Silk Road is a 2021 American crime thriller film, written for the screen and directed by Tiller Russell based on the Rolling Stone article "Dead End on Silk Road: Internet Crime Kingpin Ross Ulbricht's Big Fall" by David Kushner. The film stars Jason Clarke, Nick Robinson, Alexandra Shipp, Jimmi Simpson, Paul Walter Hauser, Darrell Britt-Gibson, and Will Ropp. It is based on the true story of Ross Ulbricht, who develops a website on the darknet, an act which attracts the attention of the FBI and DEA, who send in federal agent Richard "Rick" Bowden, a fictional composite of real life DEA Special Agent Carl Force and US Secret Service Special Agent Shaun Bridges, both of whom were convicted of felonies related to theft of assets in the investigation of Ulbricht, to bring down his empire.