Television series

The Fall

Name: The Fall
Genre: Drama, Crime, Thriller
Released: 2013
Cast: Gillian Anderson, Jamie Dornan, John Lynch, Bronagh Waugh, Niamh McGrady

Other titles called The Fall: the 2008 film.

The Fall pits Gillian Anderson's ice-cool Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson against Jamie Dornan's meticulous Belfast strangler, revealing his identity from episode one so the tension lives in the hunt, not the mystery. It's slow, controlled, unflinching about the violence it depicts and about our own appetite for watching. Style and dread over twists.

TVMaze rating

4.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like slow-burn police procedurals where the real pleasure is watching two cool, intelligent adversaries circle each other, with tension built from patient detail rather than shocks.

Skip it if you find sustained violence against women hard to sit through, since the deliberate pace lingers on dread and gives you little relief between scenes.

What it asks of you: Seventeen hour-long episodes over three series, unfolding at a measured pace that lets the camera hold on faces and silences as much as on action.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Happy Valley2014

Sarah Lancashire's Catherine Cawood is every bit as formidable as Stella Gibson, a working police procedural that handles violence against women with the same unsentimental fury, set in bleak Yorkshire rather than Belfast.

But Grittier and more vernacular than The Fall's cool style, with messier, more exhausted heroism instead of clinical control.

Top of the Lake2013

Jane Campion's miniseries shares The Fall's fascination with a female detective navigating a system built by and for men, wrapped in an unsettling, dreamlike atmosphere.

But The mystery unfolds elliptically, favouring mood and symbolism over the procedural clarity some Fall fans might want.

Broadchurch2013

A tight, addictive British crime drama that turns communal grief into suspense, with the same instinct for slow dread and morally compromised detectives.

But Warmer and more sentimental than The Fall's detachment, and less interested in the killer's own psychology.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Fall

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Peeping Tom1960

It's the visual and moral ancestor of The Fall's camera-as-weapon language, made over fifty years earlier and just as uncomfortable about the audience's own looking.

This British classic follows a killer who films his murders through his camera lens, effectively inventing the voyeur's-eye perspective The Fall keeps returning to whenever it lingers on Spector's rituals.

But Dated effects and theatrical performances feel quaint next to modern polish, even as its ideas stay startlingly current.

MINDHUNTER2017

If Stella's fascination with the killer's mind hooked you, this digs deeper into the real-world study of serial killers with the same patient, restrained visual style.

But The American setting and 70s period trappings feel far removed from Belfast's damp, intimate menace.

Luther2010

Idris Elba's tormented detective prowls a London as moody as The Fall's Belfast, chasing killers whose menace is shown as intimately as the pursuit itself.

But More pulpy and heightened, happy to sacrifice plausibility for style and shock value.

The Killing Floor2007

The original slow-burn Nordic noir, patient to the point of obsession, following a female detective who refuses to let go of a single murder.

But Even slower than The Fall, and subtitles may test viewers who already found the pace glacial.

Killing Eve2018

Another obsessive cat-and-mouse study, though with wit and flamboyance where The Fall stays quiet, blurring the line between hunter and hunted with real flair.

But Much campier and funnier, which undercuts the somber realism The Fall is so committed to.

Marcella2016

Anna Friel plays a British detective unravelling alongside the case she's investigating, echoing Stella's cool competence layered over private fracture.

But Less disciplined plotting, prone to soap-opera swerves that The Fall would never allow itself.

True Detective2014

Atmosphere-heavy, philosophically inclined crime drama pairing two obsessive investigators against a killer who stays murky for a long time.

But More macho and mythic, trading Fall's focus on women's experience for two men's existential spiraling.

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst2015

It's the true-crime mirror of The Fall's premise — the audience half-knowing the killer's guilt early, and forced to sit with its own fascination.

A real hunter-and-hunted story, following documentarians circling a suspected killer with the same patient dread and unease about why we can't stop watching.

But No fictional shaping means messier pacing, and an ending that raises more questions than it settles.

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst poster

Elle2016

Where The Fall studies its killer's control, Elle studies a woman reclaiming hers — same power dynamics, other side of the glass.

Isabelle Huppert plays a woman who refuses victimhood after an assault, turning the camera's gaze from predator to survivor with brutal, unsentimental control.

But Deliberately provocative and morally slippery, and considerably more explicit than anything The Fall shows.