General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Good Mothers

The Good Mothers is a 2023 Italian-British crime drama miniseries, six episodes of 50 to 60 minutes, distributed on Disney+ and streaming in the United States on Hulu. It dramatizes the true story of women inside the Calabrian mafia, the 'Ndrangheta, who broke the organization's code of silence and collaborated with prosecutors to bring their clans down from within.¹^•² At the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival in February 2023 it won the Berlinale Series Award, the first television award the festival created.¹^•³

Key fact	Detail
Format	Miniseries, 6 episodes of 50–60 minutes; Italy–United Kingdom co-production, 2023¹
Distribution	Disney+ (Italy and Europe); Hulu in the United States¹^•²
Source	Adapted from Alex Perry's nonfiction book The Good Mothers: The True Story of the Women Who Took on the World's Most Powerful Mafia; screenplay by Stephen Butchard¹^•⁴
Direction	Julian Jarrold and Elisa Amoruso¹
Lead cast	Micaela Ramazzotti (Lea Garofalo), Gaia Girace (Denise Cosco), Valentina Bellè (Giuseppina Pesce), Simona Distefano (Concetta Cacciola), Barbara Chichiarelli (prosecutor Anna Colace), Francesco Colella (Carlo Cosco)¹
Award	Berlinale Series Award, 73rd Berlin International Film Festival, 2023¹
Reception	100% Tomatometer (7 reviews) and 96% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes for season 1⁵

Spoilers

Premise and plot

The series is set in Italy in 2009. Lea Garofalo, who has left the witness protection program, agrees to meet her former husband, the 'Ndrangheta boss Carlo Cosco, for the sake of their daughter Denise. Shortly afterward she disappears without a trace. In the same period, the prosecutor Anna Colace approaches Giuseppina Pesce and Concetta Cacciola, two women from local clans, offering them a way out on condition that they become justice collaborators.¹

Colace's strategy, which the series presents as her own innovation, is to target the women of the 'Ndrangheta: mothers and wives of the top bosses who are violently oppressed and marginalized by the organization's patriarchal system. The show follows four women, Lea Garofalo, her daughter Denise Cosco, Giuseppina Pesce, and Maria Concetta Cacciola, as they break family bonds in search of freedom and a future for themselves and their children.²^•¹

The narrative runs on two tracks: the women's rebellion, with its family dynamics and inner torment, and Colace's parallel pursuit of a workable justice against criminal organizations. Critics noted the show's deliberately confined staging; violence happens not on the street but inside homes, and even a Facebook post can bring retribution.⁶

The true story behind the series

The series is closely based on documented events. Lea Garofalo first turned against the 'Ndrangheta in 2002, giving police details of internal feuds that had led to about 40 deaths. She left witness protection in 2006, and in 2009 was lured to Milan by Carlo Cosco, the father of her daughter. She was kidnapped, tortured, and killed by Cosco's brothers, Vito and Giuseppe Cosco. Carlo Cosco denied the murder charges, claiming Lea had fled to Australia, but he and five other men received life sentences in 2012, largely thanks to the testimony of his daughter Denise.⁴

The fictional prosecutor Anna Colace corresponds to the real prosecutor Alessandra Cerreti, who in the book's account persuaded mafia wives to testify in exchange for a new future for themselves and their children; their evidence brought down a billion-dollar crime family and set off further defections by other women.⁴^•⁷

The Italian newspaper la Repubblica reported in April 2023 that two of the real women, including Giuseppina Pesce, had formally complained about how they were portrayed in the fiction, a dispute over the exact truthfulness of the facts that the Italian film evaluation commission also noted alongside its praise for the series' narrative quality.⁸^•¹

The 'Ndrangheta context

The organization at the center of the series is the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, a Calabrese word meaning loyalty and courage. According to the figures cited in Alex Perry's book, Italian prosecutors estimate it runs 70% of the cocaine in Europe, manages billion-dollar extortion rackets, and earns an estimated $50 to 100 billion a year, equivalent to about 3.5% of Italian GDP. Its membership is drawn largely from the same founding families, so members are born in or marry in, and loyalty is enforced through violence.⁷

Perry's account also describes the position of women inside the organization: girls married off in arranged clan alliances, routine beatings, and lethal punishment for women who broke the family's rules. The series takes this misogyny as the organization's weak link, the premise of Colace's strategy.⁷^•⁶

Production and reception

The series was produced by House Productions and Wildside, Fremantle for Disney+, with photography by Vittorio Omodei Zorini, Ferran Paredes Rubio, and Martina Cocco, music by Giorgio Giampà, and editing by Simona Paggi, Chiara Griziotti, and Irene Vecchio.¹ Although the cast and most of the crew are Italian, the writing, direction, and production leadership are British, a collaboration the London Standard called harmonious.⁶

Critical reception was strongly positive. The Telegraph awarded five stars, writing that the series offers the women who defied the 'Ndrangheta something denied by the criminal phallocracy they were born into: honor; The Times called it a revelation, cleverly written, beautifully shot, and brilliantly acted.⁹ Season 1 holds a 100% Tomatometer from seven critics and a 96% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.⁵ The Italian film evaluation commission rated the miniseries as complex, problematic, and suited to debate, recommended for adult audiences and accompanied adolescents, and suggested it as a basis for discussion of justice, the fight against organized crime, and memory.¹

References

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