Filmmakers Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead finally got the mainstream recognition they’ve deserved for years after helming several episodes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Moon Knight, and impressed the top brass so much they were placed in charge of directorial duties on Loki season 2. Watching the pair’s Synchronic, it’s easy to get hyped for the God of Mischief’s return.
The very definition of an underseen and sorely overlooked gem, the mind-bending existential sci-fi first premiered in September 2019, but didn’t receive a digital and on-demand release until 13 months later. It wasn’t until this year that it migrated to streaming, with Netflix subscribers having instantly gotten caught up in the stunning temporal shenanigans on show.
Per FlixPatrol, Synchronic can be found as one of the most-viewed features on Netflix’s global rankings, and it’s cracked the Top 10 in the United Kingdom and Ireland into the bargain. Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan headline as a pair of lifelong friends and paramedics who find themselves called to a string of grisly crime scenes, but there’s much more than just bloody murder at play.
A psychedelic drug pinpointed as the cause isn’t just a narcotic, but something with the capacity to alter the very fabric of time, reality, and existence. Naturally, Mackie’s Steve Denube gets caught up in a cosmic conspiracy that ruminates on the meaning of all things, while still providing plenty of broad genre entertainment that’s evidently gotten its hooks deep into the Netflix customer base in a major way.