Kevin Hart wears an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak

In Lift, Kevin Hart plays Cyrus Whitaker, the leader of an international heist crew that signs on with an Interpol agent to steal half a billion dollars' worth of gold bullion from a passenger flight. F. Gary Gray directed for Netflix from Daniel Kunka's script, shooting at Belfast's Harbour Studios and on the grounds of Miramare Castle in Trieste; the SAG-AFTRA strike pushed the release from August 2023 to January 2024, and within six months the film had drawn 129 million views, Netflix's second most watched film of that half year. On Cyrus's wrist is a black Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Chronograph.

How the watch got there is on the record, because Hart told Ben Clymer himself. Sitting down with the Hodinkee founder between shows on his Reality Check tour, Hart explained that he has a partnership with Audemars Piguet, the reason the brand keeps appearing in his commercials and movies, and that the Royal Oak Automatic Chronograph he would wear in Lift was the same unreleased model he had accidentally worn in public, setting off a media frenzy before the watch was announced. Sometimes, he said, the accident ends up being a big story behind the success of the watch.

The Royal Oak itself is widely considered the first luxury sports watch in the world. Gérald Genta, who would later draw the Patek Philippe Nautilus, designed it, and Audemars Piguet presented it at Baselworld in 1972 with exposed screw heads, an integrated steel bracelet, and a case inspired by traditional diving helmets. On the Lift press tour Hart wore a different Royal Oak entirely, a platinum Openworked Extra-Thin 40th Anniversary limited to forty pieces worldwide. The film's watch is the black chronograph, featured the way Hart said it would be: classy and cool, because it is a heist movie.