Anya Taylor-Joy's Intense 7-Part Historical Thriller Is Officially Back on Netflix's Streaming Charts

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By

Chris McPherson

Published May 5, 2026, 7:45 PM EDT

Chris is a Senior News Writer for Collider. He can be found in an IMAX screen, with his eyes watering and his ears bleeding for his own pleasure. He joined the news team in 2022 and accidentally fell upwards into a senior position despite his best efforts.**

For reasons unknown, he enjoys analyzing box office receipts, giant sharks, and has become known as the go-to man for all things Bosch**_, Mission: Impossible and Christopher Nolan in Collider's news division. Recently, he found himself yeehawing along to the Dutton saga on the Yellowstone Ranch. **

He is proficient in sarcasm, wit, Photoshop and working unfeasibly long hours. Amongst his passions sit the likes of the history of the Walt Disney Company, the construction of theme parks, steam trains and binge-watching Gilmore Girls** with a coffee that is just hot enough to scald him.**

His obsession with the Apple TV+ series Silo** is the subject of mockery within the Senior News channel, where his feelings about Taylor Sheridan's work are enough to make his fellow writers roll their eyes. 

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Some shows become hits, and then some shows become the reason everyone briefly convinces themselves they’re about to become very serious chess people. This one absolutely belonged to the second category. It turned quiet rooms, little wooden pieces, addiction, genius, loneliness, and competitive staring into one of Netflix’s biggest word-of-mouth sensations. Years later, it still has that rare streaming magic where one episode becomes two, two becomes four, and suddenly it’s 2 a.m., and you’re emotionally invested in a Sicilian Defense.

The Queen’s Gambit is finding new life on Netflix, giving viewers another reason to revisit the seven-part sports drama that turned Anya Taylor-Joy into a full-blown global star. The series follows Beth Harmon, an orphaned chess prodigy whose extraordinary talent sends her into the male-dominated world of competitive chess while she battles addiction, trauma, and the heavy cost of genius.

The cast includes Taylor-Joy (The Menu, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga) as Beth Harmon, Bill Camp (The Night Of, Dark Waters) as Mr. Shaibel, Marielle Heller (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Can You Ever Forgive Me?) as Alma Wheatley, Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Love Actually, The Maze Runner) as Benny Watts, Harry Melling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Pale Blue Eye) as Harry Beltik, Moses Ingram (Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Tragedy of Macbeth) as Jolene, and Jacob Fortune-Lloyd (Bodies, The Great) as D.L. Townes.

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COLLIDER. Collider · Quiz

Collider Exclusive · Taylor Sheridan Universe Quiz Which Taylor Sheridan_**Show Do You Belong In? Yellowstone · Landman · Tulsa King · Mayor of Kingstown

Four worlds. All of them brutal, complicated, and built on power, loyalty, and the price of survival. Taylor Sheridan doesn't write heroes — he writes people who do what they have to do and live with the cost. Ten questions will reveal which one of his worlds you were made for.

🤠Yellowstone 🛢️Landman 👑Tulsa King ⚖️Mayor of Kingstown

FIND YOUR WORLD →

QUESTION 1 / 10POWER

01 Where does your power come from? In Sheridan's world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.

ALand, legacy, and a name that's been feared and respected for generations. BKnowing the deal better than anyone else in the room — and being willing to walk away first. CReputation. I've earned it the hard way, and everyone in the room knows it. DBeing the only person both sides will talk to. That makes me indispensable — and dangerous.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 2 / 10LOYALTY

02 Who do you put first, no matter what? Loyalty in Sheridan's universe is always absolute — and always costly.

AFamily — blood or chosen. The ranch, the name, the people who carry it with me. BThe company — or whoever's signing the cheques. Loyalty follows the contract. CMy crew. The men who stood with me when it counted — I don't abandon them for anything. DMy community — even when my community is a powder keg and I'm the only thing stopping it from blowing.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 3 / 10CONFLICT

03 Someone crosses a line. How do you respond? Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it's crossed.

AQuietly, decisively, and in a way that sends a message to everyone watching. BI outmanoeuvre them legally, financially, and politically before they even know I've moved. CDirectly. Old school. You cross me, you hear about it to your face — and then you deal with the consequences. DI absorb it, calculate the fallout, and find the move that keeps the whole system from collapsing.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 4 / 10SETTING

04 Where do you feel most in your element? Sheridan's worlds are as much about place as they are about people.

AWide open land — mountains, sky, silence. Somewhere you can see trouble coming from a mile away. BThe oil fields of West Texas — brutal, lucrative, and indifferent to whoever happens to be standing on top of them. CA mid-size city where the rules haven't quite caught up yet — fertile ground for someone with vision and nerve. DA rust-belt town built around a prison — where everyone's life is shaped by what's inside those walls.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 5 / 10MORALITY

05 How do you feel about operating in the grey? Nobody in a Sheridan show has clean hands. The question is how they carry the dirt.

