Sicario: Day of the Soldado Rankings And Opinions

If the first Sicario was a sleek, slow-burning descent into the moral gray zone of the drug war,
Sicario: Day of the Soldado is the sequel that walks in, drops its tactical gear on the table,
and says, “So… we’re doing this again, but louder.” Since its release in 2018, the film has lived in a strange space:
praised as a stylish, muscular crime thriller and criticized as an unnecessary, meaner follow-up that leans hard into
cynicism and controversy. Depending on who you ask, it’s either an underrated banger or a grim, hollow echo of a better movie.

In this guide, we’ll unpack the rankings and opinions surrounding
Sicario: Day of the Soldado: how critics scored it, where it lands in Taylor Sheridan’s filmography,
what audiences actually think, and why the movie still sparks debates years later. Think of this as your tactical briefing
before pressing play.

Where “Sicario: Day of the Soldado” Lands in the Rankings

Critical scores at a glance

Let’s start with the numbers, because nothing says “modern film discourse” like a scoreboard.

• On major review aggregators, Sicario: Day of the Soldado sits in the
  “generally favorable” zone. Metacritic gives it a score in the low 60s, with a user rating around 7 out of 10,
  suggesting that critics liked it but didn’t love it, while audiences were slightly more forgiving.
• On Rotten Tomatoes, the sequel hovers in the low 60s for critics and mid-60s for audience approval,
  firmly in “fresh but debated” territory rather than universally acclaimed or total disaster.
• CinemaScore audiences gave it a B in theaters, compared with the original film’s stronger
  A−. That’s a quiet but clear signal: “Good, but not quite what we hoped for.”

In other words, this isn’t a polarizing bomb or a critical darling. It lives in the messy middle:
respectable scores, strong technical craft, and a lot of disagreement about its soul.

Comparing it to the original Sicario

Any ranking of Day of the Soldado has to start with the shadow of the first film.
Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario is one of the most acclaimed crime thrillers of the 2010s,
praised for its atmosphere, moral complexity, and the grounded perspective brought by Emily Blunt’s character.

The sequel swaps out:

• Director: Villeneuve is replaced by Stefano Sollima, known for gritty crime stories and
  a more hard-edged, boots-on-the-ground style.
• Lead perspective: Emily Blunt’s outsider POV is gone, leaving the story to follow
  CIA operative Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) and hitman Alejandro (Benicio del Toro) directly.
• Visual tone: The haunting, almost poetic dread of the first film is traded for
  a more straightforward war-on-everyone vibe.

Critics often rank the original well above Day of the Soldado,
but many still place the sequel high within the modern cartel-thriller subgenre thanks to its tight pacing,
intense shootouts, and commanding performances.

Where it sits in Taylor Sheridan’s movie rankings

Writer Taylor Sheridan has built a reputation on tough, morally murky stories like
Hell or High Water, Wind River, and the original Sicario.
When outlets rank his film work, Day of the Soldado usually lands in the middle:
not top-tier Sheridan, but far from his weakest effort.

Many rankings put it below the first Sicario and Hell or High Water,
but above some of his more uneven projects. The consensus:
great set pieces and tension, mixed with a script that occasionally feels overextended and thematically clumsy.

What Critics Appreciate About “Day of the Soldado”

Relentless tension and muscular direction

Even reviewers who weren’t fully sold on the movie agree on one thing:
Stefano Sollima knows how to stage a set piece. The convoy ambush, the border crossing chaos,
and the desert confrontations are all shot with a brutal clarity that keeps you glued to the screen.

Some critics compared the movie’s best moments to the work of Michael Manntight, professional, and
full of characters who live comfortably in moral fog. The film rarely slows down, and when it does,
it’s usually to let Josh Brolin or Benicio del Toro smolder in silence before the next calamity hits.

