ARQ

Renton and Hannah, two old friends in a bleak future, wake inside a fortified facility to the same tense night that keeps looping. Each rewind erases what happened and drops them back into danger, as alarms blare and a brutal struggle between a dominant corporation and a rebel faction rages outside. As the cycle repeats, trust frays and every choice carries weight, forcing them to improvise under pressure. The loop hints that something larger is at play, a pattern controlled by unseen hands. With each reset, fresh clues surface about who is guiding the events and why their world may depend on their actions.

Directed by Tony Elliott, ARQ is presented as an original screenplay rather than adaptation. The film arrived in 2016 as a compact science fiction thriller with a modest budget of about 2 million dollars.

ARQ premiered on Netflix in 2016 and did not report a traditional box office gross, reflecting a streaming release model. The film found its audience online, illustrating Netflix's appetite for compact genre thrillers.

Reviewers who caught ARQ in the streaming era noted the film makes the most of its lean budget by focusing on character dynamics and a claustrophobic setting. Robbie Amell and Rachael Taylor deliver anxious, believable performances as the entangled pair, while the suspense hinges on whether they can outsmart a system that seems to rewrite not just time but loyalties. The film asks blunt questions about corporate power, surveillance, and what people will do to survive when every option carries risk. It is less about grand ideas than the pressures of choice under a distorted reality. Even with its modest scale the film treats fate as a practical problem to be solved rather than a weighty abstraction. It leans on the actors' chemistry and sharp dialogue to sell tension while time loops force them to reevaluate loyalties, fears, and the cost of resistance.