King Ivory directed by John Swab, is an action thriller that dives into Oklahoma’s deadly synthetic opioid trade through the eyes of both law enforcement and the dealers fueling the crisis.
It follows a narcotics team as they infiltrate a violent drug ring responsible for flooding the state with synthetic opioids.
Starring in the film are Ben Foster, Dash Mihok, Melissa Leo, Jason Isaacs, Michael Raymond-James, and W. Earl Brown.
King Ivory premiered at the 2024 Venice Film Festival where it won the Smithers Foundation Award Winner, then made its U.S. Premiere at the 2025 Newport Beach Film Festival; and is scheduled to open in theaters nationwide on Friday, November 14th, 2025.
Here is the synopsis:
From civilians to criminals to addicts to law enforcement, and everyone in between, all walks of life intersect in this thriller about the epidemic that is fentanyl; street name: King Ivory. It is business as usual for Tulsa drug cop, Layne West (James Badge Dale), battling the local criminal element, which hits too close to home when his son, Jack (Jasper Jones), gets hooked on fentanyl. In conjunction with his partner, Ty (George Carroll), and FBI counterpart, Beatty (Rory Cochrane), West makes it his mission in life to take down those responsible, including the Mexican cartel’s local shot-caller, Ramón Garza (Michael Mando), Indian Brotherhood War Chief, Holt Lightfeather (Graham Greene), who controls state-wide trafficking while serving life inside the Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester a.k.a. “Big Mac,” and the local Irish Mob family outfit, led by George “Smiley” Greene (Ben Foster), along with his mother, Ginger (Melissa Leo), and uncle, Mickey (Ritchie Coster). As Holt educates West during a prison visit, “The cartels want your kids, the next generation, who want what is new, and fentanyl is new.”
In an interview with Deadline, Melissa Leo breaks down her character and the story, saying, “The gentle way that (Swab) explores this difficult subject removes these ideas, in my mind, of bad people and good people. She’s a woman who’s a mother, and she’s grown up in God only knows what circumstances…”
Saying the film “well deserves a look”, The Hollywood Reporter review wrote, “But what makes Swab’s latest rise above your average drug thriller is how he tries to make each moment feel like it’s been drawn from a certain reality. The portrait he paints of the fentanyl plague currently sweeping the country is an ugly one indeed, and that was clearly the director’s intention.”
Watch the trailer for ‘King Ivory’ above.
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