On Swift Horses

Plot

In the 1950s, Julius Walker travels to Kansas to spend Christmas with his brother Lee and Lee’s girlfriend Muriel, following the end of his Navy service in the Korean War. Later that evening, Muriel accepts Lee's proposal of marriage, and they plan to move from Kansas to California once Lee has finished his own military service, where Julius is invited to come and live with them in due course. Six months later, Muriel and Lee have married and are living in San Diego, but Julius prefers to follow his own path in life and decides to travel to Las Vegas instead.

In Las Vegas, Julius is hired by manager Terence to work in surveillance at a casino, looking down from the loft through a one-way mirror to try and spot people who are attempting to cheat at cards. At the casino he befriends Henry, a Mexican colleague working alongside him in the loft. They begin to grow closer after Henry collapses in Julius' arms one day while working during a heatwave. Afterwards, Henry takes Julius out for an atomic cocktail to thank him for taking care of him, and as the evening goes on it becomes clear they are falling in love with each other. Later that night, they go back to Julius' motel room where they make love for the first time. As their relationship progresses, the two men move in together, and Julius tells Henry that this is the first time in his life he has felt this way, and that he now believes he has a future to look forward to.

Back in San Diego, Muriel is dissatisfied with the daily grind of working as a waitress and decides to try her luck at betting on horse racing, where she quickly scores a major win. Her success enables her and Lee to afford a new house in the outskirts of the city, although she keeps her gambling a secret from her husband and instead pretends that she got the money by selling her old home in Kansas. While touring potential new houses, Muriel meets a woman called Sandra who lives near one of the properties in question, and they are instantly drawn to each other, which convinces Muriel that this is the place where she wants to buy a new home. Meanwhile, Julius and Henry begin to go out gambling together in Las Vegas with great success, including notable victories at a casino called Aces High. However, Henry wants to take things further by using cheating to win, as an act of defiance against a world in which they must keep their love a secret. Julius is nervous about taking this kind of risk but eventually agrees to Henry's plan.

In San Diego, Muriel takes further risks at gambling when she returns to the racetrack to make another bet on a horse, where she encounters a woman named Gail who has bet on the same one. When their horse wins the race, the two women celebrate and Gail kisses Muriel on the lips. Afterwards, Gail gives Muriel a matchbook with the name of the Chester Hotel & Bar on it, implying that this is a place with a special significance. Later, Muriel checks out the hotel, and finds it is a secret meeting place for queer people. After Muriel’s discovery, she goes to see Sandra, who she has now realized is a lesbian, and makes it clear she is attracted to her. The two women kiss and begin a secret affair.

Cast

Daisy Edgar-Jones as Muriel Edwards, Lee's wife

Jacob Elordi as Julius Walker, Lee's brother and a Korean War veteran

Will Poulter as Lee Walker, Muriel's husband and Julius' brother

Diego Calva as Henry, Julius' lover

Sasha Calle as Sandra Gutiérrez, Muriel's neighbor and lover

Kat Cunning as Gail, a gambler in San Diego

Andrew Keenan-Bolger as Rosie, a jockey in San Diego

Don Swayze as Terence, a casino manager in Las Vegas

Production

Development

The original novel by Shannon Pufahl was first published in November 2019. In July 2021, producer Peter Spears and director Daniel Minahan announced that they were developing a film adaptation of the book with Tim Headington and his production company Ley Line Entertainment, and that Bryce Kass would be writing the script. Mollye Asher and Michael D'Alto of FirstGen Content, along with Theresa Steele Page of Ley Line Entertainment, would later join Spears, Minahan and Headington as producers. The film would ultimately be billed as a Ley Line Entertainment and FirstGen Content production in association with Spears' production company Cor Cordium, The Dan Corp and Wavelength. The film also marked a reunion for Asher and Spears following their success as two of the producers of the Oscar-winning film Nomadland. The film's executive producers would later be confirmed as Nate Kamiya and David Darby for Ley Line Entertainment, Randal Sandler, Claude Amadeo and Chris Triana for FirstGen, Jennifer Westphal and Joe Plummer for Wavelength, and Teddy Schwarzman and John Friedberg for Black Bear, in addition to Christine Vachon, Mason Plotts, Bryce Kass, Alvaro Valente, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Lauren Shelton, Jacob Elordi and Jeffrey Penman.

