Television series

The Staircase

Name: The Staircase
Genre: Drama, Crime, Mystery
Released: 2022
Cast: Colin Firth, Toni Collette, Sophie Turner, Michael Stuhlbarg, Patrick Schwarzenegger

This is the fictionalized, Colin Firth-and-Toni-Collette version of the Michael Peterson case, twisting the real trial into sixteen years of grief, spin and marital archaeology. It's slow, handsome, deliberately uncomfortable, and as interested in the documentary crew filming the case as the case itself. Good for people who like their true crime served with ambiguity rather than answers, and patience for a very long, very sad marriage getting picked apart in public.

TVMaze rating

6.5

If you liked this

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst2015

A documentary series built around an unreliable, oddly charming suspect who talks himself into a corner on camera. It's the gold standard for 'did he do it' television, with an ending that still gets talked about.

But Its most famous moment has been spoiled by a decade of pop culture osmosis, which blunts the impact.

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst poster

A Very English Scandal2018

Hugh Grant, deliciously against type, plays a real politician whose private life curdles into a conspiracy to commit murder. Class, cover-up and courtroom farce, all true, all absurd.

But It plays the scandal for comedy more than dread, so if you want Staircase's heaviness, this feels lighter.

Big Little Lies2017

Gorgeous, wealthy Californians hiding a marriage gone violently wrong behind school-gate smiles. Same interest in what a 'perfect' relationship is actually concealing, with a stacked cast having a great time.

But It's glossier and pulpier than Staircase, more soap opera than slow-burn legal drama.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Thin Blue Line1988

It's the direct stylistic ancestor of the whole subgenre Staircase belongs to — same tool, same unresolved guilt, decades earlier.

Errol Morris's stark, hypnotic documentary about a Texas murder invented the reenactment technique that true-crime television — including the original Staircase documentary this show is based on — has been copying ever since.

But It's black-and-white, formally austere, and 1988; nothing about it feels like a binge.

The Undoing2020

Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant as a golden-couple marriage that may be built on a lie, with a murder investigation peeling back Manhattan privilege layer by layer. Same HBO prestige-mystery DNA.

But The twists lean melodramatic where Staircase stays grounded and grim.

American Crime Story2016

A real crime told with real formal ambition, using the murder as a way into obsession, closeted shame and fame. Darren Criss is genuinely chilling.

But It's structured backwards through the killer's past, a very different shape from Staircase's linear dread.

Dirty John2018

A true-crime marriage-gone-wrong story with the same queasy pull of watching people you like make terrible, understandable decisions. Connie Britton is excellent.

But It's pulpier and more overtly thriller-ish, less interested in ambiguity than in dread.

MINDHUNTER2017

For the procedural itch Staircase leaves half-scratched: cold, meticulous, obsessed with how investigators construct a narrative out of a crime scene.

But No courtroom, no marriage, no ambiguity about guilt — a different kind of true-crime pleasure entirely.

Making a Murderer2015

Another sprawling, years-long documentary series about a man whose guilt the system never quite settles, and the toll of a trial that goes on forever.

But It's one-sided by design and was later criticized for omissions — go in knowing that.

Serial Experiments Lain1998

Same slow accumulation of ambiguous evidence and a narrator who can't decide what she believes, just in your ears instead of on HBO.

The podcast that made 'maybe he didn't do it' into a national obsession. Sarah Koenig's doubt, backtracking and second-guessing is exactly the mood Staircase is chasing, minus the pictures.

But No visuals, no courtroom drama — it's just voices and evidence, which some find slow without a screen to hold their attention.

Gone Girl2014

Both ask whether a marriage's public face was ever real; Gone Girl just answers with a smirk where Staircase answers with a shrug.

A fictional marriage explodes into a media-managed murder investigation where nobody's performance of grief or love can be trusted. Same rot under a beautiful house, but twisted, funny and vicious instead of solemn.

But It's pitch-black satire with twists Staircase would never touch — this is trash with a genius disguise, not a true story.