Jon Bernthal's Action Thriller Cult Classic Makes Official Comeback on Streaming

Apple TV continues to add amazing licensed movies to its streaming library, and its latest hit is Jon Bernthal’s incredibly divisive action thriller. Apple TV is best known for its original programming, mainly series like Severance, Silo, Dark Matter, and Ted Lasso. The streamer has had some hits with its movies, like Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and Brad Pitt’s F1. But it’s safe to say they’re not at the same standard as its television. That’s why Apple has slowly been adding beloved movies to its library over the past two months. Jon Bernthal might be making a killing at the box office, thanks to The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but the real killing is happening in his intense and divisive 2016 action thriller that’s blasting up the streaming charts.

Directed by Gavin O’Connor, The Accountant is now streaming on Apple TV. The movie was added to the platform in early September, and it has quickly found its fan base. It might have been a financial success, grossing $155 million against a $44 million budget, but it was famously a critical failure. However, The Accountant is now a certified cult classic, and it’s thanks in part to streaming. That cult fan base has honed its sights on Apple TV, as The Accountant has cracked the platform’s global top 10. That means it’s currently as popular as the streamer’s biggest movies, like F1, The Gorge, and Ryan Reynolds’ new action comedy Mayday.

‘The Accountant’ Deserved Better

The Accountant is one of those unfortunate cases of a great movie being killed by terrible marketing. Ben Affleck leads as Christian Wolff, an accountant (if the title didn’t already give it away), who performs shady financial work for even shadier companies. But with the FBI on his tail, he takes on a legitimate client to cover his tracks, but this new client soon becomes embroiled in his illicit work. The film also starred Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, John Lithgow, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Jeff Tambor, and Jean Smart.

In the build-up to its release, The Accountant was marketed as a proper action movie; the kind Jason Statham might star in. However, it is actually more of a slow-burning thriller with small hits of action. As a result, critics and audiences felt they were mis-sold, and The Accountant was given a poor 53% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However, in the years since, it has slowly found a cult following, resulting in a 77% audience rating on RT and a 3.4/5 Letterboxd average score.

‘The Accountant 2’ Was Even Bigger and Even Better

The Accountant was financially successful enough to warrant a sequel, and Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal returned in 2025 for the appropriately named The Accountant 2. The sequel leaned harder into the action, and it was definitely the right way to go. The Accountant 2 holds a decent RT score of 75%, and its audience rating is far higher at a staggering 92%. Ironically, The Accountant 2‘s financials were all over the place, as it grossed only $103 million against an $80 million budget. That’s not a return on investment that a good accountant would be happy with.