Credit: Netflix

It’s been a very loud Pattinson season lately, because wherever you look, Robert Pattinson is there, and who’s complaining? Between The Drama with Zendaya and all the early talk around Dune: Part Three, again with Zendaya, his name is everywhere. With those and The Odyssey and The Batman Part II, 2026 is looking like a never-ending Pattinson season.

And then you remember something that makes the whole situation even more fun to look at, because before all this Zendaya-related buzz, Pattinson had already worked with her long-term boyfriend (and alleged husband), Tom Holland, in an astonishingly underrated Netflix movie.

The film is The Devil All the Time, and it’s one of those Netflix psychological crime thrillers that people watched once and then didn’t talk about enough, which is surprising because the cast alone should have kept it in conversation for much longer. It is based on Donald Ray Pollock’s novel of the same name, which already had a strong following for its dark, interconnected storytelling, and the author himself actually narrates parts of the film, which feels iconic when you watch it.

The story starts in rural Ohio and West Virginia, right after World War II, and it introduces Willard Russell, played by Bill Skarsgård, a man who comes back from war carrying memories that clearly haven’t left him alone. Instead of finding peace, he turns to religion in a rather odd way.

His son Arvin grows up in that environment, watching everything, learning more than a child should. As the story goes forward, Tom Holland plays the role of a grown-up Arvin and brings a version that feels guarded and shaped by everything he has seen and experienced.

Then Pattinson enters as Preston Teagardin, who is this preacher who seems charming at first, saying all the right things and getting people to trust him, and for a second you almost believe him too, but then the more he talks, the more you start realising that something is very off. But Pattinson has played the character with such conviction that you can’t look away from the screen.

At the same time, the film brings in Carl and Sandy Henderson, played by Jason Clarke and Riley Keough, and their storyline is genuinely disturbing because they drive around picking up hitchhikers. But that’s not the disturbing part. It’s what they do afterwards.

What’s interesting about The Devil All the Time is how all these characters begin to connect over time, because the main essence of the film is finding how all of them are linked together.

It didn’t make a huge splash when it landed on Netflix, which is surprising considering the cast. But watching it now with a whole new perspective will feel different. With Pattinson back in the spotlight and Holland choosing more ambitious roles, it feels like a reminder that they were already doing good work before people noticed.