When the film was announced as being in production in February 2023, Deadline stated that Killer Films were also one of the production companies involved, and the company’s co-founders Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler were both listed as executive producers. However, by the time of the world premiere in September 2024, Koffler's name had been taken off the film, and the company’s name was not listed in TIFF's online credits for the project. Despite this, when Sony Pictures Classics announced in October 2024 that they had bought the distribution rights for the film, Killer Films were still listed in the official press release as one of the companies involved, and continued to be mentioned in SPC’s later press material for the film, although neither the company’s name nor logo appear on the film’s marketing materials alongside those belonging to the other companies involved. There has been no public comment from Killer Films or Sony Pictures Classics on the reasons for these discrepancies.

Filming

Principal photography was confirmed to be underway in Los Angeles on February 28, 2023. Diego Calva told Variety that he and Jacob Elordi have some "pretty hot scenes", and later said in an interview with Attitude that he "had like a neck pain for the first week from just kissing" Elordi.

Music

The original score for the film was composed by Mark Orton. An original song for the film, "Song for Henry", focusing on Julius' love for Henry and his determination to find him again, was written by the singer-songwriter Loren Kramar and Sean O'Brien and performed by Kramar for the soundtrack. In a post on Instagram, Kramar said: "To be a part of this project, which has everything to do with queer lives and the ongoing pursuit of self, is a privilege." The soundtrack was digitally released by Madison Gate Records on April 25, 2025, the same day as the film's theatrical release in the United States. In addition to Orton's original score and Kramar's "Song for Henry", the soundtrack also included Kramar's a cappella cover version of the 1950s song "Mr. Blue" (originally written by Dewayne Blackwell), which is featured during the opening credits of the film.

Release

The film had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2024. In October 2024, Sony Pictures Classics announced that they had acquired distribution rights in North and Latin America, Turkey, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, India, Italy, Australia and New Zealand. A Variety article, drawn from conversations with SPC co-president Michael Barker, mentioned the film as being a part of the company's slate for the following year. Following TIFF, the film was next shown in public as the Secret Screening at the Palm Springs International Film Festival on January 10, 2025. It was also the closing night film for the 2025 South by Southwest, where it screened on March 13, 2025. The film was released in the US on April 25, 2025. In France it was released under the title Les Indomptés (The Untamed) by Metropolitan Filmexport on April 30, 2025. In Spain it was released under the title Indomables (Indomitable) by the indie distributor Beta Fiction Spain on August 8, 2025. It was released in the UK and Ireland by Sony on September 5, 2025.

Marketing

The marketing of the film has been criticised by publications including Variety and the Washington Blade for frequently downplaying, and sometimes erasing, the fact that many of the characters are LGBTQ and that there are same-sex relationships in the film; the marketing was also criticised for straightwashing the promotional materials by falsely implying that the film includes a love affair between the characters played by Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jacob Elordi, when no affair actually takes place between them, and both are involved in same-sex romantic relationships with other characters instead. The misleading nature of the film's marketing was also highlighted by other outlets including The Observer and The Conversation.

Variety's chief film critic Peter Debruge noted in his review that the film was "a gay love story" and pointed out that this had not been mentioned in some of the official marketing materials. "It feels like the opposite of a spoiler — something between a consumer service and a selling point — to address what the festival capsules only coyly imply, using phrases like "self-discovery" (Toronto) and "exploring a love she never dreamed possible" (SXSW)." Debruge also stated that official plot synopses for the film had been "deliberately deceptive" and misled people about the nature of the connection between the male and female leads, as well as the fact that these synopses avoid mentioning that both characters are actually involved in same-sex relationships in the film. "The... queer period drama explores the challenges of coming out in the 1950s, as two characters attracted not to one another — as those deliberately deceptive plot synopses would have you think — but to members of their own genders."

