The Rivals of Amziah King

Plot

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 Colmar to help, but the honey extractor tears off Colmar's scalp. Retrieving the scalp and Colmar'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 Native American daughter Kateri, who just lost her mother, sharing his homespun philosophy about church potlucks and introducing her to his musician friends and Brazilian American neighbors. He offers her a job caring for his honeybee farm, and they spend a chaotic day removing a swarm of bees from an elementary school, as she comes to share his love for the honeybee, bluegrass music, and their tight-knit community.

However, Amziah's hives are stolen, and the shock leads him to suffer a fatal heart attack. Following his death, his lawyer and bandmate Rippy informs Kateri that she has inherited his struggling honey business with its debts. Kateri 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 paroled criminal Oat, Kateri discovers that Amziah's bees were stolen by Wenyon Amos Stone, a thieving beekeeper working for powerful businessman Dob McCoy. After 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 church potluck, Kateri secretly prepares a meal for Dob to take to his wife, poisoning her with castor beans. Her suspicious death enables Sunderland and the police to attempt to arrest Dob on murder charges, but he leads them on a high-speed chase. Dob is struck by a freight train and flees in a stolen truck but is pursued by armed citizens in another pickup and gunned down. Following his death, Sunderland is able to expose his crimes.

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 satisfied her desire for revenge and saved Amziah's beloved bees, Kateri is determined to become the new queen bee of the local honey trade.

Cast

Matthew McConaughey as Amziah King

Angelina LookingGlass as Kateri

Kurt Russell as Dob McCoy

Jake Horowitz as Remmick

Scott Shepherd as Jimmy

Rob Morgan as Rippy

Tony Revolori as Colmar

Owen Teague as Pirate

Bruce Davis as Sunderland

Cole Sprouse as Oat

Catherine Dyer as Mrs. McCurdy

Jason Davis as Winton

Sandra Ellis Lafferty as Brenda

Harris Stone as Ross Crown

Sharon Blackwood as Juanita

Chip Carriere as Wenyon Amos Stone

Production

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. 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.

In July 2023, Kurt Russell was cast in the film. 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.

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. In August 2023, it was announced that filming wrapped in Alabama.

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

Release

It had its world premiere at the 2025 South by Southwest Film & TV Festival on March 10, 2025. 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. The film was released in limited theaters on August 14, before going wide in the United States on August 21, 2026.

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 89% of 102 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.1/10. 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." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 74 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.