{"id":13419,"date":"2025-11-11T11:46:35","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T16:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=13419"},"modified":"2025-12-23T17:40:39","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T22:40:39","slug":"sarahs-oil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/11\/11\/sarahs-oil\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarah\u2019s Oil"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Sarah\u2019s Oil<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Amazon MGM\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 103 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (thematic content, some violence, language including racial slurs, a suggestive reference)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Cyrus Nowrasteh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh and Cyrus Nowrasteh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Kathryn Bostic\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Johnny Derango\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 7, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Naya Desir-Johnson, Zachary Levi, Kenric Green, Sonequa Martin-Green, Mel Rodriguez, Adyan Copes, Bridget Regan, Garret Dillahunt, Stelio Savante, Marco Fuller, Jonathan Lipnicki.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0It would easy to dismiss the BOATS drama Sarah\u2019s Oil<\/strong> as the family-friendly version of Martin Scorsese\u2019s Killers of the Flower Moon, but it would be unfair. It\u2019s its own movie. It deals with a lot of the same issues in the same setting (Oklahoma\u2019s Osage Nation), but it centers on a different set of characters being treated unfairly by the all-white establishment. They\u2019re not Native American; they\u2019re black.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In 1913, an 11YO black girl named Sarah Rector (Johnson in her first major role) receives 160 acres of land as per the Treaty of 1866. Sarah, an educated and strong-minded girl, claims she can hear oceans of oil down in the ground. Her father Joe (Green, The Walking Dead) is skeptical, but her deeply religious mother Rose (Green, Boston Blue) is moved by her words: \u201cGod gave me ears to hear.\u201d Father and daughter go to town where they convince wealthy oilman Jim Devnan (Dillahunt, Winter\u2019s Bone) to come check it out for himself. He, of course, turns out to be a wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing- i.e. \u00a0he\u2019s a liar and a crook.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Sarah finds an ally in Bert Smith (Levi, The Unbreakable Boy), a wildcatter forever seeking his fortune with his business partner Mace (Rodriguez, The Last Man on Earth). Sarah, a perfect mix of confidence and persuasiveness, convinces Bert to partner up with her. He agrees to pick up where Devnan left off, drilling her land with equipment the dishonest businessman conveniently left behind. That right there should have told Sarah and her family that he\u2019s up to something. He sends a couple of guys to intimate the family into handing over the deed to the land. Sarah fights like hell to keep what\u2019s rightfully hers.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Bert is conflicted. He wants to be rich. This is his golden opportunity. At the same time, he comes to care about the little girl. He doesn\u2019t want to betray her. Devnan offers him the chance to achieve his dream of wealth, but it would mean doing Sarah wrong. What\u2019s a guy always a million bucks shy of being a millionaire to do? Seeing that Sarah\u2019s Oil<\/strong> is one of those inspirational dramas, I think you know what he\u2019s going to do.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh (The Young Messiah), Sarah\u2019s Oil<\/strong> is a pretty good movie. Some are calling it a faith-based film and while God is mentioned a few times, it\u2019s not overly religious or preachy. It simply tells a compelling story about an extraordinary real-life person who defied society norms and fought discrimination and injustice. The movie also deals with the law requiring white guardianship for minorities who were deemed incapable of handling their own finances. That\u2019s how it was with the Native Americans and that\u2019s how it was with blacks. It was a legal way to take their money and keep them down. I\u2019m pleased to see a family movie that isn\u2019t afraid to openly speak about the hard truth of American history.<\/p>\n

\u00a0You know I hate to resort to clich\u00e9s, but I do believe a star is born in Sarah\u2019s Oil<\/strong>. Her name is Naya Desir-Johnson and I predict you\u2019ll be hearing a lot about her in the near future. She\u2019s amazing as Sarah Rector, a young girl as fearless and she is intelligent. This, of course, puts off all the white people who assume she\u2019s an ignorant child. Sarah is one kid that doesn\u2019t let too much get by her. She knows when the adults are trying to pull one over. Johnson makes the character believable by always keeping her performance in check. It\u2019s unusually measured for a child in her first big role. Levi is pretty good as Bert, a man torn between wealth and his conscience. He has a good rapport with Johnson. The two play well off of each other. Look at the scene where Sarah calls him out for off-handedly using a racial slur. She doesn\u2019t over-emote; he listens and takes it in.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There\u2019s really no need to talk about the technical aspects of Sarah\u2019s Oil<\/strong>. The sets, costumes and everything else are all period authentic. The most important thing is it\u2019s a good movie. It\u2019s good not great. It\u2019s completely predictable and formulaic. The outcome is a foregone conclusion even if you don\u2019t know the real Sarah Rector\u2019s story. It held my interest throughout. That, I think, is a ringing endorsement.<\/p>\n

SPOILER: <\/strong>The dog does NOT die. He gets injured and runs off, but comes back.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah\u2019s Oil (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Amazon MGM\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 103 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (thematic content, some violence, language including racial slurs, a suggestive reference)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Cyrus Nowrasteh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh and Cyrus Nowrasteh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Kathryn Bostic\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Johnny Derango\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 7, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Naya Desir-Johnson, Zachary Levi, Kenric Green, Sonequa Martin-Green, Mel Rodriguez, Adyan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13420,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Sarahs-Oil-POSTER.jpg?fit=620%2C918&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13422,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13419\/revisions\/13422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}