The Washington Blade, the oldest LGBTQ newspaper in the US, praised the film but criticised the way it had been promoted, noting that "Sony Pictures' promotions avoid referencing queer sexuality of main characters." In a review, John Paul King said: "You might not know it from the publicity campaign, but the latest big-screen project for breakout "Euphoria" actor and sex symbol Jacob Elordi is 100% a gay love story" and "unequivocally a "Queer Movie"." King described the relationship between Elordi and Diego Calva's character as "joyously queer-affirming", and went on to criticise the fact that the promotion of the film had downplayed this: "Sony Pictures' promotions for the film – which avoid directly referencing the sexuality of its two main characters, instead hinting at "secret desires" and implying a romantic connection between Elordi and Edgar-Jones – feels not just like a miscalculation, but a slap in the face." The review concluded by commenting that the film's positive message about queer relationships should be something to be highlighted, not concealed in the marketing: "Though it's an eloquent, quietly insightful look back at American cultural history, it incorporates those observations into a wistful, bittersweet, but somehow impossibly hopeful story that emphasizes the validity of queer love. That's something to be celebrated, not buried."

Reception

Box office

In the United States and Canada, On Swift Horses opened alongside The Accountant 2, Until Dawn, The Legend of Ochi, Cheech & Chong's Last Movie, and the 2025 re-releases of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Happy Gilmore, and Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii, and grossed $542,360 during the weekend of April 25–27, ranking 14th at the box office. As of 4 November 2025, the film had made $1 million at the domestic box office and $200,000 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $1.2 million.

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 53% of 131 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "On Swift Horses capitalizes on a steadfast cast while grappling with contemplatively rich themes of society, sexuality, and morality to a mostly astute end." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 63 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

Jourdain Searles of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film is "beautiful, heartbreaking, and demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible. Elordi gives his best performance yet as Julius, showing his more sensitive, vulnerable side on the big screen for perhaps the first time. His love scenes with Calva are tender and exciting... Calva proves his memorable turn in the underrated Babylon two years ago was just a warm-up. He's got so much more to offer." Regarding Edgar-Jones, Searles wrote that "in perhaps her meatiest role since Normal People, Edgar-Jones gives an understated performance as Muriel, letting us get to know her through subtle gestures and expressions."

Nicolas Rapold, the former editor of Film Comment, described the film as a "beautifully realised 1950s romance" in a review for the Financial Times, and wrote that "Minahan and his cast don't reduce Julius's or Muriel's affairs to a vehicle for prestige tragedy or steamy entertainment. Their experiences feel as if they might reflect any one of countless lives or loves constrained by social conformity and bias at the time. While glamour could dazzle on screens and red carpets at the festival, the handsome stars...are put in the service of something that at times can feel even rarer—ordinary emotional truths."

Meanwhile, in a more dissenting review, Pete Hammond of Deadline Hollywood contended that too many plot developments are interwoven "throughout this disjointed movie, which can't seem to decide which thread to follow or which character to focus on, and so it does it all. Edgar-Jones also seems to have a tough time getting a real handle on just who Muriel is... Elordi is becoming one of the most interesting actors around, especially after Saltburn and Euphoria have cemented his sex symbol bona fides. If they ever remake Hud, he's the guy. However, it is Calva, the discovery from Damien Chazelle's Babylon, who is the standout, an intriguing character to be sure. And Calva hits all the right notes—in and out of bed with Elordi. [Also] Montpellier's golden-hued cinematography really reflects California's allure of the times, and the film looks terrific."