But they have to cross 500 miles of war-torn desert in 24 hours to get there in The Wages of Fear (Le salaire de la peur), directed by Julien Leclercq, and written by Hamid Hlioua and Leclercq.

The Wages of Fear has been climbing various tops within Netflix‘s most-watched movies ranking, and after just over a week, it has become the No. 1 worldwide within the catalog.

The intricacies of a scene this formally simple, as well as the intricacies across a film that can almost too easily be mistaken as a “popcorn thriller,” solidify The Wages of Fear as essential ...