Aronofsky Steals the Show: Caught Stealing, the Wild Return to a Ruthless New York

Some filmmakers lose their edge over the years. Darren Aronofsky isn’t one of them. Ever since Requiem for a Dream—a film that still feels like a punch in the face more than twenty years later—it was clear he had no interest in comfort. That movie proved that cinema could be brutal and beautiful at the same time, a hallucinogenic descent into the everyday hell of addiction. Years later came The Wrestler and Mother!, two works that not only cemented his reputation but also confirmed that he knows how to strike emotional and existential chords that few directors dare to touch.

I think a lot about The Wrestler lately, especially after the death of Sabu, the extreme wrestler who passed away just days after competing, already in his 60s. Aronofsky’s film not only portrayed the downfall of the modern gladiator—it also foresaw that blurry line between spectacle and self-destruction. Every time I watch it, I feel that Randy “The Ram” Robinson isn’t a character, but a mirror anyone can recognize when the only thing left is to keep fighting against time. The Wrestler remains one of my favorite films of all time.

Then there’s Mother!, that biblical delirium disguised as a domestic nightmare. A chaotic spectacle where metaphors fly like sharp knives in every direction—and for me, the peak of Aronofsky as both author and provocateur. And of course, impossible not to mention Black Swan, with Natalie Portman delivering one of the rawest performances cinema has given us in recent memory. That film has nothing to do with Nassim Taleb’s “black swan,” but everything to do with the idea that perfection and madness are Siamese twins.

More recently, The Whale showed that Aronofsky hasn’t lost his aim in exploring the fragility of the human condition. Brendan Fraser became an acting god, winning not only an Oscar but a personal resurrection that once seemed impossible. And yet, what interests me now isn’t looking back but toward the strange new creature on the horizon: Caught Stealing.

The title immediately triggered a memory: “Been Caught Stealing” by Jane’s Addiction—that dirty, brazen anthem that in 1990 marked the end of one era and the birth of another. A riff, a barking dog, and the sense that alternative rock had just set fire to what was left of the ’80s. But Aronofsky’s film, though set in that same decade, has nothing to do with Perry Farrell and company. Here we get something else: Austin Butler and Zoë Kravitz plunged into a story of failed baseball dreams, mobsters, and New York at its grittiest.

Curiously, I stumbled upon this movie through a family joke. Talking with my youngest daughter—who’s a fan of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir—I told her that if a live-action version ever existed, Zoë Kravitz would be Ladybug and Austin Butler, Cat Noir. The funny part? Months later, the trailer for Caught Stealing dropped with exactly that pairing. She was amazed. So was I. Our private joke turned into an unintentional prophecy.

What makes Caught Stealing different is that it’s not a return to Aronofsky’s usual psychological darkness but a leap toward something closer to homage. This film pulses with New York—the city where he grew up—and also with the influence of Martin Scorsese’s streetwise cinema. There are echoes of Mean Streets, of Goodfellas, but filtered through the dizzying pace of Guy Ritchie and the rawness of a punk soundtrack rattling every corner. Butler plays a former baseball hopeful who gets into trouble doing a favor for a friend and ends up swept into a whirlwind of mobsters: Russians, Orthodox Jews, and a whole fauna that feels ripped from an urban comic book.

Violence isn’t missing, of course. Nor are corpses. But it would be naïve to think Aronofsky is aiming for cheap comedy. What’s clear is that Caught Stealing is his way of coming home, of reconciling with his native New York, and of proving he can still surprise us—even after capturing despair, redemption, and madness like few others. Perhaps, deep down, what he’s doing is the same thing Jane’s Addiction did in the ’90s: reminding us that sometimes you have to steal a little in order to reclaim what was always yours.