After You Watch ‘Animals’ on Netflix, Stream ‘Highest 2 Lowest’ on Apple TV

By Anna Menta

About 40 minutes into Animals—the new Ben Affleck Netflix movie that’s been trending No.1 on the streaming platform since its release on Friday—viewers are treated to a somewhat predictable plot twist. It’s extra predictable for viewers who’ve watched Spike Lee’s 2025 crime thriller, Highest 2 Lowest, starring Denzel Washington. Why? Because it’s the exact same plot twist!

So if you liked Animals—or, indeed, if you were frustrated by the movie’s confusing ending—I highly recommend streaming Highest 2 Lowest on Apple TV+ for a more satisfying narrative arc, more compelling action, and more stylish visuals.

Directed by Affleck himself, who also co-wrote the script with Connor O. McIntyre and Billy Ray, Animals stars Affleck as a wealthy lawyer running an independently financed campaign to become the next mayor of Los Angeles. But just because he’s not affiliated with a political party doesn’t mean he doesn’t have his own problems. When a bad actor kidnaps Mark’s son, they hire a mysterious wealthy woman (Gillian Anderson) to help them negotiate and deliver the ransom. In the process, the dirty secrets between him and his wife (Kerry Washington) are forced to the surface.

Warning: The rest of this article contains spoilers for Animals on Netflix.

Spoiler alert: The kidnapper accidentally nabbed the wrong kid. Mark’s son was out trick-or-treating with his friend in identical costumes, and the friend was the one taken. Mark’s son, meanwhile, showed up at home, shaken up but perfectly fine. The kid who was taken is the son of an illegal immigrant from Mexico, whose girlfriend works as a housekeeper for Mark.

This is, practically beat-for-beat, also the plot twist in Highest 2 Lowest, Spike Lee’s modern-day, American take on the classic 1963 Japanese crime film, Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low. Meanwhile, Kurosawa’s High and Low was adapted from the 1959 novel King’s Ransom, by American author Ed McBain. Therefore, both Highest 2 Lowest and Animals owe their wrong-son-kidnapped plot twist to King’s Ransom, which tells the story of a wealthy tycoon named Douglas King, who is ready and willing to pay the ransom for his kidnapped son. But then his son comes home safe, and King realizes it was someone else’s son who was kidnapped. After that, he refuses to pay.

In both Animals and Highest 2 Lowest, however, the wealthy father does pay the ransom for the kidnapped kid, albeit reluctantly. And in both movies, the kidnapped kid belongs to an employee of the father. In Highest 2 Lowest, Denzel Washington stars as David King, a big-time music producer. In the kidnapping gone wrong, the kidnapper takes the son of King’s driver and longtime friend, Paul (Jeffrey Wright). 

Initially, King refuses. Despite pleas from Paul, Trey, and law enforcement, King doesn’t want to give up $17.5 million for someone else’s kid—even if it means Kyle dies. However, King’s partner at the record label (Michael Potts) convinces King that if he doesn’t pay the ransom and lets Kyle die, his public reputation—and the label’s reputation—will never recover. King reluctantly agrees to pay the ransom, with the understanding that law enforcement will be able to get the money back after Kyle is brought to safety.

That is very similar to Animals, in which Affleck’s character, Mark, is convinced to pay the ransom rather than calling the police by his campaign manager, who advises him that his reputation with Latino voters is too important to risk.

In fact, the plot of these two movies is so similar that Affleck revealed, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, that he initially pulled the plug on Animals, two weeks before production was set to begin, after he heard about Lee’s film.

“We get very close to shooting, and then somebody said to me, ‘Hey, you know, there’s this other movie that Spike [Lee] and Denzel [Washington] are doing that’s about a kidnapping,” Affleck says. “And I was like, ‘Oh, shit.’”

Affleck has not, apparently, seen the Kurosawa film, and does not consider Animals to be another film adaptation of Ed McBain’s King’s Ransom novel. He considers it to be an original film.

“What I’m really interested in is something wholly apart from, I think, what these other movies are dealing with,” Affleck told Entertainment Weekly, referring to High and Low and Highest 2 Lowest. “I think it’s different enough, at least from what I understand about those movies, that this will be judged on its own merits, frankly.”

The judgement hasn’t been kind so far, given that, right now, Animals has a 32 percent critics score and a 42 percent audience score on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. Many viewers were confused by the disappointing reveal that the kidnapper was just some guy, rather than the “insider” the film had been hinting at.

Without spoiling Highest 2 Lowest any more than I already have, I recommend giving it a watch. Unlike Animals, which loses steam after its big reveal, Spike Lee’s film finds its footing after the twist, following a slow start (and an unfortunate, distracting score). Lee captures a modern-day New York with energy and reverence, including one of the best NYC subway action scenes ever captured on film. Denzel Washington and co-star ASAP Rocky eat up the screen, and the new banger from ASAP will have you bumping in your seat. In my humble opinion, the highs are worth the lows.