Margot Robbie’s Addictive Crime Thriller Is a Must-Watch on Netflix Ahead of Her ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ Prequel

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By

Chris McPherson

Published May 3, 2026, 8:00 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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A forgotten crime thriller is stealing attention again, which feels appropriate for a movie entirely about people being extremely good at stealing attention. The 2015 crime thriller starring Will Smith (Men in Black, King Richard) and **Margot Robbie **(_Barbie _and I, Tonya) has returned to the streaming conversation more than a decade after its release, with the glossy con movie rising on streaming charts as viewers rediscover one of Robbie’s earlier star turns. It’s basically Ocean’s Eleven meets Dangerous Liaisons, if everyone involved had better sunglasses and worse impulse control. The comparison to the former is fitting considering Robbie is set to star in an upcoming Ocean's Eleven prequel.

_Focus _follows Nicky Spurgeon, a veteran con artist who takes novice grifter Jess under his wing before romance, betrayal, and professional paranoia make everything much more complicated. Three years later, Jess reappears on the other side of one of Nicky’s biggest jobs, because apparently even con artists can’t just have a clean breakup and move on like adults.

The cast includes Rodrigo Santoro (300, Westworld) as Garriga, Gerald McRaney (This Is Us, Deadwood) as Owens, BD Wong (Jurassic Park, Mr. Robot) as Liyuan, and Adrian Martinez (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Stumptown) as Farhad.

Focus was a solid box office performer when it released, grossing around $159 million worldwide against a reported $50 million budget, meaning it made a little over three times its production cost globally. Domestically, it earned about $54 million, with the rest coming from international markets. It wasn’t a blockbuster on the level of Smith’s biggest hits, but it was far from a flop.

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COLLIDER. Collider · Quiz

Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture_**Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country

Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.

🪜Parasite 🌀Everything Everywhere ☢️Oppenheimer 🐦Birdman 🪙No Country for Old Men

FIND YOUR FILM →

QUESTION 1 / 10TONE

01 What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don't just entertain — they leave something behind.

ASomething that pulls the rug out — that makes me think I'm watching one kind of film and then reveals I'm watching another entirely. BSomething overwhelming — funny, sad, absurd, and genuinely moving, all at once. CSomething grand and weighty — a film that makes me feel the full scale of what I'm watching. DSomething formally daring — a film that pushes what cinema can even do. ESomething lean and relentless — pure tension with no wasted frame.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 2 / 10THEME

02 Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What's yours?

AClass, inequality, and what people are willing to do when desperation meets opportunity. BIdentity, family, and the chaos of trying to hold your life together when everything is falling apart. CGenius, moral responsibility, and the catastrophic weight of a decision you can never take back. DEgo, legacy, and the terror of becoming irrelevant while you're still alive to watch it happen. EEvil, chance, and whether moral order actually exists or if we just tell ourselves it does.

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QUESTION 3 / 10STRUCTURE

03 How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.

AGenre-twisting — I want it to start in one lane and migrate into something completely different. BMaximalist and genre-blending — comedy, action, drama, sci-fi, all in one ride. CEpic and non-linear — cutting between timelines, building a mosaic of cause and consequence. DA single unbroken flow — I want to feel like I'm living it in real time, no cuts to safety. ESpare and precise — every scene doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 4 / 10VILLAIN

04 What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?

AA system — invisible, structural, and almost impossible to fight because it has no single face. BThe self — the ways we sabotage, abandon, and fail the people we love most. CHistory — the unstoppable momentum of events that no single person can stop or redirect. DThe industry — the machinery of culture that chews up talent and spits out irrelevance. EPure, implacable evil — a force so certain of itself it becomes almost philosophical.

