The Rivals of Amziah King

Summarize Fact Check

In rural Oklahoma, beekeeper and bluegrass musician Amziah King is called on by OSBI Agent Sunderland to identify a truckload of stolen honey. Amziah's former employee Remmick arrives with his friend Komar to help, but the honey extractor tears off Komar's scalp. Retrieving the scalp and Komar's lucky hat, Amziah and his right-hand man Jimmy speed to the hospital, where Amziah receives medication for his heart condition.

Amziah reunites with his former foster daughter Kateri, sharing his homespun philosophy about potlucks and introducing her to his musician friends and neighbors. He offers her a job caring for his bee yards, and they spend a chaotic day removing a swarm of bees from an elementary school, as she comes to share his love for the honey bee, music, and their tight-knit community.

Amziah's hives are stolen, and the shock leads him to suffer a fatal heart attack. His lawyer and band mate Rippy informs Kateri that she has inherited his struggling honey business, which she refuses to sell, determined to find the thieves and continue Amziah's legacy. Jailed for drunk driving, Jimmy urges Kateri to track down the hives, but her inquiries turn up empty as the business runs out of honey.

An owner of the previously stolen honey points Kateri to a fellow beekeeper who unknowingly bought some of Amziah's missing hives. With the information-gathering services of Oat, Kateri discovers that Amziah's bees were stolen by Wenyon Amos Stone, a thieving beekeeper working for powerful businessman Dob McCoy. Following Wenyon, Kateri locks him in his overheated honey processing room, killing him.

Kateri enlists Remmick's help to steal back Amziah's bees. They sneak onto Wenyon's remote property, floating the hives on makeshift rafts down the river to their getaway truck. The heist is caught on camera, and Remmick is arrested for breaking parole. The recovered bees and honey are sent to auction, and Rippy helps raise money for Kateri but she is outbid by Dob, who has grown rich by taking advantage of his neighbors.

Vowing to destroy Dob's life, the vengeful Kateri nearly poisons his dog, and realizes that he is caring for his critically ill wife. At a potluck, Kateri secretly prepares a meal for Dob to bring his wife, poisoning her with castor beans. Her suspicious death enables Sunderland and the police to attempt to arrest Dob, who leads them on a high-speed chase. Dob is struck by a train and flees in a stolen truck, but is pursued by bystanders and gunned down.

Remmick and Jimmy are paroled, joining Kateri and their friends in stealing back Amziah's hives again, and a sympathetic Sunderland considers the matter closed. Having fulfilled her revenge and saved Amziah's beloved bees, Kateri is determined to become the new queen bee of the local honey trade.

• Matthew McConaughey as Amziah King^[5]
• Angelina LookingGlass as Kateri^[6]
• Kurt Russell^[7][8] as Dob McCoy
• Scott Shepherd^[6]
• Rob Morgan^[6] as Rippy
• Tony Revolori^[6] as Komar
• Cole Sprouse^[6] as Oat
• Owen Teague^[6]
• Jake Horowitz^[6][9] as Remmick
• Catherine Dyer as Mrs. McCurdy
• Jason Davis as Winton
• Sandra Ellis Lafferty as Brenda
• Harris Stone as Ross Crown
• Bruce Davis as Sunderland
• Sharon Blackwood as Juanita
• Chip Carriere as Wenyon Amos Stone

In May 2023, it was announced that Andrew Patterson wrote and would direct The Rivals of Amziah King, with Matthew McConaughey starring and Black Bear Pictures financing the film.^[10][11] Patterson had been developing the film since 2020; Prior to McConaughey joining the film, Denzel Washington met with Patterson for the lead role but demanded more creative control than Patterson was comfortable offering.^[12]

In July 2023, Kurt Russell was cast in the film.^[13][14] Rob Morgan, Scott Shepherd, Cole Sprouse, Owen Teague, Tony Revolori, Jake Horowitz and Angelina LookingGlass quietly joined the cast around the same time with LookingGlass chosen over 200 other candidates.^[15][12]

Filming occurred in Alabama during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike in which SAG-AFTRA granted the filmmakers an interim agreement to allow principal photography to occur during the strike.^[16] In August 2023, it was announced that filming wrapped in Alabama.^[17][18]

During a lengthy post-production, Patterson faced creative clashes with his producers before his vision ultimately won out.^[12] There was an alternate cut overseen by unsatisfied producers that ultimately tested lower than Patterson's.

It had its world premiere at the 2025 South by Southwest Film & TV Festival on March 10, 2025.^[2][19] In August 2025, Black Bear Pictures announced that they would release the film themselves theatrically through their new U.S. distribution division, with a release date to be announced.^[20] The film is scheduled to be released in limited theaters on August 14, before going wide in the United States on August 21, 2026.^[21][22]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 90% of 78 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8/10. The website's consensus reads: "The Rivals of Amziah King is a sprawling, unpredictable, and genre-blurring epic, anchored by Matthew McConaughey's charm and Angelina LookingGlass's striking debut."^[23] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 74 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.^[24]