Jake Gyllenhaal wears a Cartier Santos de Cartier

In one scene of In the Grey, Jake Gyllenhaal sits behind the wheel of a parked SUV, sunglasses on, a phone in one hand held to his ear. His other arm rests along the door, and the watch on that wrist is a square case on a leather strap, screws set into the bezel. It is a Cartier Santos, in the flat hand-wound form the company calls the Santos-Dumont.

Gyllenhaal plays Bronco. With Henry Cavill's Sid, he runs the mercenary crew a fixer brings in to pry a billion-dollar debt out of a man who will not pay. Guy Ritchie wrote and directed it, a double-crossing caper of the sort he has made before, and Lionsgate released it in May 2026.

The watch is not a neutral choice. Gyllenhaal fronts Cartier's Santos campaigns off screen, so the model reaches Bronco already tied to the man wearing it. Its shape is old. Louis Cartier drew the square case and the screwed bezel in 1904 for Alberto Santos-Dumont, a Brazilian aviator who wanted the time without taking his hands off his flying machine. The watch is often credited with moving the timepiece from the pocket to the wrist. A century and change later it does the same small job for Bronco, who reads it without lifting the phone from his ear.