The Reel Review
Sarah Rector, an 11-year-old girl living in the newly-established state of Oklahoma in the early 1900s, becomes the world’s youngest Black millionaire when oil is discovered on her land, despite attempts by scheming, crooked oilmen to steal her property. Naya Desir-Johnson, Zachary Levi and Sonequa Martin-Green star in this Western biopic based on actual events.
Anyone expecting a sugary sweet, uplifting story is going to be very surprised at this much darker tale about the manipulative, and even deadly lengths crooked oil men of that era would go to take advantage of Black and Native American landowners. The story is reminiscent of 2023’s Killers of the Flower Moon. There are lots of unexpected twists.
Young Naya Desir-Johnson, whose feature film debut was just three years ago as one of the foster children in A Thousand and One, carries the film impressively, giving the story its heart, which offsets the hammy overacting by Levi (Shazam!) and a manic performance by Martin-Green (My Dead Friend Zoe, Star Trek: Discovery, The Walking Dead) as her mother rightfully concerned about the family’s safety. Some of the action and dialogue also is a bit clunky but is easily forgiven considering this otherwise fascinating story.
REEL FACTS
• As the Black grandchild of Creek Indians, Sarah Rector received a land allotment of 160 acres as stipulated by the Treaty of 1866 between the U.S. government and five tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee and Seminoles) as a way to breakup communal lands and extinguish tribal rights prior to Oklahoma becoming a state in 1907. White settlers typically received the land best fit for farming, with Blacks and Native Americans receiving the lower quality properties where, ironically, oil was later discovered.
• Sarah Rector was a millionaire by the time she turned 18, moving with her family to Kansas City, where she owned a house, stocks, bonds, a boarding house, several businesses and a 2000 acre stretch of prime river bottomland. Although she lost much of her wealth during the Great Depression of 1928, she still lived a comfortable life, dying in 1967 at the age of 65 from a stroke. She is buried at Blackjack Cemetery in her childhood hometown of Taft, Oklahoma.
• Naya Desir-Johnson’s performance as Sarah Rector in Sarah’s Oil earned her a 2026 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Youth Performance in a Motion Picture.
Video & Photo
