Uncut Gems (2019)

Uncut Gems

With his debts mounting and angry collectors closing in, a fast-talking New York City jeweler risks everything in hope of staying afloat and alive. Directed by Josh and Benny Safdie and released by A24 in 2019, the film is set in Manhattan's Diamond District, where gambling-addicted dealer Howard Ratner stakes his shop, his marriage and his safety on a rare Ethiopian black opal. Adam Sandler plays Ratner opposite Julia Fox, LaKeith Stanfield, Idina Menzel, Eric Bogosian and Kevin Garnett as himself. (Wikipedia; IMDb)

Watches

Rolex Day-Date

Worn by Adam Sandler as Howard Ratner. Howard Ratner's everyday watch and the piece he wears on the film's poster: a solid 18k yellow gold Day-Date 36 loaded with aftermarket work: a bright red dial, diamond-accented Roman numerals, an oversized diamond bezel that overwhelms the 36mm case, and a fully iced President bracelet. The customisation, not the reference, is the point; it reads as a jeweller advertising his own inventory rather than as a collector's watch, and no on-screen frame establishes a reference number. Production sourced it from a Diamond District store owner who loaned roughly fifteen iced-out Rolexes for the costume tests. (Time+Tide; Oracle of Time) Montres de Luxe independently identifies the watch as a yellow-gold Rolex Day-Date set with precious stones over a red dial, visible on the film's poster. (Montres de Luxe) Hodinkee's original column, from which the Crown & Caliber copy cited on the other rows is syndicated, records that Miller, the Safdies and Sandler chose the red dial from the loaned tray unanimously, and times the watch's last showing at 00:45:38, the red dial catching the street lights as Ratner is stripped outside his daughter's school play. (Hodinkee)

© A24

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Chronograph

Worn by Adam Sandler as Howard Ratner. The watch Ratner is wearing when the film opens, and the first thing taken off him: a pair of collectors strip it from his wrist inside the first seven minutes. The Safdies wrote the watches into the script, and prop master Catherine Miller was supplied a current Royal Oak Chronograph before going back to her source to ask for one period-correct to 2012, the playoff season the plot runs through. The steel chronograph is a 39 mm reference 25860ST, period-correct to 2012 as she intended, though the frame alone does not separate it from the later 26320ST and 26331ST. (Hodinkee via Crown & Caliber; Time+Tide) The Crown & Caliber page reproduces Hodinkee's Watching Movies column, where prop master Catherine Miller's account first ran; Hodinkee reads the Royal Oak as what appears to be ref. 25860ST and adds that Miller used replica watches only where the script called for them. (Hodinkee)

© A24

Breitling Chronomat

Worn by Adam Sandler as Howard Ratner. Ratner's third and last watch, worn once the Royal Oak Chronograph and the customised Day-Date have both been taken off him. It surfaces at 2:05:50, as he unlocks the shop door with the Celtics closing out the 76ers and the camera settles on his wrist. It is a large-cased Chronomat with gilt numbering on the bezel and the model's signature crown, well past the 39 mm 1984 original, though the shot is too brief to fix a reference. (Hodinkee via Crown & Caliber) Hodinkee's original column, the source of the Crown & Caliber copy, publishes an on-set photograph of Sandler in the Chronomat alongside the 02:05:50 frame. (Hodinkee)

© A24