The Gentlemen

Netflix’s The Gentlemen is an eight-episode crime comedy-drama created by Guy Ritchie, who also directed the first two episodes. It premiered on 7 March 2024. Although it shares its title and criminal milieu with Ritchie’s 2019 film The Gentlemen, the series tells a new story with different principal characters rather than continuing the film’s plot. Theo James plays Edward “Eddie” Horniman, a former United Nations peacekeeping officer who unexpectedly becomes the 13th Duke of Halstead after the death of his father. Eddie returns to the family’s Halstead Manor estate in England expecting to inherit a financially troubled aristocratic property. Instead, he discovers that part of the estate is being used as the base for a large cannabis-growing operation. The enterprise belongs to Bobby Glass, a jailed crime boss played by Ray Winstone. Bobby’s sharp and controlled daughter, Susie Glass, portrayed by Kaya Scodelario, manages the business while he is in prison. Eddie initially wants nothing to do with the operation, but the estate’s debts, his family’s circumstances, and threats from rival criminals draw him deeper into the arrangement. His attempts to preserve the title and protect his relatives repeatedly put him in contact with people who see the Horniman land as a valuable criminal asset. Daniel Ings plays Eddie’s older brother, Frederick “Freddy” Horniman. Freddy was expected to inherit the dukedom before Eddie, but his reckless behavior and debts make him a major source of trouble. Joely Richardson appears as Lady Sabrina Horniman, Eddie and Freddy’s mother, while Vinnie Jones plays Geoff Seacombe, the family’s gamekeeper and a loyal presence on the estate. Chanel Cresswell plays Tammy Horniman, Eddie’s sister. The supporting criminal world includes Giancarlo Esposito as Stanley Johnston, an American businessman with an interest in the cannabis operation, and Peter Serafinowicz as the charismatic but dangerous drug dealer known as the “Gospel John.” The series also features Max Beesley as Henry Collins, a Liverpool-based criminal figure, and Harry Goodwins as Jack Glass, Susie’s brother. Ritchie’s series uses the collision between inherited British aristocracy and organized crime as its central premise. Eddie’s dukedom, country estate, and formal obligations are not merely decorative: they become the leverage through which the Glass organization operates. The show follows his evolution from reluctant landowner to a participant who must decide how far he is willing to go to keep control of Halstead Manor and his family’s future.