Wesley Snipes’ The Contractor Returns Top 10 on Netflix

Wesley Snipes’ 2007 TV action spy thriller The Contractor is back in the spotlight, newly added to Netflix’s global library and climbing into the top 10. The film stars Snipes alongside Lena Headey and features Charles Dance in a small role, with its streaming

When Wesley Snipes’ name pops up, it usually pulls fans straight to Blade. But this time, the attention is going somewhere older—and it’s coming from a platform that can turn forgotten titles into overnight conversation.

Back in 2007, Snipes headlined The Contractor, a TV action movie/spy thriller that never made its way to theaters. Nearly two decades later, it has found a second life: The Contractor was recently added to Netflix’s global library and has surged into the top 10 there.

This isn’t the only place viewers can stream the film. In America, The Contractor is also available to stream for free on the Roku Channel. Still, Netflix’s spotlight has been the spark, sending the movie back into the kind of discovery it didn’t have when it premiered on cable nearly 20 years ago.

Snipes’ role in the film matters for a reason beyond star power. The film’s title has an extra layer of confusion for audiences, because it’s not the same project as Chris Pine’s 2022 conspiracy thriller of the same name. The 2007 Wesley Snipes version is its own thing entirely.

Lena Headey—known to many for her work as Cersei in the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones—has a key role here as DI Annette Ballard. Game of Thrones fans may find it especially striking that The Contractor even came before Headey was widely discovered for that Cersei performance. Charles Dance, who played Headey’s father in Game of Thrones, also appears in The Contractor in a small role.

The details that often come with a theatrical release just aren’t there for this one. As a TV movie, The Contractor was never released into theaters, and budget information was never reported—an absence that makes the film’s sudden streaming momentum feel even more surprising.

The project’s renewed visibility also puts a spotlight on what The Contractor is actually about. An official synopsis says: “A former CIA assassin is drawn out of retirement for one last sanctioned kill — but when the mission goes sideways. he’s left stranded in London. hunted by both British authorities and the agency that hired him. With nowhere to turn. he forms an unlikely bond with a troubled young boy as he fights to survive and find a way home.”.

It’s the kind of plot that reads like it should have been built for a bigger stage than cable—so Netflix climbing into the top 10 gives it that long-delayed moment. Even the movie’s reception history now feels part of the story. The film doesn’t even have a score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. and it earned a Rotten 28% from audiences on the Popcornmeter.

Still, that mismatch between what people may have thought back then and what they’re watching now is exactly what’s driving the chatter. The Contractor is now available on Netflix globally, and viewers in America can catch it on the Roku Channel.

Wesley Snipes may be remembered for Marvel’s vampire-hunter, but right now, his 2007 spy thriller is doing something different: it’s pulling a fresh audience to a story that never left the world. It just waited for the right streaming moment.

Wesley Snipes The Contractor Netflix Lena Headey Charles Dance Josef Rusnak 2007 action thriller Roku Channel DI Annette Ballard