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QUESTION 5 / 10ENDING

05 What do you want from a film's ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?

AShock and inevitability — a conclusion that recontextualises everything that came before it. BEarned emotion — I want to cry, laugh, and feel genuinely hopeful, even if the world is a mess. CDevastation and grandeur — an ending that makes me sit in silence for a few minutes after. DAmbiguity — something that leaves enough open that I'm still thinking about it days later. EBleakness — an honest refusal to pretend the world is tidier than it actually is.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 6 / 10WORLD

06 Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what's even possible.

AA gleaming modern city with a hidden underside — beauty masking rot, wealth masking desperation. BA collapsing suburban life that opens onto something infinite — the multiverse of a single ordinary person. CThe corridors of power and science at a world-historical turning point — where decisions echo for decades. DThe grimy, alive chaos of New York and Hollywood — fame as both destination and trap. EVast, indifferent landscape — desert and highway where violence arrives without warning or reason.

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QUESTION 7 / 10CRAFT

07 What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.

AProduction design and mise-en-scène — every frame composed to carry meaning beneath the surface. BEditing and tonal control — the ability to move between registers without losing the audience. CScore and sound design — music that becomes inseparable from the dread and awe of what you're watching. DCinematography as performance — the camera not recording events but participating in them. ESilence and restraint — what's left unsaid and unshown doing more work than any dialogue could.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 8 / 10PROTAGONIST

08 What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.

ASomeone smart and resourceful who makes increasingly dangerous decisions under pressure. BSomeone overwhelmed and ordinary who turns out to be capable of something extraordinary. CA brilliant, tortured figure whose gifts and flaws are inseparable from each other. DA self-destructive artist whose ego is both their superpower and their undoing. EA quiet, principled person trying to make sense of a world that has stopped making sense.

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QUESTION 9 / 10PACE

09 How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.

AI love a slow build when I know the payoff is going to be seismic — patience for a devastating reveal. BGive me relentless momentum — I want to feel breathless and emotionally spent by the end. CEpic runtime doesn't scare me — if the material demands three hours, give me three hours. DI want it to feel propulsive even when nothing is technically happening — restless energy throughout. EDeliberate and unhurried — I want dread to accumulate in the spaces between the action.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 10 / 10AFTERMATH

10 What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?

AUnsettled — like I've just seen something I can't fully explain but can't stop thinking about. BMoved and energised — like the film reminded me what actually matters and gave me something to hold onto. CHumbled — like I've been in the presence of something genuinely important and overwhelming. DExhilarated — like I've just seen cinema doing something it's never quite done before. EHaunted — like a cold, quiet dread that stays with me for days.

REVEAL MY FILM →

The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is… Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.

BEST PICTURE 2020

Parasite You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it's ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.

BEST PICTURE 2023

Everything Everywhere All at Once You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn't want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it's about.

BEST PICTURE 2024

Oppenheimer You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.

BEST PICTURE 2015

Birdman You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it's about. Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor's ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn't be possible. Michael Keaton's performance and Emmanuel Lubezki's restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.

BEST PICTURE 2008

No Country for Old Men You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

Is 'Focus' Worth Watching?

Directed by Glenn Ficarra** and John Requa (Crazy, Stupid, Love), Focus attempted to combine the charm of a heist film with the tension of a romantic drama. Sounds like it should work, right? Well, not quite. The film was met with mixed reviews from both critics and audiences, sitting at 56% positive from reviewers and 53% from ordinary moviegoers on Rotten Tomatoes. That being said, a divisive score is usually an indicator that something was good about it. Collider's review of the film was damning, claiming that there is "no romance and no con," two things which are vital in a movie starring a con artist caught up in a romance.

"At times it feels like a test of whether or not Smith can still charm an audience with a bashful smile, a load boast, and a sly look," the review states. "He's still got "it", but not as much as he used to. However, it's not enough for a conman movie to be charming; it has to be skillful, and that takes the intelligence and energy _Focus _sorely lacks. The film is smooth to the point of being insubstantial, and it's more slimy than slippery as it brazenly cheats the audience."

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Focus_ is available to stream on Netflix in select territories.