A New Robert De Niro Serial Killer Movie Is No. 1 On Netflix’s Top 10 List

Netflix has once again rounded up a slate of high-profile actors for an original feature film, one that has, unsurprisingly, hit #1 on the service immediately.

The movie is The Whisper Man, which stars Robert De Niro, True Detective’s Michelle Monaghan, and Severance’s Adam Scott, alongside Michael Keaton, Hamish Linklater, and Acston Luca Porto. It’s directed by James Ashcroft, who has not made a film this widely-watched to date, given that it is difficult to top being the #1 movie on Netflix, after all. Here’s the synopsis of The Whisper Man:

“A grieving father and his young son relocate to the quiet town of Featherbank, which was terrorized by a serial killer known as The Whisper Man 15 years earlier, while rumors circulate that Whisper Man worked with an accomplice.”

So, The Whisper Man isn’t a ghost, but a serial killer. It was probably a coin flip with a name like that. A new crime movie with big stars and Robert De Niro in the thumbnail? It’s no wonder that The Whisper Man is already enormously popular on Netflix. But is it any good?

As of now, critics and audiences both say no. The Whisper Man has a 41% Rotten Tomatoes score from critics and a barely-better 45% audience score. Its 6.3/10 on IMDB is marginally better, but the overall impression is no, the movie isn’t great. The Whisper Man also comes on the back of another Netflix horror movie, The Last House. That film was previously #1 for a spell and also featured great actors like Wagner Moura and Greta Lee. And it was also bad, a 22% critic score and a 27% audience score. Having seen the movie, I’d say that is accurate.

It’s not ideal for Adam Scott, who just came off a really great turn in another 2026 horror movie, Hokum, so he’s 1-for-2 there. Michelle Monaghan’s highest-profile role lately was in the latest season of The White Lotus, though she’ll soon be back in Bad Monkey season 2. As for Robert De Niro, the legendary actor doesn’t always take legendary roles these days, and his recent history is very hit-or-miss. His last Netflix partnership, the miniseries Zero Day, put up rotten scores. His most recent movie role in 2025, Tin Soldier, has a 3.3/10 on IMDB and an 8%(!) Rotten Tomatoes score. But then we only have to go back to 2023 when he starred in the fantastic Killers of the Flower Moon, which reunited him with Martin Scorsese. So big, big hits and big, big misses.

This is far from the first Netflix original serial killer tale, as most famously, Mindhunter is one of the best series on the service. This does, however, seem to be another case of the Netflix name being able to assemble and pay a big-name cast for relatively lackluster results. Many such cases.

If you want to watch The Whisper Man, you might as well. It’s under two hours and at least the cast is good. You might like it more than you think, and I’m going to give it a shot just in case critics and audiences are way off base.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.