---
name: "George Pelecanos"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/george-pelecanos"
fi1m_id: "george-pelecanos"
imdb_id: "nm0670782"
tmdb_id: 203725
wikidata_id: "Q1508039"
roles: ["Writer","Producer"]
born: "18 February 1957"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 5
average_fi1m_score: 81
average_as: "writer"
average_over: 5
updated: "2026-09-17T17:06:43.926587+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# George Pelecanos

## Identity

George Pelecanos

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/george-pelecanos
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** george-pelecanos
- **IMDb ID:** nm0670782
- **TMDB ID:** 203725
- **Wikidata ID:** Q1508039
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Pelecanos, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1508039, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0670782/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/203725

Writer and producer. Born 18 February 1957 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.

## Details

- **Work:** Writer, Producer
- **Born:** 18 February 1957, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
- **Active:** 2002–present
- **Frequently works with:** [David Simon](https://film.one/person/david-simon.md), [Ernest Dickerson](https://film.one/person/ernest-r-dickerson.md), [Agnieszka Holland](https://film.one/person/agnieszka-holland.md), [Alex Hall](https://film.one/person/alex-hall.md), [Alex Zakrzewski](https://film.one/person/alex-zakrzewski.md), [Anthony Hemingway](https://film.one/person/anthony-hemingway.md), [Brad Anderson](https://film.one/person/brad-anderson.md), [Chris Coy](https://film.one/person/chris-coy.md)
- **Average Fi1m score:** 81, as writer, over 5 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 2000s 90 (1), 2010s 80 (3), 2020s 75 (1)
- **Fi1m against the critics:** 81 to 76 across 5 titles
- **Score spread:** 3 at 80+, 2 at 60–79, 0 under 60
- **Genres:** Drama 5, Crime 3, Action & Adventure 1, War & Politics 1
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Pelecanos, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1508039, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0670782/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/203725

## Streaming the US now

- **HBO Max:** [*The Wire*](https://film.one/tv/the-wire.md) (90), [*The Deuce*](https://film.one/tv/the-deuce.md) (84), [*Treme*](https://film.one/tv/treme.md) (82), [*We Own This City*](https://film.one/tv/we-own-this-city.md) (75), [*The Pacific*](https://film.one/tv/the-pacific.md) (74)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on George Pelecanos

> A crime novelist who learned television on *The Wire* and has spent twenty years writing, with David Simon, drama that trusts a car stop over a speech. In the street his series are among the best around; indoors, explaining themselves, less so.

Somebody in a George Pelecanos episode is always at work. A cook on a bad night, a plain-clothes officer on a car stop, a musician playing a whole number while the plot waits outside. The detail is the point: how people talk when the job is going badly, what they say to each other in the car, who is a local and who is passing through. On *The Wire* (2002) he wrote the penultimate episode of each of the five seasons, the hour before the finale, which on that programme is where the worst things happen. We will say no more about them than that they are the hours people remember.

He came to television from the page. He had been writing crime novels set in Washington since 1992, about working-class neighbourhoods, race, basketball and the music of the 1970s, when David Simon brought him onto *The Wire*. He has said of it: "I never went to a writing school, so The Wire was my writing school." He wrote for *The Pacific* (2010) and for Simon and Eric Overmyer's *Treme* (2010), then co-created *The Deuce* (2017) and *We Own This City* (2022) with Simon. He has kept writing novels throughout, *King Suckerman* (1997) and *The Night Gardener* (2006) among them, and readers have noted that the later ones keep close to the crime-fiction formula.

It is hard to say where a writer ends and a room begins on a Simon series, and we will not pretend otherwise. But the things Pelecanos is known for are the things we praised. In *Treme* the arguments about who is a real local and who is a tourist have the sourness of people who have had them for real, and the series earns its slowness by putting work and music on screen at full length. In *We Own This City*, when Jon Bernthal's Wayne Jenkins does his talking on a car stop, everything the series wants to say about how a police department goes rotten is said in the action. We could not look away from him, and we did not need anyone to tell us what we were looking at.

