Jon Bernthal Leads The Punisher: One Last Kill to 77%
jon bernthal gave Frank Castle his best-reviewed outing yet this week, as The Punisher: One Last Kill opened on Disney Plus with a 77% TomatoMeter score. The 45-minute special now sits ahead of every other movie and TV adaptation of the character, setting a new benchmark for the franchise.
Bernthal stars as Castle and co-wrote the script with director Reinaldo Marcus Green. The special also carries an 87% Audience Score, a stronger response than the feature films and the two Netflix seasons that came before it.
Castle’s Rotten Tomatoes climb
The 1990 The Punisher finished at 24% on the TomatoMeter and 33% with audiences, while the 2004 film reached 30% and 63%. 2008’s The Punisher: War Zone landed at 29% and 42%, which left the character without a film entry that could cross the 30% critic mark until now.
On television, the first Netflix season posted a 68% TomatoMeter score and an 88% Audience Score, then the second season slipped to 61% and 70%. One Last Kill moved past both with 77% from critics, which is the cleanest sign yet that Bernthal’s version of Frank Castle has become the version that lands best with reviewers.
Reinaldo Marcus Green’s special
The special’s 45-minute runtime keeps the project closer to an event episode than a full season or feature, which makes the comparison even sharper against the franchise’s older entries. It also arrives as a sequel to the Netflix Punisher series, so the new score is not just a standalone lift; it is a direct read on how this take on Castle holds up against the same continuity.
Bernthal’s current Marvel footprint extends beyond this release, with supporting roles in Daredevil: Born Again season 1 and the upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day. That gives Disney Plus a version of Castle that is already threaded through the wider Marvel system, and this review result strengthens the case for keeping him central to it.
Frank Castle’s new benchmark
The 87% Audience Score creates the sharpest tension in the comparison. Critics now put One Last Kill first among Frank Castle screen adaptations, and viewers back it more strongly than every film but not more strongly than the first Netflix season, which reached 88%.
For Bernthal, that split is still a win. He has turned a character that repeatedly underperformed in earlier films into a franchise benchmark on both sides of the rating divide, and the numbers give Disney Plus a ready-made reason to keep Castle in circulation rather than treat him like a one-off special.
