With a fighting spirit well beyond her years, 11-year-old Sarah Rector (Naya Desir-Johnson) clung fervently to her faith that beneath her barren land was a wealth of oil — enough to make her the richest African American woman in the U.S.
In the upcoming film, “Sarah’s Oil,” her miraculous story will be shared for the first time on screen.
Born at the turn of the century in Oklahoma, Sarah was welcomed into a world still struggling to overcome the long-term impact of slavery, facing harsh Jim Crow-era segregation and prejudice.
As a young girl, Sarah was allotted 160 acres of land, which she was eligible for as a descendent of the Native American Creek Nation. The land appears un-farmable and therefore worthless in the government’s eyes — but Sarah says she can hear “oceans” of oil beneath it, claiming it as a gift from God.
She is determined to extract the oil from her land, but as an African American girl, Sarah struggles to strike a fair deal with big-wig oil tycoons. After a failed attempt working with an oil giant, she continues searching for alternative partners, rejecting a series of lowball deals offered by scummy oil sharks.
Using her fierce negotiation skills, Sarah reaches a deal with Bert Smith (Zachary Levi), a charming, opportunistic wildcatter and a solid partner for the burgeoning magnate.
Sarah’s enduring faith in the venture, amid dozens of setbacks, has a transformative effect on Bert.
Her constant trust in God had a similar effect on Levi, who said he “couldn’t believe” this “amazing” true story had not been previously shared with a wide audience.
“It was a story that had to be told,” Levi told the Deseret News. “I figured something as monumental as this, I probably would have heard at some point, in some class or on some podcast, and I had never heard anything about it.”
He continued, “The more people I talked to, the more I realized that nobody had heard anything about this. And I thought, that’s wrong. Stories like this are exactly what we need to be telling more of in Hollywood.”
Fighting to put ‘Sarah’s Oil’ on screen
Levi wanted to help share Sarah’s story from the moment he heard it.
During a flight from Austin, Texas, to Tulsa, Oklahoma, Levi tore through the script for “Sarah’s Oil,” which was shared with him by the film’s producer John Shepherd, who wanted the actor for the role of Bert.
“I could not put the script down,” Levi recalled. “I was so inspired by it, so blown away by it, and I signed on immediately.”
“It was just page after page of me just becoming engrossed in this larger-than-life, but very real life story of this young girl’s perseverance and faith and hope,“ he continued. ”I was moved by it and inspired by it."
Levi, along with Shepherd and the film’s writer-director, Cyrus Nowrasteh, felt a joint responsibility to tell Sarah’s story, which was pieced together using public records and newspaper accounts as well as involvement from members of the Rector family, historians and cultural advisers.
Filmmakers also worked closely with author Tonya Bolden, whose book “Searching for Sarah Rector: The Richest Black Girl in America,” heavily influenced the movie.
Little is known about Sarah’s private life, but filmmakers sought to capture the girl’s unwavering faith and spirit of perseverance before it vanished back into history.
“There’s this phenomenon of lost history — whether it’s African Americans, or Native Americans, or any culture you can think of in this melting pot — stories get lost, histories get lost,” Nowrasteh shared in a statement. “And I thought, why should we walk away from this and allow it to also get lost?”
Levi said he “fought vigorously” alongside Nowrasteh and Shepherd to get the movie made and distributed. “The three of us pushed this boulder up a hill for years,” Levi recalled, adding that he is “grateful” to the studios The Kingdom Story and Wonder Project, as well as Amazon MGM Studios, for seeing the value of this story, and supporting it through production and distribution.
Lessons from Sarah Rector
Throughout a series of demoralizing setbacks — including an attack on Sarah’s family, a lack of funds, broken equipment and harassment from greedy oil tycoons — Sarah clutches her faith, and refuses to give up.
Her relationship with Bert is unique, but “fun on so many levels,” Levi said. They are wedged apart by a massive age gap. Culturally, there is a racial divide. But “they see each other as human beings,” he added. “Thats never in question.”
Bert, in many other ways, is very different from Sarah — he is “an opportunist, he’s a selfish guy, he’s a hustler,” Levi said.
He continued, “It’s Sarah’s beautiful soul and faith that really transforms him and helps him to grow as as a human being.”
One of the things that “most attracted” Levi to the role of Bert is the character growth he experiences as a result of spending time with Sarah, who exposes him to faith in a new and sincere way.
“For Sarah to be unwavering in her faith, despite all of the odds, and for it ultimately to come to fruition in such a massive way that there was this gusher and all of this fortune that lay under her land that she knew was there even before there was ever evidence. ... That’s transformative to somebody like Bert and so I think that’s pretty profound,” Levi said.
He believes that audiences can also benefit from Sarah’s example of faith.
“We all need to recognize that there is something that’s larger, bigger, greater, more powerful than us — God. Some might not call that God, but I do, and and that there is identity to be found in that, and hope to be found in that, in our faith, our humility, our gratitude, our trust in our Creator," Levi said.
When does ‘Sarah’s Oil’ come out?
“Sarah’s Oil” will be released exclusively in theaters nationwide on Friday, Nov. 7, 2025. It is rated PG for thematic content, language, some violence and brief smoking.