Then Wunmi Mosaku's Nicole Steele sits down at a conference table and somebody explains what we have just watched. We felt lectured, and we started noticing how much of each hour was talk. That is the recurring weakness of the Simon and Pelecanos partnership: a great deal to say about institutions, and a habit of saying it twice, once through the drama and once through a meeting, as if the drama might not have been trusted.

Start with *The Wire*, obviously, and then *Treme*, which is the purest version of what these writers do: people at work, no hurry, the wreckage in the background. *We Own This City* is worth an evening and is not *The Wire*, and it knows it. He will be back in Baltimore or Washington before long, and someone will be at work when he gets there.

## Biography

George Pelecanos is an American novelist, television writer and producer. Born in Washington, D.C. in 1957, he has written more than twenty crime novels set primarily in the city.

On television he has frequently collaborated with David Simon. He wrote multiple episodes of the HBO series *The Wire* (2002) and *Treme*, and co-created *The Deuce* (2017) and *We Own This City* (2022) with Simon. He also contributed to *The Pacific* (2010) and *Bosch* (2015).

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, thewire.fandom.com, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (5)

- *We Own This City* (2022), Fi1m 75, Writer, Executive Producer, Creator — [page](https://film.one/tv/we-own-this-city.md)
- *The Deuce* (2017), Fi1m 84, Writer, Creator, Executive Producer — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-deuce.md)
- *The Pacific* (2010), Fi1m 74, Co-Producer, Writer — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-pacific.md)
- *Treme* (2010), Fi1m 82, Story, Teleplay, Writer, Consulting Producer, Executive Producer — [page](https://film.one/tv/treme.md)
- *The Wire* (2002), Fi1m 90, Writer, Producer — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-wire.md)

## Complete filmography (11)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *We Own This City* (2022), series, Executive Producer, Writer, Creator — Fi1m 75, [page](https://film.one/tv/we-own-this-city.md)
- *DC Noir* (2019), Writer, Director, Executive Producer
- *Fishbowl* (2018), Executive Producer
- *The Deuce* (2017), series, as Bar Patron · Writer, Executive Producer, Creator — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-deuce.md)
- *Bosch* (2015), series, Teleplay
- *Treme* (2010), series, Writer, Executive Producer, Story, Teleplay, Consulting Producer — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/tv/treme.md)
- *The Pacific* (2010), series, Writer, Co-Producer — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-pacific.md)
- *Jason Baldwin: I No Longer Face the Storm Alone* (2007), Executive Producer
- *The Long Haul of A.I. Bezzerides* (2005), as Narrator (voice) · Executive Producer
- *The Wire* (2002), series, Writer, Producer — Fi1m 90, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-wire.md)
- *Isolation Booth*, Executive Producer

