If the best ’70s cop movies ran on sweat, suspicion, and the feeling that your partner might save you — or sell you out — then “The Rip” looks like it wants that same nervous-system charge, just with a modern Miami sheen and a cast stacked like a fantasy draft. The new Netflix crime thriller puts a team of cops on a collision course with each other after a score falls into their laps: millions in cash sitting inside a derelict stash house, the kind of “found money” that turns professional instincts into personal appetites.
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Writer-director Joe Carnahan described the project as something rooted in real life and old-school influences, saying to Tudum, “The Rip came out of a deeply personal experience that my friend went through… It’s inspired in part by his life and then, by my enduring love for those classic ’70s cop thrillers that really valued the character and interpersonal relationships.”
That title isn’t just a cool, blunt little punch either. “The title for ‘The Rip’ is simply Miami cop parlance for ‘taking the bad guy’s stuff,’” Carnahan explained. “In the event of a seizure of cash or drugs or weapons, the confiscation itself is known as the ‘rip.’”
The film stars Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Steven Yeun, Teyana Taylor, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Sasha Calle, Kyle Chandler, and Scott Adkins, among others. And Carnahan leaned into the idea that Damon and Affleck don’t just headline — they set the temperature for everyone else. “You’ve got these two guys who have both been world-famous for over 30 years with a wonderful sense of friendship and brotherhood… Those guys are just so gifted and lovely and talented and open,” he said.
With them as the foundation, Carnahan suggested the ensemble snapped into a shared wavelength. “Everybody’s going to draft off them… [they] all just show up and give you this wonderful sense of reality and authenticity,” he said. “If the audience falls in love with the characters, you’ve got them. Because at some point you’re going to get your heart broken, you just don’t know by whom.”
“The Rip” premieres January 16, 2026, on Netflix.
