Jacob Elordi has claimed his place on television and film as the ideal romantic lead. From The Kissing Booth to Euphoria and Wuthering Heights, the actor continues to build his filmography with romance roles while also venturing into thrillers and horror. The last several years have been especially good for him with successful movies and TV shows, even as Euphoria Season 3 dragged on. The actor returned to the show that made him a household name, but between seasons, he starred in a forgotten romance drama that is seeing renewed interest.
The film premiered in 2025 and was praised for its performances, but ultimately received low ratings for other aspects. With a 53% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it was generally poorly received and did not make the awards circuit. Meanwhile, Elordi starred alongside Margot Robbie in Wuthering Heights, which wasn’t positively received either. Finally, Euphoria is back for a panned third season. All these projects are available to stream on HBO Max, and despite their low ratings, Wuthering Heights and Euphoria are currently the top movie and TV show on the streamer. Their success has carried over to the movie in question, On Swift Horses, which ranked eighth on FlixPatrol at the time of writing.
On Swift Horses is an LGBTQ romance drama film directed by Daniel Minahan with Elordi (Julius), Daisy Edgar-Jones (Muriel), Will Poulter (Lee), Sasha Calle (Sandra), and Diego Calva (Henry) in the lead roles. It is set after the Korean War, when two brothers return home but can’t find the stability they wish for. Julius grows restless and begins a romantic relationship with a card cheat, while Lee’s wife leaves to pursue her own desires. Critics were impressed by the acting and the themes explored, but the ending left something to be desired. “On Swift Horses capitalizes on a steadfast cast while grappling with contemplatively rich themes of society, sexuality, and morality to a mostly astute end,” their consensus reads.
Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
01
What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.
02
Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?
03
How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
04
What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
05
What do you want from a film’s ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
06
Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.
07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
What’s Next for Jacob Elordi?
The actor can currently be seen on Euphoria, but he has other projects in the pipeline. He stars alongside Josh Brolin in The Dog Stars, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller in theaters this August. Meanwhile, a Sam Levinson-verse reunion occurs in Outer Dark, the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy‘s 1968 novel of the same name, in which Elordi stars with Lily-Rose Depp (The Idol). The film, about a young woman searching for her missing newborn, is expected to begin production this year.
You can watch On Swift Horses, Wuthering Heights, and Euphoria on HBO Max in the U.S. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
Release Date
July 25, 2025
Runtime
96 minutes
Director
Daniel Minahan
Writers
Bryce Kass
Producers
Bryce Kass, Christine Vachon, David Darby, Pamela Koffler, Peter Spears, Tim Headington, Nate Kamiya, Jacob Elordi, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jenifer Westphal, Alvaro R. Valente, Joe Plummer, Theresa Steele Page, Claude Amadeo, Michael D’Alto
