In a town nearDoncaster, armed police raid a family home and arrest 13-year-old Jamie Miller on suspicion of the murder of his classmate Katie Leonard, who is later revealed to have rejected his romantic advances and thencyberbullied him. Jamie is held at a police station for questioning and thenremanded in custody at asecure training centre. Investigations at Jamie's school and interviews by aforensic psychologist uncover hismanosphere-influenced views on women and the mockery he has received onsocial media. At home, his family deals with community backlash as they work together to cope with his arrest.
On the morning of 8 May 2024, Detective Inspector Luke Bascombe and Detective Sergeant Misha Frank lead a police raid at the home of the Miller family: father Eddie, mother Manda, daughter Lisa, and 13-year-old son Jamie. They arrest Jamie on suspicion of murder and take him to the nearby police station. A tearful Jamie professes his innocence as he is processed and taken to a detention cell while his family arrives at the station. Eddie agrees to be Jamie's "appropriate adult" and accompany him as he is searched and questioned. Eddie privately asks Jamie whether he has committed the crime and believes his denial. Barlow, thesolicitor appointed to represent Jamie, arrives and advises Jamie not to respond to questions about the previous night. During Jamie's formal interview, Bascombe and Frank reveal that Jamie has made several sexually explicit comments about female models onInstagram. He is then questioned about his classmate Katie Leonard, whose murdered body was found in a car park the night before. Bascombe playsCCTV footage of Jamie stabbing Katie to death before terminating the interview. Jamie and Eddie weep in the interrogation room; Eddie briefly recoils when Jamie touches him before they tightly embrace.
2
"Episode 2"
Philip Barantini
Jack Thorne & Stephen Graham
13 March 2025 (2025-03-13)
Three days after the murder, Bascombe and Frank visit Jamie'ssecondary school to speak to Jamie and Katie's classmates, hoping to learn Jamie's motive and the location of the murder weapon. Katie's best friend, Jade, is distraught by the murder and sardonically insults the officers. She later assaults Jamie's friend Ryan during a fire drill, accusing him of getting Katie killed. When Bascombe and Frank interview Ryan, he is initially cooperative but soon turns evasive, leaving the room when the murder weapon is mentioned. Bascombe's estranged son, Adam, a student at the school, informs his father that Katie replied to Jamie's Instagram comments of models usingemoji language to accuse him of being anincel, and Bascombe wonders if there was acyberbullying campaign against Jamie. As Bascombe and Frank attempt to question Ryan again, he flees through a window, and Bascombe chases him out of the school. When Ryan is caught, he reveals that the knife belonged to him; he and another friend, Tommy, had given Jamie the knife, thinking he would use it to intimidate Katie into retracting the Instagram replies. Ryan is arrested for conspiracy to murder. Back at the school, Bascombe meets up with Adam and asks to spend time with him. Adam agrees and they leave the school together. Meanwhile, Eddie visits the site of Katie's murder to leave flowers in respect.
3
"Episode 3"
Philip Barantini
Jack Thorne & Stephen Graham
13 March 2025 (2025-03-13)
Seven months after the murder,forensic psychologist Briony Ariston meets with Jamie at asecure training centre to prepare a pre-trial report on his mental capacity. Briony assures Jamie that her only goal is to evaluate his understanding of the circumstances surrounding the case, not the case itself. Jamie, however, engages in a tenuously gripped game of one-upmanship. Briony questions Jamie about his attitude towards masculinity, women, and himself. Briony recalls that Jamie had said he and his friends had been bullied at school. Jamie recounts that Katie had sent a topless photo to a classmate she was attracted to, and that boy spread it around the schoolwithout her consent. This hurt Katie, and Jamie asked Katie out, believing she would be more likely to accept him in an emotionally vulnerable state. She rebuffed him and proceeded to leave insulting comments on his Instagram page. Throughout the interview, Jamie's mood fluctuates between friendly and aggressive. This includes several outbursts of anger, the confession that he was tempted to grope Katie during the confrontation and that he borrowed the knife to threaten her. After Briony informs Jamie that this session is their last, he demands to know if she likes him personally, but she refuses to answer, further agitating Jamie. The security guard is forced to drag Jamie out of the interview room. Alone, Briony is visibly distressed.
