Variety US called it “raw and powerfully performed”. Forbes dubbed it an “all-time technical masterpiece”. The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan said it was “the closest thing to TV perfection in decades”.
The British crime drama is officially Netflix’s most-watched limited series of all time.
It clocked 66.3 million views in 11 days.
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It’s been praised for its one-shot filming style.
It caught the attention of US director Paul Feig — who called the first episode one of the best hours of television he’s ever seen.
And it seems to be achieving something rare in a saturated TV market: the power to spark a revolution.
To understand how the four-part series has seized the zeitgeist and become the first show to top the UK’s most-watched television charts, it’s important to understand its inception.
Co-created by longtime collaborators Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne — who first worked together on Thorne’s BAFTA Award-winning miniseries This Is England ’86 in 2010 — Adolescence was inspired by two tragic deaths in the UK.
Speaking to Jimmy Fallon, Graham said: “I read an article in the paper about a young boy who stabbed a young girl to death. Then a couple of months later, there was a piece on the news about another young boy who stabbed a young girl to death. These were at opposite ends of the country.
“And if I’m really honest with you, Jim, it hurt my heart,” he continued.
“I just thought, what kind of society are we living in where young boys are stabbing young girls?”
Graham, who plays Eddie Miller in the show, referenced the saying “it takes a village to raise a child” and thought: “What if we’re all kind of accountable? The education system, parenting, the community, the government.”
Incel culture and toxic masculinity under the microscope
Adolescence follows 13-year-old Jamie Miller as he is arrested for murdering a classmate, Katie, after she accused him of being an “incel”.
The term has become a label for heterosexual men who are not only involuntarily celibate but who blame their lack of intimacy on women.
The show explores the toxic influence of social media, masculinity, and systemic failures that led to the tragedy.
Writer Jack Thorne told told Radio 4’s Front Row that he and Graham wanted to “look in the eye of male rage” and unpack the unravelling of a character who has been indoctrinated by voices like that of controversial internet personality and accused rapist Andrew Tate — and “voices a lot more dangerous than Andrew Tate’s”.
“When we were kids, we didn’t have social media,” Graham told Fallon last week.
“We didn’t have access to all this stuff in the world that really influences young minds. I just wanted to take a look at it.
“I’m not blaming anyone.
“I just thought maybe we’re all accountable, and we should have a conversation about it.”
The show’s unpacking of incel rhetoric has sparked a much-needed dialogue among male critics, researchers and viewers alike.
Rolling Stone’s Alan Sepinwall said it is because of how “eloquently and audaciously” the show delivers its message that it is “an early contender for the best thing you will see on the small screen this year”.
William Costello, a researcher working directly with incels, spoke about the show on The Tin Men podcast.
“What I thought Adolescence did very well was shine a light on, first of all, the confusion of many adults involved around this topic … I thought it depicted the confusion of the teachers, the parents and the one police officer very well,” Costello said.
He also noted the harmful effects of angry teachers on young men; a theme touched on in the show.
“The show captured something I recognised in schools a lot, which is that young boys and the troublesome young boys in schools will respond with less aggression and less abrasiveness to a male teacher than a female teacher,” he said.
Adolescence: A technical masterpiece
Shot in a single, uninterrupted take and led by first-time actor Owen Cooper as Jamie, Adolescence is a technical and emotional triumph that’s redefining the way crime stories are told.
The decision to film without cuts means the audience is locked into each moment; no relief, no distraction, just the escalating tension and emotional weight of a story unfolding in real time.
This creative choice brings a suffocating realism to the screen.
Silence is used with purpose, while the camera’s slow pans and circling movements mimic the psychological pressure experienced by the characters. The effect is immersive and deeply unsettling.
As Rolling Stone’s Sepinwall wrote, the show is “there to trap viewers inside the same nightmare that the Millers find themselves in as they begin to contemplate the idea that baby-faced Jamie might have committed a monstrous crime”.
Praised for the way it reflects and confronts culture — and for rewriting the crime storytelling rulebook — the hope is that Adolescence isn’t just a masterpiece; it’s a reckoning.
Adolescence was directed by Philip Barantini and produced by Warp Films, Matriarch Productions and Plan B Entertainment, Brad Pitt’s production company.
