When acclaimed Australian director Phillip Noyce signed on to make a feature film glorifying Saudi narcotics officers, Saudi drug executions were already climbing to a record high. The country carried out 243 executions for drug offences in 2025 alone. Now, that same government funds a cinematic tribute to the officers enforcing those policies. The contradiction is hard to ignore.

The film, titled The Watchful Eyes, celebrates what officials call “the heroism of security men in combating drugs.” Noyce, 76, has directed some of cinema’s most respected titles, including Rabbit-Proof Fence, Patriot Games and Dead Calm. He began shooting in Saudi Arabia in December 2025. He describes the project as “a low-budget kidnapping thriller” told entirely in Arabic. Saudi officials, however, have grander ambitions. They call it a “massive production” and a “grand Saudi epic.”

Saudi Drug Executions: The Numbers Behind the Narrative

The scale of Saudi drug executions puts the film’s subject matter into sharp context. Saudi authorities executed 356 people in 2025. Of those, 243 died for drug-related offences. That makes narcotics cases the single largest category driving the kingdom’s rising execution rate. Human rights analysts link the surge directly to the government’s intensifying war on drugs.

These are not abstract statistics. Each figure represents a person put to death under a legal framework that international human rights bodies have long criticised as disproportionate. Furthermore, critics argue the system lacks basic due process. So when a state-funded film celebrates the very officers enforcing those laws, the implications are hard to dismiss.

Glamour Over Accountability

Sela, a Saudi entertainment company backed by the Public Investment Fund, finances the project. The Public Investment Fund is the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund. Moreover, the film sits within Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 initiative. That programme aims to diversify the Saudi economy and reposition the country as a global cultural destination.

Turki al-Sheikh, a royal adviser and chair of the General Entertainment Authority, accompanied Noyce through filming locations and even prisons. Al-Sheikh has faced repeated allegations of detaining critics and social media users who challenge him publicly. Nevertheless, he has championed the project enthusiastically. He praised “the great director Phillip Noyce” across multiple posts and described The Watchful Eyes as inspired by real case files from Saudi drug enforcement officers.

Noyce responded carefully when asked about the Saudi Arabia drug death penalty and the kingdom’s human rights record. “I guess the story could be edited to send an anti-drug message,” he said. “But the story I shot was told from the highly emotional point of view of the lead detective in the hunt for a missing child.” He also noted that Sela “never once interfered from a creative point of view.”

A Pattern of Saudi Arabia Drug Death Penalty Denial

This is far from an isolated incident. In March 2025, the BBC faced sharp criticism after its commercial arm partnered with Saudi-backed content initiatives. Critics labelled the output “glossy propaganda films.” Consequently, the pattern of Western institutions lending credibility to Saudi cultural projects drew renewed scrutiny.

Joey Shea, a senior Saudi Arabia researcher for Human Rights Watch, argues that the kingdom deliberately uses sport and entertainment investment to soften its global image. “Given the subject matter of this film, combined with the reality of the rights abuses so inextricably linked with the new war on drugs, it’s really, really disturbing,” Shea said. “These narratives may play a role in covering up the reality of these executions.”

Jeed Basyouni, head of the MENA death penalty project at Reprieve, put it even more directly. “The purpose of culture-washing is to legitimise the human rights abuses carried out by the Saudi regime,” she said. “They use the arts, comedy and film to portray a tolerant government. In reality, anyone who offends the men in power risks winding up dead.”

Therefore, Saudi drug executions serve, in Basyouni’s view, not as the output of a principled public health campaign but as a tool of political control. Films that frame those enforcers as heroes only reinforce that power at a global scale.

Sport, Film and the Billion-Dollar Image Machine

Saudi Arabia’s use of entertainment as a reputational lever is well documented. Since 2021, the Public Investment Fund has poured more than $5 billion into the LIV Golf Tour. The kingdom has also aggressively expanded its foothold in international football and boxing. Although LIV Golf funding is set to cease at the end of 2025 partly due to regional conflict, the broader cultural investment strategy shows no sign of slowing.

The Watchful Eyes fits neatly into that playbook. A feature film with a respected Western director reaches international audiences in a way no official press release ever could. It tells a story of courage and duty. Yet behind that story, the Saudi Arabia drug death penalty continues to claim lives at a rate that would be unthinkable in most democracies.

The Responsibility of the Artist

Noyce accepted the project, he said, “for the challenge of working outside my comfort zone” and to “investigate a previously closed society.” Those motivations are understandable. Film-makers have long worked within complex and even hostile political environments, and that access sometimes yields genuinely important work.

However, access is not neutrality. This film carries state funding. It celebrates a state apparatus. A company backed by the sovereign wealth fund of a government overseeing escalating Saudi drug executions produced it. The camera tells one story. The execution record tells quite another.

The Watchful Eyes is due for release in 2026.

Source: dbrecoveryresources