The critically-acclaimed crime drama The Fall, starring Jamie Dornan and Gillian Anderson, is now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video. The slow-burning series, set and filmed in Northern Ireland, has a 95% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Plot and Cast
The series follows Gillian Anderson's character, Metropolitan Police Superintendent Stella Gibson, who is stationed in Belfast with the mission of reviewing a stalled murder investigation. Jamie Dornan plays Paul Spector, the serial killer she is tasked with finding.
Released in 2013 on BBC Two, The Fall lasted three series, ending in 2016. It gained fame for not following traditional whodunnit tropes, as it doesn't hide the killer's identity from the beginning. The episodes instead focus on Stella's methodical investigation and on how Spector leads a double life as a regular husband and father as well as a stalker and killer who targets young professional women.
Critical Reception
On IMDb, one fan described it as an immersive, "spine-tingling" watch, praising both leads – Anderson as an expectedly great performance and Dornan for going "deep into the mental state of the character." Other reviewers have praised the sense of dread the series achieves, with one calling the show "exceptionally well-written, directed, and acted. VERY dark and scary."
Another reviewer noted the appeal in Spector's character was exactly the unsettling ordinariness he displays, saying it was weird watching "someone who has such an ordinary life (wife, kids, job) being such an evil person on the inside," while another agreed: "They could be us, any one of us." Anderson's performance also drew praise, with a fan saying she was "an excellent choice as lead detective."
One reviewer wrote: "Real serial, real police people, real police building, with no unnecessary details, no unnecessary high tech gadgets or theatrics," calling it "purely European (British-Irish) style" and adding that the second season is faster-paced than the first. On Rotten Tomatoes, the consensus on the series is that it is "unapologetically sexy with pressure-building tension driven by plausible characters and motifs."
Legacy and Availability
The series' impact has extended well beyond the UK, especially after it gained a French remake, titled Insoupçonnable. The three seasons of The Fall are now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