## Gallery

- ![George Pelecanos](https://film.one/media/person/61002/gallery-3e88558eb2da.jpg) George Pelecanos — David Shankbone, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6e/George_Pelecanos_at_the_2008_Brooklyn_Book_Festival.jpg/1280px-George_Pelecanos_at_the_2008_Brooklyn_Book_Festival.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![PHOTO CREDIT: ANDERS KRUSBERG / PEABODY AWARDS Eric Overmyer, Nina Kostroff Noble, David Simon, and George Pelecanos, 71st Annual Peabody Awards Luncheon Waldor (2012)](https://film.one/media/person/61002/gallery-0c3e0420d9f5.jpg) PHOTO CREDIT: ANDERS KRUSBERG / PEABODY AWARDS Eric Overmyer, Nina Kostroff Noble, David Simon, and George Pelecanos, 71st Annual Peabody Awards Luncheon Waldor (2012) — Peabody Awards, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Eric_Overmyer%2C_Nina_Kostroff_Noble%2C_David_Simon%2C_and_George_Pelecanos%2C_May_2012_%281%29.jpg/1280px-Eric_Overmyer%2C_Nina_Kostroff_Noble%2C_David_Simon%2C_and_George_Pelecanos%2C_May_2012_%281%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![PHOTO CREDIT: ANDERS KRUSBERG / PEABODY AWARDS Eric Overmyer, Nina Kostroff Noble, David Simon, and George Pelecanos, 71st Annual Peabody Awards Luncheon Waldor (2012)](https://film.one/media/person/61002/gallery-32f4eff98af2.jpg) PHOTO CREDIT: ANDERS KRUSBERG / PEABODY AWARDS Eric Overmyer, Nina Kostroff Noble, David Simon, and George Pelecanos, 71st Annual Peabody Awards Luncheon Waldor (2012) — Peabody Awards, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Eric_Overmyer%2C_Nina_Kostroff_Noble%2C_David_Simon%2C_and_George_Pelecanos%2C_May_2012_%282%29.jpg/1280px-Eric_Overmyer%2C_Nina_Kostroff_Noble%2C_David_Simon%2C_and_George_Pelecanos%2C_May_2012_%282%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![PHOTO CREDIT: ANDERS KRUSBERG / PEABODY AWARDS Eric Overmyer, Nina Kostroff Noble, David Simon, and George Pelecanos, 71st Annual Peabody Awards Luncheon Waldor (2012)](https://film.one/media/person/61002/gallery-d2248e8aa251.jpg) PHOTO CREDIT: ANDERS KRUSBERG / PEABODY AWARDS Eric Overmyer, Nina Kostroff Noble, David Simon, and George Pelecanos, 71st Annual Peabody Awards Luncheon Waldor (2012) — Peabody Awards, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/Eric_Overmyer%2C_Nina_Kostroff_Noble%2C_David_Simon%2C_and_George_Pelecanos%2C_May_2012_%283%29.jpg/1280px-Eric_Overmyer%2C_Nina_Kostroff_Noble%2C_David_Simon%2C_and_George_Pelecanos%2C_May_2012_%283%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![PHOTO CREDIT: ANDERS KRUSBERG / PEABODY AWARDS Eric Overmyer, Nina Kostroff Noble, David Simon, and George Pelecanos, 71st Annual Peabody Awards Luncheon Waldor (2012)](https://film.one/media/person/61002/gallery-f728128c25f7.jpg) PHOTO CREDIT: ANDERS KRUSBERG / PEABODY AWARDS Eric Overmyer, Nina Kostroff Noble, David Simon, and George Pelecanos, 71st Annual Peabody Awards Luncheon Waldor (2012) — Peabody Awards, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Eric_Overmyer%2C_Nina_Kostroff_Noble%2C_David_Simon%2C_and_George_Pelecanos%2C_May_2012_%284%29.jpg/1280px-Eric_Overmyer%2C_Nina_Kostroff_Noble%2C_David_Simon%2C_and_George_Pelecanos%2C_May_2012_%284%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![PHOTO CREDIT: ANDERS KRUSBERG / PEABODY AWARDS George Pelecanos, Nina Kostroff Noble, Eric Overmyer and David Simon, 71st Annual Peabody Awards Luncheon Waldorf (2012)](https://film.one/media/person/61002/gallery-0165ea9a8a7c.jpg) PHOTO CREDIT: ANDERS KRUSBERG / PEABODY AWARDS George Pelecanos, Nina Kostroff Noble, Eric Overmyer and David Simon, 71st Annual Peabody Awards Luncheon Waldorf (2012) — Peabody Awards, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/Eric_Overmyer_%28Treme%29_%287268600492%29.jpg/1280px-Eric_Overmyer_%28Treme%29_%287268600492%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)

## Awards

### Other awards — 6 won, 1 nominated

- Hammett Prize 2009: Hammett Prize (won)
- Writers Guild of America Award 2008: Writers Guild of America Award (won)
- Barry Award for Best Novel 2007: Barry Award for Best Novel (won), for *The Night Gardener*
- Edgar Awards 2007: Edgar Awards (won), for *The Wire*
- Emmy Award 2005: Emmy Award (nominated), for *Middle Ground*
- German Crime Fiction Award 2000: German Crime Fiction Award (won)
- Maltese Falcon Award 1999: Maltese Falcon Award (won)

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/george-pelecanos