Guy Ritchie’s new Netflix crime series The Gentlemen is riding high this week, racking up 12.2 million views worldwide for a #1 placement in its debut on the streamer’s global Top 10 TV shows list. The show, set in the same universe as Ritchie’s 2019 feature film of the same name, stars Theo James as Eddie Horniman, the Duke of Halstead, who’s also the estranged son of an English aristocrat. Long story short, Eddie’s father has disinherited the eldest son and left Eddie with his estate as well as his debts — including his links to a crime organization.
The drama is basically an extension of Ritchie’s stylish, big-screen gangster romps, repacked in the form of a Netflix series. The Gentlemen unfolds across eight episodes, which is increasingly becoming the standard length for Netflix shows, and the series also boasts a strong 85% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Netflix crime dramas like this one, I have to say, are some of my favorites to binge on the streaming giant. Most of what I watch, in fact, are gritty crime sagas and gangster dramas along the lines of The Gentlemen — with my favorites ranging from Narcos: Mexico to Suburra and Snabba Cash, to name just a few. Which is why, in light of all that, I’d like to offer three more Netflix crime dramas to watch for anyone who finished The Gentlemen and is eager to dive into something else on the streamer in the same vein that they haven’t seen before.
Peaky Blinders
Starring Cillian Murphy, the newly minted Oscar-winning actor from Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, we’ll start off with Peaky Blinders — a six-season British crime drama that’s an absolute must-watch for fans of the crime genre.
If there’s such a thing as a perfect TV show, this series about a gang of flap cap-wearing gangsters from Small Heath is one. The character of Tommy Shelby also offered Murphy a chance to turn in arguably the finest work of his career, bringing to life this World War I veteran-turned-gangster-turned-businessman, one who wants to go straight but is constantly pulled back to the dark side. Cillian loses himself completely in the role and makes you feel like you’re actually watching Tommy, with his buzzed haircut, stylish suits, and the hardscrabble edge to his accent.
Crime thrillers don’t get more stylish or addictive than this absolute gem, and you can get a sense of the kind of writing you’re in store for by diving into some of my favorite quotes from the series, which Peaky fans can check out right here.
Furies
In the Netflix series Furies, meanwhile, six crime families control Paris, and a young woman’s father, who was an accountant for the underworld, is gunned down in front of her. That daughter then goes on a revenge spree — and in the process of hunting down her father’s killer, she’s recruited by the peacekeeper who keeps the warring mafia families in check. It was perfect timing, finding the girl, because that peacekeeper had been looking for a successor who could carry on her efforts to thwart a gangland war in the city.
The show sort of feels like a female version of the John Wick movies, transported to the small screen. The peacekeeper, for example, is “The Fury,” and her role opens up a much larger criminal world with its own rituals and hierarchies, similar to “The Table” and everyone connected to it in the Wick films.
Top Boy
This final Netflix crime series that I think fans of The Gentlemen would enjoy is another British standout which counts Drake among its executive producers.
The show follows two drug dealers named Dushane and Sully in an East London public housing estate called Summerhouse. Per Netflix, “It’s a ruthless, violent business, but those involved — both sellers and users — are still people, which is where most of the focus, and drama, of this series lies.”
