# Too Old to Die Young
**Too Old to Die Young** is a 2019 crime drama streaming series created and directed by the Danish filmmaker [Nicolas Winding Refn](https://www.edgepedia.org/nicolas-winding-refn), written with the comics author [Ed Brubaker](https://www.edgepedia.org/ed-brubaker), and released on Amazon Prime Video. Across ten episodes totaling about thirteen hours, it follows a Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy, Martin Jones ([Miles Teller](https://www.edgepedia.org/miles-teller)), who is drawn into an underworld of cartel soldiers, Yakuza assassins, and vigilantes after a violent night upends his life.[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2019/too-old-to-die-young-the-new-laboratory-of-nicolas-winding-refn/) • [2](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/too-old-to-die-young)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Format | 10 episodes, roughly 13 hours total; each episode designed as a film of 75 to 90 minutes[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2019/too-old-to-die-young-the-new-laboratory-of-nicolas-winding-refn/) |
| Creators | Nicolas Winding Refn and Ed Brubaker; produced by Amazon Studios[3](https://www.rogerebert.com/streaming/nicolas-winding-refn-delivers-distinct-vision-of-too-old-to-die-young) • [4](https://www.backstage.com/resources/detail/productionlisting/too-old-to-die-young-86412/) |
| Lead cast | Miles Teller as Martin Jones, with Augusto Aguilera, Nell Tiger Free, Cristina Rodlo, and John Hawkes[5](https://www.tvmaze.com/shows/25720/too-old-to-die-young) |
| Release | Two episodes screened Out of Competition at Cannes in May 2019; full launch on Amazon Prime Video on 14 June 2019[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2019/too-old-to-die-young-the-new-laboratory-of-nicolas-winding-refn/) • [6](https://cineuropa.org/en/interview/372832/en/newsdetail/373855/) |
| Music | About five hours of score by Cliff Martinez, Refn's composer since *Drive* (2011)[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2019/too-old-to-die-young-the-new-laboratory-of-nicolas-winding-refn/) |
| Reception | IMDb 7.3/10 (about 13,000 votes); Rotten Tomatoes 72%; rated TV-MA[2](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/too-old-to-die-young) |
## Spoilers
### Premise and story
The series is set in a nighttime Los Angeles dominated by crime, sex, violence, and corruption, told through Mexican gangs and corrupt cops. Within a single devastating evening, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Martin Jones sees his world shattered, and he is pushed into a lethal underworld populated by cartel soldiers, Yakuza assassins, and enigmatic vigilantes, wandering onto a surreal journey of killing, mysticism, and revenge while the sins of his past bear down on him.[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2019/too-old-to-die-young-the-new-laboratory-of-nicolas-winding-refn/) • [5](https://www.tvmaze.com/shows/25720/too-old-to-die-young)
Supporting characters include Jesus Rojas (Augusto Aguilera), Janey Carter ([Nell Tiger Free](https://www.edgepedia.org/nell-tiger-free)), Yaritza (Cristina Rodlo), and Viggo Larsen (John Hawkes), a retired FBI agent dying of terminal cancer while caring for his senile mother. During an investigation into the death of a child predator, Martin encounters Diana DeYoung ([Jena Malone](https://www.edgepedia.org/jena-malone)), a wealthy victims' advocate in the California penal system.[5](https://www.tvmaze.com/shows/25720/too-old-to-die-young) • [7](https://thegoodsreviews.com/too-old-to-die-young-2019/) The episode titles follow the tarot's major arcana (the main 22 trump cards in a tarot deck), ending with "Volume 10: The World" and "Volume 9: The Empress".[5](https://www.tvmaze.com/shows/25720/too-old-to-die-young)
### Content and rating
The series is rated TV-MA. Common Sense Media, which recommends it only for viewers 17 and older, catalogs extreme violence, drug use including cocaine, sexual content and female nudity, frequent profanity, and a generally dark, nihilistic outlook; it also notes that early episodes run upwards of 90 minutes and move slowly.[12](https://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/too-old-to-die-young)
## Production
Refn began the project after *[The Neon Demon](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-neon-demon)* (2016) with the idea of reassessing his artistic approach, his first television-scale work after nine feature films. He said streaming attracted him because the viewer decides when to watch, so every episode was designed and constructed as a film in its own right, running between 75 and 90 minutes. Ten months of shooting were needed for the thirteen-hour series.[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2019/too-old-to-die-young-the-new-laboratory-of-nicolas-winding-refn/)
He paid particular attention to the imagery, experimenting during shooting and in post-production with the aim of transporting the viewer into a sensory universe.[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2019/too-old-to-die-young-the-new-laboratory-of-nicolas-winding-refn/) In interviews at Cannes he described the project in film rather than television terms, saying he had not created a TV show but a thirteen-hour movie, and that he had no interest in episodic narrative.[6](https://cineuropa.org/en/interview/372832/en/newsdetail/373855/)
