Goodbye 'X-Men,' Patrick Stewart's Netflix Thriller Is Even Better

Published Oct 31, 2026, 6:03 AM EDT

Erik Hawkins is an award-winning writer and editor who's been obsessed with cinema since he was old enough to hold Roger Ebert's Video Home Companion in his hands. He lives in NYC, where he rabidly watches everything from the newest releases to the more odd and obscure, and regularly shares his thoughts on Letterboxd. From ghost-writing fiction and webisodes in South America to local news, trial coverage, and politics in NYC, he's rarely put down his laptop over the past 15 years.

The death of Sir Patrick Stewart on October 29 released waves of grief among audiences across the world. Stewart passed after a brief battle with Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body dementia at age 86, according to his family. An icon on the stage and the screen, Stewart made a particularly seismic impact on sci-fi entertainment, bringing his Shakespearean training and natural authority to bear in roles that could have been made silly — from the X-Men series to David Lynch's Dune and, of course, as Capt. Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation and the films that followed.

One of the most striking roles in his career came from an unexpected and disturbing place, though: a low-budget, intensely grisly thriller pitting punk rockers against neo-Nazi monsters. Jeremy Saulnier's 2015 film Green Room has become a cult classic over the years due to its unapologetically realistic violence and merciless economy; few films of any budget managed to achieve the kind of intensity Saulnier marshaled there in just 95 whirlwind minutes. Stewart, as the villain, gave the film its black heart though, subverting his wonderful baritone and warm, natural authority to create an all-business white supremacist overlord who killed, maimed, and dismantled people without the blink of an eye, all in the name of his bilious cause.

Stewart Used His Acting Power to Create One of Cinema's Most Terrifying Villains

Image via A24

As Green Room opens, Darcy Banker (Stewart) rules a small cadre of white supremacists and their various businesses in the Pacific Northwest, including a dive bar, with an iron fist. We're not introduced to him for some time, only hearing various neo-Nazi flaks reverently asking things like, "Have you called Darcy?" When our protagonists — a band of young struggling punk musicians, featuring the late Anton Yelchin, Joe Cole, Alia Shawkat, and Callum Turner — make an ill-advised appearance at the bar, they start the show with a cover of the Dead Kennedys' "Nazi Punks Fuck Off," then inadvertently witness a murder. This sets them on a gruesome collision course with Darcy's crew as they're barricaded inside the titular green room. And as soon as Stewart's villain stalks onto the scene radiating menace and authority, the film takes on the feel of a horror film.

Stewart's take on villainy involves no teeth-baring or cackling, just pure businessman-like efficiency. Viewers so long trained to view the stage and screen vet as a warm and commanding presence desperately want to believe him when he initially promises the young punks that if they just surrender, they won't be harmed. He's lying, of course, because all Darcy cares about is protecting his people and his business interests. And he proves that in the harrowing hour to come as he looses machete-wielding psychos and attack dogs on the kids, with disturbing results.

'Green Room' Is As Vicious As Movies Get — But It's For Good Reason

When Darcy's neo-Nazis unleash hell on the young punks, Green Room doesn't let up for the rest of its runtime — and the violence is as realistic and squirm-inducing as anything since The Passion of the Christ. It's Stewart's cold calculations and soft-spoken commands to his goons that make it truly chilling, though. Saulnier painted a picture of a vile subculture that still very much thrives in the bowels of America; he just used one of the world's most beloved actors to really make it hit home. Late in the film, when Stewart casually says: "Is he still breathing? ... Let him bleed," it's genuinely blood-chilling.

Stewart himself, in an interview, said he found the character terrifying. When he first read the script, "It scared the shit out of me," he admitted. And the late master was not alone, as Green Room has found a massive audience since leaving theaters, thrilling and terrifying viewers with its pure economy and brutality. Making a crackerjack thriller about something as thorny and disgusting as neo-Nazism is a high wire act to walk, but Saulnier and Stewart both pulled it off masterfully. For this writer's money, it's one of the 100 best American films of all time.

Stewart's most shocking role can be streamed now on Netflix, or rented relatively cheaply on virtually every streaming service. May the world remain grateful for the decades of art he brought to us, and may Sir Patrick Stewart rest in peace.

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