Some of the most celebrated, pulse-racing survival thrillers ever have debuted in the 21st century. From Alfonso Cuarón‘s nail-biting outer-space disaster Gravity and Leonardo DiCaprio’s long-overdue Best Actor Oscar win in The Revenant, to Netflix’s multinational drama Society of the Snow and Danny Boyle‘s terrifying 127 Hours, the nerves of viewers have truly been tested this century. However, due to these big-name survival thrillers dominating the genre’s discourse, some others have fallen under the radar.
One such movie to have faded from most minds is Not Without Hope, the survivor thriller based on the harrowing true tale of four men who become stranded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2009, which sadly took the lives of NFL football players Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith. Directed by Joe Carnahan, the film was released in 2025 to very little theatrical fanfare, following its premiere at the Austin Film Festival. Receiving a limited capacity run in theaters, Not Without Hope only returned $231,000 against a budget of $18 million.
Nevertheless, the film has since bounced back, as people flock to streaming to catch the tense and terrifying ordeal of Nick (Zachary Levi), Marquis (Quentin Plair), Corey (Terrence Terrell), and Will (Marshall Cook). At the time of writing, Not Without Hope is one of the ten most-streamed movies on Paramount+ in the U.S. Other films currently proving popular on the streamer include The Running Man — Edgar Wright‘s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name — 2026 horror movie Primate, the cinema-saving blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick, Colleen Hoover’s second adaptation Regretting You, and more.
What Did Collider Say About ‘Not Without Hope’?
Earning a majority of positive submissions on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes with a 77% critics’ score, Not Without Hope was a quiet hit in 2025. But what did Collider think? In Luna Guthrie‘s review, she was less impressed by the survival thriller, saying, “Not Without Hope doesn’t get it all right, and there are a few stylistic missteps, as well as tonal ones, particularly as the action zeroes in on Nick as the sole survivor and seems to lose consideration for the other men’s families.” She continued, “It also feels like it gets a little repetitive towards the end, with rescue missions getting thwarted time and time again.”
Not Without Hope is a streaming hit on Paramount+. Make sure to stay tuned to Collider for all the latest streaming stories.
- Release Date
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December 4, 2025
- Runtime
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119 Minutes
- Director
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Joe Carnahan