4
"Episode 4"
Philip Barantini
Jack Thorne & Stephen Graham
13 March 2025 (2025-03-13)
A year after the murder, the Millers have made attempts to return to normality as Jamie awaits trial. On Eddie's 50th birthday, his van is spray-painted by teenagers who attend Jamie's school. Eddie plans to take Manda and Lisa to the cinema later that day to lighten the mood, but they first go to a hardware store to buy something to remove the paint from the van. There, Eddie is further distressed by an employee recognising him and awkwardly expressing support for Jamie. Eddie buys some paint to recoat the van. Outside, he spots the teens who tagged the van and angrily threatens them before throwing the contents of the can of paint on his van out of anger. On the drive home, Jamie calls and announces his plan to plead guilty. At the house, Eddie and Manda come to terms with Jamie's predicament, blaming themselves for not paying attention to his online radicalisation. Lisa joins them, expressing support for Eddie's decision not to move the family, knowing their connection to Jamie would eventually catch up with them. They decide instead to rent a film and order Chinese food to turn the day around, with Manda and Lisa leaving to prepare breakfast. Alone, Eddie breaks down on Jamie's bed. He tucks in a teddy bear, kisses its head, and apologises to Jamie for not doing better, before joining his family.
Adolescence was originally conceived byStephen Graham as a response to cases ofknife crime by male teenagers in the United Kingdom, including the then-recent (2021 and 2023) murders ofAva White,Elianne Andam, andBrianna Ghey.[6] He decided to create a drama exploring the motivation of extreme acts ofviolence against girls by young boys, and collaborated with screenwriterJack Thorne.[7] Thorne has stated that no part of the drama is based on a specific true story.[8] Speaking onBBC Radio 4's arts programmeFront Row, Thorne stated that the two writers wanted to "look in the eye of modern male rage" and examine the influence of public figures such asAndrew Tate on boys.[9]
The series was announced in March 2024 with the working titleAdolescence to be written by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham.[10] It is a four-part limited crime drama told in a real-time, one-shot style, with Philip Barantini as director. Barantini and Graham previously collaborated onBoiling Point (2021), which was also shot in one take.Warp Films, Matriarch Productions andPlan B Entertainment produced the series forNetflix.[11][12] Jo Johnson is series producer, and Graham, Thorne and Barantini are executive producers alongside Mark Herbert, Emily Feller,Hannah Walters,Brad Pitt,Jeremy Kleiner,Dede Gardner and Nina Wolarsky.[13]
Owen Cooper was cast in the role of the teenage murder suspect, Jamie Miller, at the age of 13, with no previous professional acting experience. Casting directorShaheen Baig had considered 500 boys for the part, but Cooper attracted her attention after sending her ademo tape and secured the role.[14] Baig found Cooper and several of the other young cast members through Drama MOB inManchester and Articulate Drama School and Agency inBradford. Staff members of these drama schools, which serve students from underrepresented and deprived communities, resented the narrative that these actors had "done nothing and came from nowhere" prior to this production.[15]
Graham, Cooper,Ashley Walters, andErin Doherty star. Filming began in the United Kingdom in July 2024 and finished around October 2024.[16][17]
Adolescence is noted for its extensive use ofone-shot filming, as each episode is shot in onetake[18] by cinematographer Matthew Lewis.[3] Shooting was planned through multiple rehearsals building up to full technical run-throughs, during which thedirector of photography would plan camera movements. Each one-hour episode was shot around 10 times, with two takes per day. Episodes were shown as completed in one take, with nocuts orblending of shots together withCGI.[19] Graham said that each episode took three weeks in total.[20] The takes used were as follows: first episode, 2nd take; second episode, 13th take; third episode, 12th take; fourth episode, 16th take.[20] The episodes were not shot in chronological order: Cooper's first day on set was shooting episode 3.[20]
Filming locations forAdolescence includedSouth Kirkby,South Elmsall andSheffield inYorkshire.[21][22]Minsthorpe Community College in South Elmsall was used as a location for the school scenes in episode 2, filmed over 1 week during 2024's summer. The interior scenes at the police station were shot at a specially constructed film set at the Production Park studio facility in South Kirkby in order to accommodate the complexities of single-shot filming.[23][24]