## Style
The series extends the aesthetic Refn developed in *[Only God Forgives](https://www.edgepedia.org/only-god-forgives)* (2013) and *The Neon Demon*: long takes, affectless line delivery, frontal compositions, red-and-green neon lighting, and bursts of extreme violence, with storytelling subordinated to style and mood. Critics compared its logic to [David Lynch](https://www.edgepedia.org/david-lynch)'s television work, in which composition and feeling supplant traditional narrative.[3](https://www.rogerebert.com/streaming/nicolas-winding-refn-delivers-distinct-vision-of-too-old-to-die-young) • [8](https://tilt.goombastomp.com/film/too-old-to-die-young/) The British Film Institute described it as bursting the boundaries of long-form television by bringing the visual language of genre film and art cinema to the small screen, prioritizing sensory overload over narrative momentum.[9](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/too-old-die-young-nicolas-winding-refn-TV)
The pacing is extreme. An early group-therapy scene for people with posttraumatic stress disorder sets the tempo that persists across the episodes, with the camera moving deliberately around the participants before a jolt of parking-lot bloodshed.[10](https://www.thewrap.com/too-old-to-die-young-review-miles-teller-embraces-slow-nihilism-in-nicolas-winding-refn-series/) Teller has almost no dialogue and spends scene after scene staring into the middle distance with what one reviewer called emotionless anomie.[10](https://www.thewrap.com/too-old-to-die-young-review-miles-teller-embraces-slow-nihilism-in-nicolas-winding-refn-series/)
## Release and reception
Two episodes, "North of Hollywood" and "West of Hell", were presented Out of Competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2019, before a masterclass with Refn; Amazon released the full series on 14 June 2019.[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2019/too-old-to-die-young-the-new-laboratory-of-nicolas-winding-refn/) • [6](https://cineuropa.org/en/interview/372832/en/newsdetail/373855/) For critics, Amazon initially made available only the two Cannes episodes, cut into a 138-minute movie.[3](https://www.rogerebert.com/streaming/nicolas-winding-refn-delivers-distinct-vision-of-too-old-to-die-young)
Reception divided sharply. The BFI framed the series as a deliberate desecration of prestige television.[9](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/too-old-die-young-nicolas-winding-refn-TV) A negative Cannes review called it self-parody, criticizing glacial pacing, clichéd narratives, and scenes that linger on injury detail.[8](https://tilt.goombastomp.com/film/too-old-to-die-young/) TheWrap's reviewer questioned what an indulgent dive into nihilistic violence was for, while noting the series' commitment to its own pace.[10](https://www.thewrap.com/too-old-to-die-young-review-miles-teller-embraces-slow-nihilism-in-nicolas-winding-refn-series/) RogerEbert.com's Brian Tallerico found the endless scenes either mesmerizing or stultifying, and allowed that viewers could reasonably call it the dullest thing streaming that year.[3](https://www.rogerebert.com/streaming/nicolas-winding-refn-delivers-distinct-vision-of-too-old-to-die-young) Aggregated French press scores on AlloCiné averaged 2.4 out of 5 across nine reviews.[11](https://www.allocine.fr/series/ficheserie-21717/critiques/presse/) Audience measures have been warmer: the series holds 7.3 on IMDb and 72 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and it remains available on Amazon Prime Video.[2](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/too-old-to-die-young)
## References
1. [Too Old To Die Young, the new laboratory of Nicolas Winding Refn, Festival de Cannes (17 May 2019)](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2019/too-old-to-die-young-the-new-laboratory-of-nicolas-winding-refn/)
2. [Too Old to Die Young, JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/too-old-to-die-young)
3. [Nicolas Winding Refn Delivers Distinct Vision of Too Old to Die Young, RogerEbert.com (Brian Tallerico, 13 June 2019)](https://www.rogerebert.com/streaming/nicolas-winding-refn-delivers-distinct-vision-of-too-old-to-die-young)
4. [Too Old to Die Young, Production Listing, Backstage](https://www.backstage.com/resources/detail/productionlisting/too-old-to-die-young-86412/)
5. [Too Old to Die Young, TVmaze](https://www.tvmaze.com/shows/25720/too-old-to-die-young)
6. [Nicolas Winding Refn, Director of Too Old to Die Young, Cineuropa (Marta Bałaga, 20 May 2019)](https://cineuropa.org/en/interview/372832/en/newsdetail/373855/)
7. [Too Old to Die Young (2019), The Goods Reviews](https://thegoodsreviews.com/too-old-to-die-young-2019/)
8. [Cannes Film Festival 2019: Too Old To Die Young is Clownish Shock-Mongering, Tilt Magazine (James Slaymaker, 19 May 2019)](https://tilt.goombastomp.com/film/too-old-to-die-young/)
9. [Too Old to Die Young: Nicolas Winding Refn's timely desecration of prestige TV, BFI (Paul Ridd, 26 June 2019)](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/too-old-die-young-nicolas-winding-refn-TV)
10. [Too Old to Die Young Review: Miles Teller Embraces Slow Nihilism, TheWrap (Sharon Waxman, 18 May 2019)](https://www.thewrap.com/too-old-to-die-young-review-miles-teller-embraces-slow-nihilism-in-nicolas-winding-refn-series/)
11. [Critique presse Too Old to Die Young, AlloCiné](https://www.allocine.fr/series/ficheserie-21717/critiques/presse/)
12. [Too Old to Die Young, Parents' Guide, Common Sense Media (Martin Brown)](https://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/too-old-to-die-young)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Genre and subject-scripted series › Crime, police, and detective series › American crime series › Serialized crime dramas › Titles M to Y*
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