Sicario was released to critical acclaim in 2015, but the film’s reputation has gotten even stronger with time. It’s a scintillating crime drama that manages to serve up political commentary, masterful direction, and career-best performances without losing sight of the entertainment factor. It’s both existential and enjoyable, which is a challenge to achieve in any genre.
Since director Denis Villeneve and screenwriter Taylor Sheridan have gone off to do science fiction (Dune) and television (Yellowstone), respectively, we thought it’d be helpful to compile a list of titles that share DNA with Sicario. While no one film is identical (even the sequel, which we will discuss), there are plenty of crime dramas that flirt with the same ideas, and explore American corruption from a similarly thoughtful perspective.
Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)
We had to kick things off with the sequel. Sicario: Day of the Soldado had a lot going for it on paper: Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro were reprising their mysterious CIA characters, and Sheridan was back as screenwriter. All three were crucial to the success of the original, so it stood to reason they would provide more drug war intrigue. And, well, they do.
Day of the Soldado is a clear step down from Sicario in terms of thematic heft, but it’s a fine thriller that features particularly stellar work from del Toro. The Oscar-winner takes center stage, and his chemistry with Isabel (Isabela Moner), the daughter of a drug kingpin, allows him to dig into the humanity teased in Sicario.
Eastern Promises (2007)
Eastern Promises takes place in London, far removed from the events of Sicario. The film is similar, however, in the way it exposes the viewer to a criminal underworld they were previously unaware of. A midwife (Naomi Watts) tries to find the mother of an abandoned baby and stumbles into the inner-circle of the Russian mafia. A professional “cleaner” (Viggo Mortensen), bringing the same unpredictable energy that del Toro’s character does in Sicario, takes it upon himself to help her out.
Eastern Promises benefits from the layered performances of its two leads, but the real highlight here is David Cronenberg’s direction. He gives each character such specificity, and each setting such a worn-down, tactile quality that one can’t help but follow the midwife character down the rabbit hole.
Traffic (2000)
Traffic, the crime epic from director Steven Soderbergh, is considered by many to be the precursor to Sicario. The two have a lot in common, including a focus on the Mexico/U.S. drug trade and a corrupt “lawman” with a criminal agenda of his own. In both instances, the “lawman” is played by Benicio del Toro. The similarities end there, however, as Soderbergh takes a more sprawling, novelistic approach to the material.
Sicario stays with Emily Blunt’s FBI agent for most of its runtime, whereas Traffic delves into the lives of the dealers, politicians, and users who are impacted by the drug trade. The latter has an eye-watering number of A-listers for every story, including Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Dennis Quaid and Don Cheadle. It wound up taking home four Oscars including Best Screenplay for Soderbergh and Best Supporting Actor for del Toro, and upon revisiting, we can’t really argue with either.
The Mule (2018)
Clint Eastwood has been making films for longer than most of us have been alive, and The Mule is a perfect example of the genre he does best: meat-and-potatoes crime dramas. Nothing fancy, no directorial flourishes or twist endings needed, and it’s based on the true story of Earl Stone, a 90-year old man who becomes a drug courier to keep his house from being foreclosed on.
The premise is so outlandish that Eastwood knows to underplay the rest. He brings his typically grumpy charm to the titular role, but the Earl character really comes alive when he’s forced to hide the truth from his estranged wife (Dianne Wiest) and the DEA agent (Bradley Cooper) who takes a sudden interest in his finances. The rest of the cast is filled with hall of fame character actors like Andy Garcia, Laurence Fishburne, and Michael Pena. How can you really go wrong?
Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
Sicario delves into the risks that a female government agent takes when dropped into a foreign setting. Zero Dark Thirty is nearly identical in this sense, as the film transports Jessica Chastain’s CIA operative to the Middle East to take down Osama Bin Laden. Corruption runs rampant in both, but the distinction between the two protagonists is crucial. Sicario’s FBI agent tries and fails within the rules, whereas Zero Dark Thirty’s operative is willing to do whatever it takes to capture her target.
Brilliantly directed by Kathryn Bigelow, who not only conveys the internal strain that her protagonist is under, but the external discomfort of watching Americans use torture methods to get information (something we also see in Sicario). It was nominated for five Oscars including Best Picture and Best Actress, and we can’t help but feel like this was the performance Chastain should have won for…
Hell or High Water (2016)
Sheridan was a hot screenwriter after Sicario, and he pushed his exploration of American greed even further with his sophomore effort, Hell or High Water. The film follows duos on opposing sides of the law: estranged brothers (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) on a bank-robbing spree, and Texas Rangers (Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham) who have been tasked with bringing them down. Both sides are forced to do things against their better judgment, resulting in tragedy.
Dealing less with the men who promote corruption and more on the consequences of a system that is inherently corrupt, the brothers see their crimes as a kind of frontier justice, and the closer the Rangers get to finding them, the more they come to empathize with their motives. The last scene is one of the finest things Sheridan has ever written, and his Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay was well-deserved.
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Sicario is a bleak affair. The protagonist loses everything, and worse still, she plays a part in her own downfall. It’s a character arc more aligned with classic noir than modern dramas, which is why fans will also take to Joel and Ethan Coen’s masterpiece No Country for Old Men. The film, adapted from the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, details the ways in which blood money dooms four desperate men.
While star-studded, No Country for Old Men draws power from its overriding sense of isolation. The characters that Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem play are loners, doomed to live out their days in isolation, or at least the days they have left. It could have easily been overwrought, but the directors have such a command of the source material and their own sense of morality that every single frame rings true.
End of Watch (2012)
David Ayer and Taylor Sheridan are both screenwriters who made the leap to directing, but the latter is more interested in the viscera of crime than the emotion. End of Watch doesn’t provide the cultural commentary that something like Sicario does, but it doesn’t try to, either. It’s a feature-length version of Sicario’s opening scene, which is another way of saying it’s tense from start to finish.
Michael Pena and Jake Gyllenhaal play LAPD officers who work the South Central area. They regularly encounter drug deals and gang-related shootings, and their tenacity on the streets leads to them becoming targets. The actors have ridiculous chemistry, alternating between funny and frightening at the drop of a dime, and Ayer proves that he can really deliver the goods as a director when he’s allowed to keep things stripped-down.
Man on Fire (2004)
Sicario takes place in Mexico, and goes to great lengths to illustrate the brutality of the Juarez drug cartels. Man on Fire (2004) is also set in Mexico, though it shifts the focus to the kidnappings that regularly take place in the capital. Denzel Washington is an ex-CIA agent who gets hired to protect the child of a wealthy family, but when things go awry, and the child is taken, Washington’s character goes on the warpath.
Man on Fire is the finest collaboration between Washington and director Tony Scott, and that’s saying a lot given the quality of their other films. The two work in perfect unison here, with the former channeling his dark side and the latter dialing up the cross-cutting and stylized violence to eleven. It might be too much for some, but for those who embrace the madness, it’s brilliant.
Wind River (2017)
Taylor Sheridan considers Sicario, Hell or High Water and Wind River to be a trilogy about the Midwest, and the struggles that various Midwestern communities have to contend with. It’s only right that all three films be included on the list. Wind River, Sheridan’s third outing as a writer and first as director, has the same premise as Sicario: a female FBI agent is assigned to a crime in a downtrodden community. This time, the agent is played by Elizabeth Olsen, and the community is the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming.
Wind River is a simpler tale, both in terms of performance and narrative, but Sheridan carries over his obsession with outlaw justice. Olsen and Jeremy Renner give searing performances, and the climactic shootout is one of the bleakest, most unromantic depictions of violence in recent memory. Not the easiest watch, but it’s not meant to be.