The series was released on Netflix on 13 March 2025.[5] It became the most watched streaming television show in the United Kingdom in a single week, beating the record set by the Netflix seriesFool Me Once in January 2024.[25]
Adolescence has seen significant viewership success on Netflix following its release. In its first three weeks, the series garnered 96.7 million views on the platform. For the week ending 30 March 2025, it recorded 30.4 million views and ranked in the top 10 most-watched lists across all 93 countries tracked by Netflix's top 10 metrics. This performance has placedAdolescence ninth on Netflix's all-time viewership list, which is based on viewership data collected over the first 91 days of a title's availability.[26][27]
Adolescence has been widely praised by critics.[9] On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 97% of 113 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 9/10. The website's consensus reads: "Stylistically bold and beautifully acted from top to bottom,Adolescence is a masterclass in televisual storytelling and a searing viewing experience that scars."[28]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, calculated a score of 91 out of 100, based on 29 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[29]
Writing inThe Guardian,Lucy Mangan stated thatAdolescence was "the closest thing to TV perfection in decades", singling out the acting by Cooper and Doherty for particular praise.[14] Nandini Balial ofRogerEbert.com also praised Cooper's acting for capturing "the quicksilver nature of those fraught years between childhood and adulthood".[30] Anita Singh ofThe Daily Telegraph found the series to be "quietly devastating" and the acting to be "phenomenal", although she said that the single-take filming technique could feel "like agimmick".[31] Sophie Butcher ofEmpire praised the continuous shooting, stating that it was "the most dizzying TV feat of the year" which served to enhance the on-screen emotion.[19]
Adolescence was the first streaming show to attain the top of theBarb Audiences weekly television ratings.[25]
Prime MinisterKeir Starmer holding a round table with the creators of the show on 31 March 2025.
According toThe Guardian, the show highlights the ways in which themanosphere has affected adolescent boys, with characters directly namingAndrew Tate and the "red pill" community as key influences on Jamie and other boys his age.[14]Anneliese Midgley, aMember of Parliament, called for the series to be screened to Parliament and in schools, claiming it could help countermisogyny andviolence against women and girls.[34] Prime MinisterKeir Starmer backed the call, writing onTwitter, "As a father, watchingAdolescence with my teenage son and daughter hit home hard."[35][36] The show was made free for viewing in UK secondary schools after Starmer's backing.[37]
In March 2025, businessman andTrump administration advisorElon Musk labeled the show as "anti-whitepropaganda" owing to the casting a white actor to portray Jamie. The theory alleged that the show was based on the2024 Southport stabbings, whose perpetrator wasBlack British, and that depicting the perpetrator as white was an intentional choice to demonise white people. Co-writer Jack Thorne called the claim "ridiculous" and stated that the television series was inspired by but not directly based on any real-life events. The show itself was written several months prior to the Southport attack, though the attack occurred early during filming, before episode 2 (the show was not filmed chronologically).[8][38][39]
Kiff McManus and Rob Entwistle (production mixers); Jules Woods and James Drake (re-recording mixers); Mike Tehrani and Simon Diggins (ADR mixers); Adam Méndez (foley mixer)(for "Episode 1")
Mark Herbert, Emily Feller, Hannah Walters, Stephen Graham, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Nina Wolarsky, Jack Thorne, Philip Barantini, Carina Sposato, Niall Shamma, Peter Balm, and Jo Johnson
^Wilson, Benji (4 March 2025)."Stephen Graham and 'Adolescence' director explain why Netflix crime drama is filmed in one take".Radio Times.Archived from the original on 21 March 2025. Retrieved17 June 2025.Where it came from, for me ... is there was an incident in Liverpool, a young girl, and she was stabbed to death by a young boy. I just thought, why? Then there was another young girl in South London who was stabbed to death at a bus stop. And there was this thing up North, where that young girl Brianna Ghey was lured into the park by two teenagers, and they stabbed her. I just thought, what's going on? What is this that's happening?
^Kim, Kyung-yoon (16 September 2025)."서울드라마어워즈 골든버드賞에 '세브란스:단절' 벤 스틸러 감독" [Seoul Drama Awards Golden Bird Award 'Severance: Severance' directed by Ben Stiller] (in Korean).Yonhap News Agency.Archived from the original on 16 September 2025. Retrieved16 September 2025 – viaNaver.
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