The Hunter

During a brutal July drought, fifteen-year-old Trey Reddy comes home to find her father, Johnny Reddy, returned to Ardnakelty after four years in London. Trey, who has built a quiet, hopeful life apprenticing with retired American cop Cal Hooper and his partner Lena Dunne, is immediately unsettled. Cal arranges for her to spend the night at Lena's. Lena, who has known Johnny since youth, notices his disheveled state and concludes he has come home running from trouble.

Johnny soon visits Cal, sizing him up under a veneer of charm. Cal's neighbor Mart Lavin warns that Johnny is a feckless schemer back only for money. Johnny then unveils his plan to Trey: he has met a wealthy Englishman, Cillian Rushborough, who believes family lore about gold buried in Ardnakelty's land. Johnny intends to convince the local men to chip in money to salt the river with gold dust, then sell Rushborough on the bigger fantasy. Trey's mother Sheila quietly tells Trey she is manipulating Johnny with guilt about Brendan, hoping to drive him away again.

Lena learns from her sister Noreen that Johnny tried selling fake diamonds in London. Cal, increasingly cautious, recognizes Johnny as a threat to Trey's stability. Johnny gathers the local men, including Mart, Senan Maguire, Francie Gannon, Bobby Feeney, P.J. Fallon, the McHugh brothers, and Dessie Duggan, and pitches the salting plan. They agree to first inspect Rushborough at the pub. Cal pressures Mart to vouch for him so he can attend.

At Seán Óg's pub, Rushborough charms the men with songs and lore, then produces a silver ring containing a real gold nugget supposedly found by his grandmother and Dessie's great-uncle. Mart privately tells Cal that Rushborough genuinely has local roots, that Johnny may know something real, and that the salting is insurance to compromise everyone who invests. Cal forces his way into the scheme by paying Mart his buy-in, threatening to bring the Guards otherwise. Lena, suspicious, visits Mrs. Duggan, the village's longtime information keeper, who confirms there has never been a single rumor of gold in Ardnakelty—the entire legend is fabricated.

Trey, sent to Noreen's shop, discovers villagers now court her favor because of her father's scheme. Recognizing her new leverage, she resolves to use it. She borrows Cal's camera under a school-project pretext and secretly films the men—including Cal—planting gold in the river at dawn. She intends to show the video to Rushborough so he will leave in fury, taking Johnny with him.

When Trey confronts Rushborough with the footage, his polished mask drops. He is revealed as a violent London criminal to whom Johnny owes a debt for a botched delivery; the gold scheme is Johnny's desperate repayment plan. Rushborough hits Trey, stomps on her dog Banjo's paw, and coerces her into a larger con: she will plant a fake gold flake to make the local men invest thousands in his fraudulent mining company. Walking home, Trey makes a private decision: she will weaponize the con to financially devastate the men of Ardnakelty as her long-sought blood price for her older brother Brendan, who was killed by locals two years earlier and secretly buried on the mountain.

Trey publicly produces the planted gold flake at the pub, deepening the men's belief and trapping Johnny further. Cal abandons his plan to expose Johnny publicly and instead ambushes him on the mountain road, beating him and ordering him to leave town by Monday. Johnny confesses he owes Rushborough money. That night, masked men surround the Reddy house with high beams and a burning barrel, threatening to burn the family out. Johnny goes out on a mysterious errand. At dawn, walking up the mountain, Trey finds Rushborough dead at the fork in the road, his head bashed in.

Trey goes to Cal rather than her father. Cal confirms her innocence, examines the scene, and calls the Guards. Johnny appears, feigns shock, and rushes off to retrieve Cal's camera from Rushborough's cottage. Detective Nealon, a sharp Dublin investigator, interviews Trey at Cal's house. She delivers a calculated lie: she heard four or five men with Ardnakelty accents at the fork during the night. Cal realizes Trey has been playing her own game, using the murder to direct suspicion at the local men who killed Brendan.

As Nealon's investigation tears the townland apart, the men of Ardnakelty begin preparing to scapegoat Cal as a blow-in outsider. Lena impulsively announces a fake engagement to Cal to bind him to Noreen's family. Mart pressures Lena to make Trey retract her story and help frame Johnny instead. Lena confronts Trey and breaks her resolve by revealing that Cal would falsely confess to murder to protect her, and that the engagement is staged. Trey gives Nealon a new statement implicating her father, and Lena confirms Johnny had begged her for money the night Rushborough died.

The men of Ardnakelty seize Johnny and force him to dig a hole. Meanwhile, Sheila confesses to Trey that she herself killed Rushborough. She lured him to the family shed with the promise of college savings and bludgeoned him with a hammer, choosing him over Johnny so that Cal would remain free to give Trey a future. Lena's earlier offer to take in the children freed Sheila to act. To destroy the forensic evidence, Trey burns down the shed, accidentally igniting a mountain wildfire and twisting her ankle. Sheila evacuates the younger children to Lena's.

Cal abandons the men confronting Johnny when Lena texts that Trey is still on the mountain. He and Johnny race up through the flames and rescue Trey. Johnny crafts a final lie—that he died trying to save his daughter—takes cash from Cal, throws away his phone, and flees over the mountain forever. Cal drives Trey to safety down a hidden path. The townland accepts the convenient story that Johnny killed Rushborough and perished in the fire. Mart welcomes Cal as a true local. As long-awaited rain begins to fall, Trey watches the burning mountain as Brendan's funeral pyre, accepts she will never find his body, and stands beside Cal on new, adult footing.