Cillian Murphy and Rachel McAdams thriller Red Eye is winning over viewers again

A seemingly ordinary flight to Miami turns into a terrifying fight for survival in Red Eye, the 2005 thriller starring Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy.

More than two decades after its release, the film continues to attract praise from viewers who describe it as one of the most gripping thrillers in its genre. It is also currently available to stream for free on BBC iPlayer in the UK.

Directed by Wes Craven, the filmmaker behind Scream and A Nightmare on Elm Street, Red Eye takes a relatively simple premise and builds much of its tension around two passengers sitting beside each other on an overnight flight.

Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy face off at 30,000 feet

McAdams plays Lisa Reisert, a hotel manager travelling back to Miami. Before boarding her flight, she meets an attractive stranger at the airport and shares a drink with him at the bar.

The encounter initially seems harmless. Things become considerably more unsettling when Lisa discovers that the same man, Jackson Rippner, is sitting next to her on the plane.

Murphy plays Jackson, whose friendly and charming personality quickly disappears once the aircraft is in the air. He reveals that he is involved in a terrorist plot to assassinate Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Charles Keefe.

Jackson needs Lisa’s help because Keefe is staying at the hotel she manages. He orders her to make a phone call and have the Keefe family moved to another suite, which has been selected as the target of a missile attack.

Lisa tries repeatedly to delay him and find a way to get help. Jackson, however, has anticipated her attempts and keeps tightening the pressure.

The film’s confined setting makes the situation particularly tense. Lisa is surrounded by other passengers, yet she cannot simply reveal what is happening without putting herself and her family in even greater danger.

The story then moves beyond the flight as Lisa decides she will no longer allow Jackson to control her. Her actions in Miami dramatically change the course of the assassination attempt.

Viewers have continued to praise the performances

Despite being somewhat overlooked by film fans, Red Eye has developed a lasting following.

Viewers have particularly singled out McAdams and Murphy, with one Rotten Tomatoes user calling it the “Best movie ever” while praising McAdams’ acting.

Another viewer described it as one of McAdams’ best films, praising the suspense and the way the story keeps the audience wondering how Lisa will escape her predicament. Murphy’s performance as the villain also received particular praise.

That reaction is reflected more broadly in the film’s reception. Red Eye currently holds an 80% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes from 194 critic reviews, with the site’s consensus praising its performances and Craven’s tight direction.

The film was also recognised by Rotten Tomatoes as one of the better-reviewed wide releases of 2005.

Its relatively short 85-minute running time helps maintain the pace, with much of the story relying on dialogue, confined spaces and the escalating psychological battle between Lisa and Jackson rather than large-scale action sequences.

Even Cillian Murphy has been critical of the film

There is one notable difference between the enthusiasm of many viewers and Murphy’s own assessment of Red Eye.

In a 2024 interview with GQ, Murphy reflected on the film and said that although he loved working with McAdams and had enjoyed making it, he did not think it was a particularly good movie.

His verdict was that it was “a good B movie.”

The description is revealing because Red Eye is built around a straightforward thriller concept. The film does not depend on sprawling locations or elaborate set pieces. Instead, it places two central characters in a confined environment and steadily increases the pressure between them.

That approach has helped the film remain watchable long after its original theatrical release.

Rotten Tomatoes has similarly described it as a brisk, economical thriller, while a retrospective published by the site argued that the movie had been unfairly overlooked among Wes Craven’s work.

A thriller that was easy to overlook

When Red Eye arrived in cinemas on August 19, 2005, it was released during a period when large-scale Hollywood productions were often competing for attention with increasingly elaborate action sequences.

Yet Craven’s film deliberately keeps its premise focused.

Lisa and Jackson’s confrontation begins in an airport, moves onto the plane and eventually returns to the hotel environment that is central to the assassination plot. The limited settings become part of the film’s appeal, allowing the tension between the two characters to remain at the centre of the story.

The screenplay was written by Carl Ellsworth, based on a story by Ellsworth and Dan Foos, while Craven directed the film. The cast also includes Brian Cox as Lisa’s father, Joe Reisert, Jayma Mays as Cynthia and Jack Scalia as Charles Keefe.

The result was a thriller that critics generally received positively, even if it never achieved the same cultural profile as some of the stars’ later work.

For Murphy in particular, Red Eye arrived in the same year as Batman Begins, in which he played Dr Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow. He would later become known for major productions including Inception, Dunkirk and Oppenheimer.

Red Eye is available on BBC iPlayer

For anyone who missed the film when it was released, Red Eye is currently available to stream for free on BBC iPlayer in the UK. It is also listed as available through several rental and purchase services.

With its short running time, tightly focused story and central battle between McAdams and Murphy, the film offers a relatively contained thriller that continues to find new viewers more than 20 years after its theatrical release.

And while Murphy himself may regard it as a “good B movie”, many viewers have clearly reached a rather different conclusion about how entertaining the film remains.