Twelve months ago, I had a cinemagoing experience that I’ve been chasing the high of ever since. The Rivals of Amziah King (2025) premiered in competition at Sundance last year, where it received best-of-the-year buzz and even seemed to have Best Picture prospects. After its premiere, however, the film seemed to disappear into the void. Having seen it in a rare public screening at Melbourne International Film Festival 2025, I was dumbfounded as to how Amziah King wasn’t being pushed to exhibition, and how any distribution body wouldn’t realise that this film arguably represents the pinnacle of the contemporary cinematic form. 

A full year later, the film has finally released in cinemas. While the initial anticipation gained from its buzzy premiere has certainly waned, The Rivals of Amziah King is a relentlessly humanistic film that does immeasurably valuable work towards the regeneration of cinema as an art form. The film follows titular Amziah, a banjo-playing beekeeper whose pride and joy is his industry-leading ethical honey manufacturing plant. Set against the backdrop of muggy Oklahoma, the film tells an urgent story of agricultural terrorism, economic monopolisation of our planet and, above all, the power of the individual against the system.

From the film’s opening scene, The Rivals of Amziah King promises that you won’t see another film like it this year. Eager onlookers are treated to the first of the film’s many twee-folk musical numbers, where Amziah and his entourage serenade a drive-in diner with twangy string instruments and an unexpected yet incredibly welcome level of boot-scooting. From that point on, the film never slows down, catapulting its characters down a narrative defined by unrelenting chaos and unrest. Zone out for even ten seconds and you’ll miss a vital montage or a key component in the undoing of the agricultural monopolies that plague Amziah’s life and broader community. Watching the film and comprehending how it delivers its story to its audience is a treat in itself, as the creative fashions in which director Andrew Patterson manipulates camerawork provides a completely unique viewing experience. Watching Amziah King feels like you’re being let in on an entirely new level of filmmaking. It feels like an experiment in what can actually be achieved in the cinematic medium. Patterson does not fail to provide justification for his unorthodox practices—his final product is truly one-of-a-kind. 

Another of the film’s strengths lies in its ensemble cast, led by Matthew McConaughey as Amziah and newcomer Angelina LookingGlass as his estranged foster daughter, Kateri. After running into now-adult Kateri, who left his care at a young age following the death of his wife, Amziah takes her back under his wing and teaches her the ways of beekeeping. Kateri gradually becomes the film’s focus as her role in Amziah’s life and in the narrative shifts, ultimately leaving her as our protagonist. Other cast standouts include Jake Horowitz as Remmick and Scott Shepherd as Chimmy, the latter of whom carries much of the film’s side-clutching moments of humour. Across the film exists an incredibly lived-in sense of community, as Amziah’s friends and acquaintances don't hesitate to embrace Kateri as one of their own. In one scene, Amziah introduces Kateri to a potluck dinner, each dish accompanied with an anecdotal cutaway of who prepared it. The sequence is one of the most effective examples of worldbuilding in recent memory: audiences are treated to fleeting glimpses of the individuals who fill out the world of the film, whose varied circumstances and idiosyncrasies make the narrative feel so alive.

The immediacy of Amziah King not only comes as a consequence of its unapologetic originality in a media landscape threatened by the continued prioritisation of franchises over new works, but also in response to the ever-growing climate crisis. The film’s second half is devoted to Kateri taking revenge on Dob McCoy—an agricultural monopolist who steals Amziah’s beehives and catalyses much of the film’s narrative. His crimes are presented to the audience in montage, but unlike previous applications of the fast-paced editing technique, there is a distinct sense of melancholy set against the whirlwind of information. McCoy is representative of the unethical economic powers that permeate our own reality, and Kateri’s quest to undo his empire is a journey of rebellion that is impossible not to empathise with. There’s also an element of land reclamation at play, as Kateri’s indigeneity and symbiotic manner of interacting with her environment and the resources within it are constantly at odds with McCoy’s invasive practices. Amziah King is a film that refuses to shy away from the evil deeds of capitalistic oligarchs and works to expose the systems in place to protect them. Patterson knows that McCoy’s tale of greed and Kateri’s environmental rebellion are far from fiction—offering up a film informed by tangible lived experience.

The Rivals of Amziah King is truly the entire package. The film releasing after so long to such little fanfare feels like one of the great injustices of the last ten years in film, but it won’t be the last great cinematic work not to receive the attention it so justifiably deserves. Amziah and Kateri are protagonists that actively oppose everything that’s wrong with our society, and the film around them delivers their story in a fashion that’s entirely individual and tests the boundaries of what audiences can expect from their storytelling. The public missing Amziah King in cinemas almost feels like an inevitability, but rest assured that this film will persevere as one of the most urgent works this decade.