Rogue cops, violent drug dealers, a gorgeous old European city — Netflix has gotten quite adept at taking these ingredients, putting them into the streaming blender, and cooking up one gritty crime drama after another. Some of the best include Snabba Cash and Suburra: Blood on Rome, while newer examples include Blood Coast — a six-episode cops vs. drug gangs saga in which cops desperate to clean up the mean streets of Marseilles hunt down a dangerous criminal.
It’s a French series (directed by César Awards winner and former police officer Olivier Marchal) that only debuted on the streamer a week ago. Yet it’s already rocketed straight to #1 in its category, dominating the latest weekly chart of the Top 10 non-English Netflix series in the world.
Blood Coast, about a Marseille DEA captain and his team as they close in on an elusive drug ring, racked up 5.6 million views for the week that ended on Dec. 10 — enough that the series would have been the #3 English series in the world, just behind Squid Game: The Challenge.
Here’s Netflix’s official summary of Blood Coast, which was filmed in Marseilles and Paris: The police captain’s team is so desperate to fight the bad guys that their, shall we say, “unorthodox” methods have triggered an investigation by internal affairs. The captain has “left bystanders with gunshot wounds, endangered the public, and bloodied a drug dealer in his custody. So he’s on thin ice when a new officer with a flawless record arrives on the scene straight from Interpol. Captain Alice Vidal is assigned to (Captain Lyès) Benamar’s case and becomes his partner.
“While their approaches may differ, they share the same objective: Track down the vicious drug lord Franck Murillo — by any means necessary.”
The launch of the series comes as Netflix continues to ramp up its investment in local European markets, as was evidenced earlier this year when Netflix held an event to showcase upcoming content from France. That content includes the high-octane series Fury, with an A-list French cast that’s set in the world of organized crime.
And then there’s Blood Coast, which in my opinion is perfect for fans of other Netflix crime series like Top Boy and the Narcos franchise. Check out a trailer for Blood Coast below.