AI do what has to be done to protect what's mine. I'll answer for it eventually — but not today. BGrey is just business. The line moves depending on what's at stake, and I move with it. CI have a code — it's not the law's code, but it's mine, and I don't break it. DI've made peace with it. Keeping the peace requires compromises most people don't have the stomach for.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 6 / 10AMBITION

06 What are you actually fighting to hold onto? Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they're defending.

AA way of life that the modern world is doing everything it can to erase. BMy position — and the leverage that comes with being the person everyone needs to close a deal. CRelevance. I've been away, I've been written off — and I'm proving that was a mistake. DWhatever fragile order I've managed to build — because without it, everything burns.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 7 / 10LEADERSHIP

07 How do you lead? Authority in Sheridan's world is never given — it's established, maintained, and constantly tested.

ABy example and force of will. People follow me because they believe in what I'm protecting — and because they know what happens if they don't. BThrough negotiation and leverage. I don't need people to like me — I need them to need me. CBy being the smartest, most experienced person in the room and making sure everyone quietly knows it. DBy being the calm centre of a situation that would spiral without me — and accepting that nobody thanks you for it.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 8 / 10OUTSIDERS

08 Someone new arrives and tries to change how things work. Your reaction? Every Sheridan show has an outsider disrupting an established order. Sometimes that outsider is you.

AThey'll learn. Or they won't. Either way, the land was here before them and it'll be here after. BI figure out what they want, what they're worth, and whether they're an asset or a problem — fast. CI was the outsider once. I give them a chance — one — to show they understand respect. DNew players destabilise everything I've built. I assess the threat and manage it before it manages me.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 9 / 10COST

09 What has your position cost you? Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.

AMy family's peace — maybe their innocence. The ranch demands everything, and I've let it take too much. BRelationships, time, any version of a normal life. The job eats everything that isn't nailed down. CYears. Decades in some cases. Time I can't get back — but I'm not done yet. DMy conscience, mostly. And the ability to ever fully trust anyone on either side of the wall.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 10 / 10LEGACY

10 When it's over, what do you want people to say? Sheridan's characters all know the ending is coming. The question is what they leave behind.

AThat I held the line. That the land is still ours and everything I did was worth it. BThat I was the best at what I did and that no deal ever got closed without me at the table. CThat I built something real, somewhere nobody expected it, and I did it on my own terms. DThat I kept the peace when nobody else could — and that the town is still standing because of it.

REVEAL MY SHOW →

Sheridan Has Spoken You Belong In… The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you're complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.

🤠 Yellowstone

🛢️ Landman

👑 Tulsa King

⚖️ Mayor of Kingstown

YELLOWSTONE

You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world's indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you're willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family's weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what's yours, you don't escalate — you finish it. You're not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone's world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn't make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.

LANDMAN

You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You're a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they'll do to get it. You're not naive enough to think this world is fair. You're smart enough to be the one deciding who it's fair to.

TULSA KING

You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you're not above reminding people that the two aren't mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they'd be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they're more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don't need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.

MAYOR OF KINGSTOWN

You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you're the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky's world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You've made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

How Successful Was 'The Queen's Gambit'?

The Queen’s Gambit was massive for Netflix — not just “did well,” but genuine cultural breakout. Netflix said the series was watched by 62 million households in its first 28 days**, making it the streamer’s biggest scripted limited series ever at the time. It also reached Netflix’s Top 10 in 92 countries and hit No. 1 in 63 countries, which is absurd for a seven-part drama about chess. What probably helped was that we were all stuck in our homes trying not to die from a global pandemic, but that just helped get eyes on the prize.

Chess set sales reportedly surged, chess book sales jumped, and online interest in the game exploded after the show launched. Vanity Fair reported companies seeing huge spikes, including Goliath Games saying chess set sales rose by more than 1,000%. Awards-wise, it cleaned up too. The series won 11 Primetime Emmys, including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, and also picked up Golden Globes for Best Limited Series and Best Actress for Anya Taylor-Joy

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The Queen’s Gambit_ is streaming on Netflix.