Standout performances

Benicio del Toro continues to be the series’ secret weapon.
Critics and fans alike highlight his performance as Alejandro as one of the strongest elements:
a mix of haunted vulnerability and terrifying efficiency. The small, fragile moments he shares with
Isabel (Isabela Merced) soften an otherwise ruthless narrative.

Josh Brolin leans into his role with dry humor and easy menace, the type of guy who
wears flip-flops to a drone strike meeting and somehow makes it work.
Isabela Merced also drew praise for bringing surprising emotional weight to a teenager trapped in a geopolitical nightmare.

Topical themes and “ripped from the headlines” energy

The film dives headfirst into terrorism, border security, and the weaponization of fear.
Not all critics think it handles those themes gracefully, but many note that its timing and subject matter
give it an eerie relevance. The story imagines a scenario in which cartels are blamed for smuggling terrorists
into the United States, leading to operations that blur the line between war and crime.

For some reviewers, this topical angle makes the movie feel urgent and unnervingly plausible.
For others, it feels like exploitation wrapped in tactical gear. Which brings us to the flip side.

The Main Criticisms: Violence, Politics, and a Missing Perspective

A darker, meaner tone that doesn’t always feel purposeful

One of the loudest criticisms of Day of the Soldado is that it’s
relentlessly bleak without offering much insight.
While the first film balanced its brutality with an outsider’s moral horror through Emily Blunt’s character,
the sequel lives entirely inside the heads of the people pulling the trigger (or ordering others to).

Several critics pointed out that without a grounding moral perspective, the movie sometimes feels
like it’s just reveling in chaos. The violence is harsh, the stakes are massive, and the message can feel like
“everyone is bad, everything is broken,” repeated at high volume.

Controversy over stereotypes and politics

Another common complaint is how the film portrays Mexico and the border. Some reviewers and commentators argue that
it leans into harmful stereotypes: cartels as omnipresent, Mexico as a war zone, and migrant routes
as almost mythically dangerous. While the story definitely aims for a grim, heightened world,
not everyone is comfortable with the implications.

Critics who disliked the film on this level see it as part of a larger trend of
Hollywood thrillers that use real-world anxietiesterrorism, illegal immigration, cartel violence
as a dramatic playground without fully unpacking the human cost or political complexity.

The ending that divided everyone

Then there’s the ending, which might as well have its own Rotten Tomatoes score.

Without spoiling every detail, the final act pivots from “grim finality” to “setup for another sequel,”
and that sudden gear shift rubbed a lot of critics the wrong way. What felt like it was building toward
a brutal, consequential conclusion instead lands on a note that seems designed to kick off
Sicario 3: Even Soldado-er.

Some critics described the finale as “jarringly Hollywood,” undercutting the harsh realism the film had been going for.
Others didn’t mind, seeing it as a natural extension of Alejandro’s arc and a promise that his story isn’t done yet.

Audience Opinions: Is It Underrated or Overhyped?

One of the most interesting things about Day of the Soldado is
the gap between critical and audience discussion. Forums, Reddit threads, and user reviews show a
very mixed but passionate response.

What fans love

• The action: Many viewers rank it highly as a pure action-thriller experience,
  praising the shootouts, border sequences, and relentless pacing.
• The performances: Del Toro and Brolin get a lot of love, as does Isabela Merced,
  for elevating material that could have felt cold or generic.
• The atmosphere: Even without Roger Deakins behind the camera this time,
  audiences still highlight the dusty, ominous visuals and nerve-racking score.

What turns people off

• The missing conscience: Some viewers miss the moral anchor that Emily Blunt’s character provided
  in the original. Without her, they feel like they’re trapped in the war room with no one asking,
  “Should we actually be doing this?”
• The plot swings: The story’s turnsespecially the mid-movie reversal of the mission
  and the endingstrike some as contrived or unfinished.
• The politics: Just like critics, many viewers are uneasy about the way the film portrays migrants,
  Mexico, and terrorism, especially in a real-world context where these topics are intensely sensitive.

