it out alive.
According to Netflix, the script also had a “nonlinear, puzzlelike structure, which keeps audiences guessing as the story unfolds.” And unlike many traditional heist movies, The Take unfolds almost entirely from the perspective of a single character, Noah. “You only know what he knows,” Meirelles said.
The cast
Washington plays Christian Carter, Pattinson plays Noah, and Edgar-Jones plays Rose. Other cast members include Danai Gurira (Black Panther), Sean Harris (Mission: Impossible), Moisés Arias (Monos), and Justin Kirk (Succession).
Release date
The Take opens in select theaters and on Netflix on Jan. 15, 2027.
Could The Take be an Oscar contender?
The January release puts The Take in line for the 100th Academy Awards in 2028. January isn’t usually when studios release their awards hopefuls, though, so the film would have to stay on voters’ minds for a full year. Washington has nine acting nominations and two wins, for Glory (Best Supporting Actor) and Training Day (Best Actor), plus a Best Picture nomination as a producer of Fences. His most recent nomination came in 2022 for The Tragedy of Macbeth.
Neither Pattinson nor Edgar-Jones has been nominated yet, but both could change that this season. Pattinson is in contention for playing Chris Hansen in Primetime and for The Odyssey, and Edgar-Jones is in the race for Sense and Sensibility.
Meirelles earned a Best Director nomination for City of God and has directed three actors to Oscar nominations: Rachel Weisz, who won Best Supporting Actress for The Constant Gardener, plus Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins for The Two Popes. Kinberg’s nomination came as a producer of Best Picture nominee The Martian.
