General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Culprits

Culprits is a British heist thriller television series created, written, and directed by J Blakeson, in which the crew of a major London robbery, living under new identities years later, is hunted one by one by a masked assassin. It was ordered by Disney+ in 2021 as part of the streamer's first slate of UK scripted originals, premiered on 8 November 2023 in the UK and Ireland, and debuted on Hulu in the United States on 8 December 2023.¹^•²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Format	Eight episodes of about 55 minutes, released all at once; a Character 7 production²
Creator	J Blakeson (I Care a Lot, The Disappearance of Alice Creed), who directs with Claire Oakley¹^•⁴
Lead cast	Nathan Stewart-Jarrett as Joe/David, Gemma Arterton as Dianne Harewood, with Niamh Algar, Kirby, Ned Dennehy, and Eddie Izzard²
Premise	Three years after a £30 million vault robbery in London, a masked killer hunts the dispersed crew⁵
Structure	Three timelines labeled BEFORE, THEN, and NOW on screen in yellow capitals⁵
Reception	79% Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes (24 reviews); Metascore 56 on Metacritic⁶^•⁷
Status	One season; listed as canceled/ended⁸

Spoilers

Premise and structure

The series begins where most crime stories end. The story follows a band of skilled crooks who pull off a risky robbery, split up, and attempt to put their former lives behind them, only to find that yesterday and today come crashing together once a merciless killer begins hunting them down individually.⁹ The central character, Joe Petrus (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), lives in the United States with his fiancé and step-kids, hiding that he was involved in a mysterious crime three years earlier. When a killer starts eliminating the crew, he returns to London to track down his old gang and find out who is coming after them.¹⁰

The heist itself sits in the past. In the BEFORE timeline, the London criminal Dianne Harewood (Gemma Arterton) assembles a team to crack a seemingly impenetrable vault and steal £30 million, telling them the money belongs to "fat cats" who have hidden their wealth; each member is paid to disappear into a new life afterward.⁵ Crew members know each other only by role-based code names such as Brain, Soldier, Driver, Right Hand, and Muscle, Joe's name; the assassin, whose victims pile up across the NOW timeline, wears a blank-faced mask.⁵^•¹¹ The mystery of who is behind the killings, and why, is withheld until the finale.¹²

Production

Disney+ commissioned Culprits in April 2021 among its first UK scripted originals, placing it under the adult-focused Star brand.¹ Blakeson had written the pilot before shooting his 2020 film I Care a Lot.¹³ Stephen Garrett (The Night Manager, The Undoing) executive produced through his company Character 7, with Morenike Williams (Killing Eve) producing; Johanna Devereaux executive produced for Disney+ EMEA.⁹ Blakeson directed alongside Claire Oakley, who handled episodes 5, 6, and 7.⁴

Filming was international. The heist sequence was shot largely on location in Manchester's Northern Quarter, with the city council granting control of the streets for high-speed car chases and low-altitude FPV drone work, plus volume work at the MARS Volume LED studio in London; other filming took place in Europe and Ontario, Canada, the latter doubling for Washington State.¹⁴ A Disney programming listing describes the series as based on the story collection Culprits: The Heist Was Only the Beginning.¹⁵

Reception

Critical response was divided. On Rotten Tomatoes, season 1 holds a 79% Tomatometer from 24 reviews and a 77% Popcornmeter score; the critics consensus calls it "a stylish caper packed with enough twists to solve a Rubik's Cube".⁶ Metacritic assigned a Metascore of 56, labeled mixed or average, from nine critic reviews.⁷

Praise centered on style and cast. Rebecca Nicholson of The Guardian called it "smart, exciting and very, well, slick", singling out Arterton's performance and Stewart-Jarrett's hold on the lead role.⁵ The A.V. Club's Meredith Hobbs Coons graded it a B, finding it fast-paced, flashy, and emotionally honest in its two romantic leads.³ Radio Times praised Stewart-Jarrett as "the beating heart of this story" while judging the final episodes flat.¹⁶

Critics split over the twists. Ben Travers of IndieWire gave a C-, writing that the show creates twists by withholding information and that many, especially near the end, feel exhausting rather than exhilarating; Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter found every reveal and double-cross drew a shrug.⁷ The Telegraph's Ed Power called it a Reservoir Dogs tribute that never comes close to sealing the deal.⁷ Common Sense Media, reviewing it for families, rated it 15+ for frequent gunplay, blood, and gore, and noted the casting puts women and actors of color in non-stereotypical roles, with the central character both a master criminal and a Black, gay father.¹⁷

Distribution

All eight episodes streamed on Disney+ in the UK and Ireland from 8 November 2023 and on Hulu in the US from 8 December 2023.²^•³ The series later became available on SBS On Demand in Australia¹¹ and, under a licensing agreement with Disney Entertainment, on ITVX in the UK from 19 December 2024.¹⁰ No second season was made; episode guides list the show as canceled/ended after its single season.⁸

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Drama and prestige series (individual series) › Crime and thriller series › Organized crime and heist series

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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