The result is a movie that, for some, becomes a “hidden gem” crime thriller worth defendingwhile others
rank it as a stylish but morally muddled detour from what made the first Sicario special.

So Where Should “Day of the Soldado” Rank for You?

If we had to pin it down, Sicario: Day of the Soldado sits in that
solid-but-imperfect zone:
a gripping, well-acted, technically impressive thriller that doesn’t fully earn its own darkness.

On a personal “cartel thriller” scale:

• Atmosphere and tension: 8/10 – It keeps your stomach in a knot for most of its runtime.
• Character work: 7/10 – Alejandro’s arc is compelling, but some supporting players feel underwritten.
• Story and themes: 6/10 – Big ideas, uneven execution, and a finale that feels like a pivot to franchise-building.
• Rewatch value: 7/10 – Especially for fans of grounded action and morally murky thrillers.

If you loved the first Sicario mainly for its mood, craft, and sense of dread,
you’ll probably find Day of the Soldado a worthwhile, if not essential, extension of that world.
If you loved the original for its moral perspective and emotional nuance, you may rank the sequel notably lower.

Either way, it’s a movie that’s easier to argue about than to forgetwhich, in the crowded landscape of crime dramas,
is its own kind of win.

Experiences: Watching “Day of the Soldado” Through the Lens of Rankings and Opinions

Here’s where things get fun: how do all these rankings and hot takes actually shape
your experience of Sicario: Day of the Soldado?

Imagine you fire it up on a streaming service after checking the scores. You see the mid-60s critic rating
and think, “Okay, not a masterpiece, but not trash either.” That expectation alone changes the ride.
Instead of waiting for a flawless follow-up to an Oscar-friendly thriller, you’re buckling in for
a tough, pulpy, morally grim action movieand on that level, it delivers more consistently.

Viewers who go in after reading the criticism about the film’s politics often report a very different experience.
You might find yourself hyperaware of how the movie frames Mexico, cartels, and the U.S. government.
Scenes that might otherwise scan as “just cool action” suddenly feel heavier: a convoy shootout becomes
not just spectacle but commentary, intentional or not, on whose lives are considered expendable.

On the other hand, people who discover the film through “underrated thrillers” lists or crime-movie ranking articles
often come away pleasantly surprised. They expect a clumsy cash-in sequel and instead find a tense,
professionally made film with a strong cast, willing to go to some very dark places.
From that angle, the movie can feel like a hidden level in the Sicario universe: rougher, less polished,
but still compelling.

Watching it with friends adds another layer. One person is there for Benicio del Toro’s quiet, deadly intensity.
Another is there for Josh Brolin’s “call in the drone strike from a folding chair” energy.
Someone else is rolling their eyes at yet another grim-border-violence montage.
By the time the credits roll, you’ve basically conducted your own mini focus groupand
if you compare your group rankings to the critic scores, you’ll probably notice something:
the film tends to play better for viewers who treat it as a hard-edged genre movie first and a political statement second.

There’s also the experience of rewatching the movie after revisiting the first Sicario.
In a back-to-back viewing, the differences become glaring. The first film feels like a slow pressure cooker
with a moral gut punch. The sequel feels more like a tactical operation that spirals out of control.
You may come away ranking them not as “one good, one bad,” but as two different flavors of the same bitter drink:
one nuanced and haunting, the other sharp, harsh, and a little messy.

Ultimately, your ranking of Sicario: Day of the Soldado will probably say as much about you
as it does about the film. If you’re drawn to stylish, intense thrillers and can live with moral ambiguity
(and some debatable narrative choices), you may find yourself defending it as an underappreciated entry
in modern crime cinema. If you’re more sensitive to political framing and need a clear ethical anchor,
you’ll likely rank it near the bottom of your must-watch list and keep returning to the original instead.

But that, in a way, is what keeps the conversation interesting.
Sicario: Day of the Soldado isn’t just a movie you watch; it’s one you end up discussing,
debating, and re-rankingon your own personal scoreboardlong after the last shot fades to black.