Criminal

*Criminal* is a Netflix crime-drama anthology built around police interviews. It premiered on September 20, 2019, with four related series: *Criminal: UK*, *Criminal: France*, *Criminal: Germany*, and *Criminal: Spain*. Each has its own cast and investigations, conducted in the country’s language. Rather than follow detectives through crime scenes and arrests, the episodes concentrate on what happens when investigators bring a suspect into an interview room. The observation room next door is nearly as important: officers watch, disagree about what they have heard, and decide who should ask the next question.

The series was created by George Kay and Jim Field Smith. Its four original versions used the same basic production setup in Madrid, an unusual arrangement for dramas set in different countries. That shared space helps give the anthology a recognizable form without making its cases identical. An interview might turn on a contradiction in a statement, a detail an officer has withheld, or a suspect’s reaction to someone watching behind the glass. The limited setting puts particular weight on dialogue and performance; the audience often learns about the alleged crime at the same time as the questioning team.

*Criminal: UK* began with three episodes named for the people being questioned: “Edgar,” “Stacey,” and “Jay.” David Tennant plays Edgar Fallon, a doctor interviewed in connection with a girl’s death. Hayley Atwell appears as Stacey Doyle, while Youssef Kerkour plays Jay Muthassir. The recurring British police team includes Katherine Kelly as Natalie Hobbs, Lee Ingleby as Tony Myerscough, Rochenda Sandall as Vanessa Warren, and Shubham Saraf as Kyle Petit. Their conversations outside the interview room matter because a promising line of questioning can be challenged or abandoned before the suspect ever hears it.

The UK series returned in September 2020 with four more episodes. Its new guest performers included Sophie Okonedo, Kit Harington, Sharon Horgan, and Kunal Nayyar, each at the center of a separate interview. The other national versions remained three-episode series; their casts included Nathalie Baye in the French version, Peter Kurth in the German version, and Carmen Machi in the Spanish version. Across the anthology, the format stays deliberately narrow, but the question is not simply whether someone will confess. Officers must judge whether an account is reliable, whether their tactics are working, and whether the evidence supports the conclusion they want to reach. Those decisions, made across a table rather than at a crime scene, are the show’s defining action.