Peaky Blinders
What is Peaky Blinders about?
Who created Peaky Blinders?
Who stars as the main character in Peaky Blinders?
What historical inaccuracies were noted in Peaky Blinders?
What awards did Peaky Blinders win?
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Peaky Blinders, British crime drama that portrays the rise of the titular gang in Birmingham, England, in the period between the First and Second World Wars. It ran for six seasons with a total of 36 episodes; seasons one through four (2013–17) were broadcast on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) channel BBC Two before the final two seasons (2019–22) moved to BBC One. The final season was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The series was also made available on the streaming platform Netflix in 2014. Peaky Blinders was well received by audiences and critics, spawning a media franchise including a planned movie and a sequel series.
Development and casting
Peaky Blinders was created by British screenwriter and film director Steven Knight. The show focuses on a fictional Birmingham gang, loosely based on accounts of a real gang that operated under the same name in the same city from the 1890s to the 1920s. The quirky name of the gang is believed to be derived from the razor blades, intended to be used for nefarious purposes, that were tucked into their peaked newsboy caps, a style of hat popular in the early 20th century. However, historical experts dispute the likelihood of this origin story because disposable razor blades would have been a luxury item at the time.
The Peaky Blinders ensemble cast features Academy Award-winning Irish actor Cillian Murphy as the central character and quintessential antihero, Thomas (Tommy) Shelby, the enigmatic leader of a Roma family who becomes a mobster. Haunted by his time in the tunnels of France during the First World War, Tommy is a clever, charismatic kingpin struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Each episode opens a window not only into Tommy’s private struggles against addiction and depression, but also into how the battlegrounds of Europe continue to echo into the present-day lives of all the characters in Small Heath, the area of Birmingham where the real-life Peaky Blinders operated and in which the series is set.
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Helen McCrory stars alongside Murphy as Tommy’s clairvoyant aunt and matriarch of the Shelby family, Elizabeth (“Polly”) Gray. McCrory, a series regular, died in 2021, and her role was written out of the final season. Paul Anderson plays Tommy’s brother Arthur Shelby, a fellow veteran who struggles to leave the violence of war behind. Sophie Rundle stars as Tommy’s idealistic and politically connected sister, Ada Shelby (later Ada Thorne), once a communist and later a reluctant businesswoman and leader in Shelby Company Limited. Joe Cole appears as younger brother John Shelby.
The main cast is joined by Sam Neill as a police inspector charged with bringing order to Birmingham, Finn Cole as Polly’s long-lost son, Michael Gray, and Tom Hardy as the head of a rival Jewish gang. In later seasons Adrien Brody appears as a vengeful Italian mobster, and Anya Taylor-Joy plays the niece of an American mobster and the wife of Michael Gray.
Plot outline
Peaky Blinders traces the trajectory of the fictional Shelby family’s rise from a gang struggling in the squalor of a working-class factory town to one of the primary crime syndicates operating in the United Kingdom.
The first two seasons of the period crime drama center on Tommy Shelby’s ambitions to expand the Peaky Blinders from a street gang to a more influential and profitable criminal organization. Season one begins with Shelby returning from action at the end of World War I in 1919, in the wake of the rising militancy of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the United Kingdom. Season two is set in 1921 in the midst of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the IRA split.
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Seasons three and four, set in the mid-1920s, see the expansion of the Shelby empire into a legitimate business enterprise, but at a cost, as family members are killed amid showdowns with politically connected and corrupt groups such as the IRA, Russian mobsters, and, later, the New York Italian Mafia.
Seasons five and six explore the rise of fascism in the U.K., the stock market crash of 1929, and the effects of Prohibition (and its eventual repeal) in the U.S., as Tommy Shelby becomes a member of Parliament and faces off against British fascists led by Oswald Mosley, in addition to other adversaries.
Reception and legacy
Peaky Blinders was celebrated by critics as a compelling historical drama filled with powerful performances and gritty cinematography. The show was particularly praised for addressing the prevalence of PTSD among World War I veterans, as well as for its depiction of working-class life and socioeconomic inequality in United Kingdom factory towns at the turn of the century. Peaky Blinders received dozens of award nominations, notably winning a BAFTA Award for best drama series (2018) and three National Television Awards for best drama or best returning drama (2019, 2020, 2022), while also netting Murphy two National Television Awards for best drama performance (2020, 2022).
While critically acclaimed, Peaky Blinders also faced complaints of historical inaccuracies, particularly regarding the show’s portrayal of Winston Churchill’s rise to power and its depiction of labor leader Jessie Eden. Eden, a British trade union leader and communist, is portrayed in seasons four and five as a love interest and political adviser of Tommy Shelby.
A full-length feature film was announced by Netflix in June 2024. The film, titled Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, was released in March 2026. Cillian Murphy reprised his role as Tommy Shelby in the film, which expanded the Peaky Blinders storyline into World War II. The film also introduced a number of new characters, including those played by Barry Keoghan, Rebecca Ferguson, and Tim Roth.
In October 2025 two seasons of a sequel series were announced by Netflix and the BBC. The sequel series will be set in the postwar period.