Killers of the Flower Moon isn’t just another movie. It’s the kind of film that sticks to your ribs long after the credits roll. Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio haven’t just reunited-they’ve built something heavier than anything they’ve done together before. This isn’t a crime thriller wrapped in glamour. It’s a slow-burning reckoning with American history, told through the lens of a series of murders that most textbooks still ignore.
What Actually Happened
In the 1920s, the Osage Nation in Oklahoma became some of the wealthiest people in the world after oil was found under their land. But that wealth turned them into targets. White guardians, appointed by the government to manage their finances, began systematically killing Osage members to inherit their headrights-oil rights that paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. By 1925, more than 60 Osage had been murdered in what became known as the Reign of Terror.
Scorsese doesn’t soften the edges. He shows the murders as cold, calculated, and disturbingly routine. A man drops dead after drinking coffee. A woman is blown up in her home. A child dies after being poisoned with insulin. The film doesn’t need jump scares. The horror is in the silence between the shots, in the way neighbors smile at each other while knowing what happened.
The Performance That Broke the Mold
Leonardo DiCaprio plays Ernest Burkhart, a man who marries into the Osage family-Mollie Kyle, played by Lily Gladstone-and then helps orchestrate their murders for money. It’s not the role you expect from him. No brooding intensity. No manic energy. Instead, he’s quiet. Numb. He stares into space like a man who’s already lost himself. His performance doesn’t demand attention-it forces you to lean in. You watch him, hoping he’ll snap, hoping he’ll feel guilt. He never does.
And then there’s Lily Gladstone. Her portrayal of Mollie Kyle isn’t just the best performance of 2023-it’s one of the most devastating in modern cinema. Mollie is sick, fading, slowly poisoned. She knows who’s doing it. She knows her husband is part of it. And still, she holds on to love, to family, to dignity. Gladstone doesn’t cry on screen. She doesn’t need to. Her eyes say everything. When she whispers, "I’m scared," it echoes louder than any scream.
Scorsese’s Masterclass in Restraint
This isn’t Scorsese’s flashy mob movie. There are no slow-motion walks to "Stuck in the Middle With You." No monologues about power. He lets the weight of history sit in the frame. The camera lingers on empty porches, on untouched plates of food, on the way light falls across a graveyard. The score by Robbie Robertson-himself a Native American-uses traditional Osage chants mixed with sparse piano. It doesn’t manipulate. It mourns.
The film runs nearly three and a half hours. Some call it too long. But every minute is necessary. You need to feel the passage of time. You need to see how slowly the system turns against the Osage. How the FBI, newly formed, arrives not as heroes but as bureaucrats who don’t understand the culture they’re investigating. How the courts, the newspapers, the churches-all of them-look away.
The Real Villain Isn’t Who You Think
Yes, there are bad men in this movie. But the real villain is indifference. The system that allowed guardians to be appointed without oversight. The laws that treated Native people as legal minors. The newspapers that called the murders "accidents" or "suicides." The fact that the Osage were forced to live under white guardians because they were deemed "incompetent"-despite being millionaires.
Scorsese doesn’t give us a clear-cut hero. J. Edgar Hoover (played by Jesse Plemons) sends agents to solve the case, but his motivation isn’t justice-it’s building the FBI’s reputation. The real hero is Mollie, and the Osage community who kept demanding answers long after the world stopped listening.
Why This Movie Matters Now
In 2026, Native American communities still fight for land rights, for representation, for basic recognition. Killers of the Flower Moon doesn’t just tell a story from the past. It holds up a mirror. The same patterns of exploitation, erasure, and gaslighting still play out today-in courtrooms, in Congress, in the way media covers Indigenous issues.
This film is based on David Grann’s 2017 nonfiction book, which itself was the result of years of digging through forgotten court records and family testimonies. The movie doesn’t just adapt the book-it amplifies it. It gives voice to people who were silenced for over a century.
What You Won’t See in the Trailer
The trailers show gunshots and tense stares. They hint at mystery. But the real power of the film is in the quiet moments: Mollie’s sister humming a traditional song while washing dishes. Ernest’s mother praying for his soul while knowing what he’s done. The Osage elders gathering at dusk, speaking in their language, refusing to let their culture die.
There’s a scene where a white lawyer, trying to justify the guardianship system, says, "They’re not ready to handle money." Mollie, sitting in the back of the room, doesn’t react. She doesn’t need to. The audience does. And you’ll sit there, stunned, realizing this wasn’t just about greed. It was about control. About who gets to decide who’s civilized.
Who Should Watch This
If you’re looking for action, this isn’t it. If you want a happy ending, look elsewhere. But if you want to understand how America built its wealth on the backs of people it refused to see as human-then this is essential viewing.
It’s not easy to watch. But it’s harder to forget.
Final Thoughts
Killers of the Flower Moon is the most important film Scorsese has made since Goodfellas. It’s not about crime. It’s about complicity. It’s not about heroes. It’s about who gets to be remembered-and who gets erased.
DiCaprio doesn’t play a villain. He plays a man who chose money over humanity. Gladstone doesn’t play a victim. She plays a woman who refused to let her people be forgotten. And Scorsese? He didn’t just make a movie. He built a monument.
Go see it. Not because it’s good. But because it’s true.
