--- title: "Accused" year: 2010 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/accused" fi1m_id: "accused" imdb_id: "tt1769411" tmdb_id: 32940 wikidata_id: "Q2822905" fi1m_score: 76 critics_reviews: 2 published: "2026-10-07T16:13:37.678926+00:00" updated: "2026-10-07T16:13:38.027182+00:00" region: "AE" 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." --- # Accused (2010) Created by Jimmy McGovern · 1h 00m · Drama, Crime ## Identity Accused - **Canonical:** https://film.one/tv/accused - **Type:** Series - **Fi1m ID:** accused - **IMDb ID:** tt1769411 - **TMDB ID:** 32940 - **Wikidata ID:** Q2822905 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1769411/, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/32940, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2822905 **Fi1m score: 76** · Critics: 2 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* Ten people wait for a verdict, and McGovern makes sure you are not sure of yours > Jimmy McGovern’s anthology puts an ordinary person in the dock each week and winds the clock back to show how they got there. It is plain, humane and often hard to watch; it is also unrelentingly bleak, and ten hours of it is a lot. ## Synopsis Each hour begins in a Manchester court with one person in the dock, waiting for a verdict, and then goes back to show how an ordinary life got there. Over ten episodes the accused include Tony Baines (Stephen Graham), a married man with a secret; Frankie Nash (Benjamin Smith), a young recruit under Lance Corporal Alan Buckley (Mackenzie Crook); and Kenny Armstrong (Marc Warren), whose marriage to Donna (Andrea Lowe) is pulling apart. Around them stand parents, partners and bystanders: Peter MacShane Senior (Robert Pugh), Emma Croft (Jodie Whittaker), Leanne and Michael Lang (Tina O’Brien and Alfie Allen). None of them set out to commit a crime. Each wants something small and reasonable, and the hour shows the handful of decisions that turn the wanting into a charge sheet. ## Review The idea is simple enough to fit on a postcard. A person stands in a court. We do not know what they have done. The hour goes back to the start, follows them through the days that brought them here, and returns to the dock in time for the verdict. Jimmy McGovern, who created *Accused* and wrote on it, has built a whole series out of that shape, six episodes in the first run and four in the second, each a self-contained hour with its own cast. The question is never whodunit; it is whether, in their shoes, we would have done it too. McGovern’s answer is nearly always yes, and that is the series at its best. His people are plumbers, soldiers, taxi drivers, parents, and the crimes grow out of money worries, bad luck and one wrong turn taken under pressure. Nobody is wicked. The writing, by McGovern with Carol Cullington, Shaun Duggan, Isabelle Grey, Alice Nutter, Danny Brocklehurst and Esther Wilson, is at its strongest when it stays small: a kitchen argument, a bill that cannot be paid, a joke in a barracks that lands wrong. The courtroom bookends are the weakest part, procedural and a little mechanical, as if the series knew the real drama was elsewhere and only came back to the dock out of duty. The casting is where it earns its evening. Stephen Graham, top billed as Tony Baines, does the thing he does better than almost anyone in British television, which is to let a hard face give way a fraction at a time until a frightened man is looking out of it. Marc Warren plays Kenny Armstrong with a fidgety charm that curdles the longer you watch. Mackenzie Crook, as Lance Corporal Alan Buckley, is cast against his usual gentleness and is the performance we have not been able to shake: he never raises his voice, and that is exactly why the young men around him are so afraid. Benjamin Smith’s Frankie Nash, Jodie Whittaker’s Emma Croft and Andrea Lowe’s Donna Armstrong are all good, and none of them is asked to be likeable, which helps. We will say plainly what it did to us. Halfway through one hour, with a character we had been told from the first scene would end in that dock, we found we were leaning forward and silently urging a grown man not to go out of the door, knowing full well he would. When he went, we felt sick. McGovern does that by withholding nothing about the outcome and everything about the route, so that the dread is in the ordinary details: a phone not answered, a lift accepted, a lie that seemed kind at the time. Fabian Wagner shoots it close and without decoration. The light is flat, the rooms are the rooms people actually live in, and the courts are dull municipal boxes rather than theatres of justice. David Blair, Richard Laxton and Ashley Pearce direct, and the hours are consistent enough that we could not have told you where one hand stopped and another began, which in an anthology is a compliment. There is no showing off anywhere. The camera watches faces and waits. The flaw is the one the series cannot fix without becoming something else. It is relentless. Every hour is a descent, every verdict is a blow, and after three in a row the sameness of the shape starts to show through: the opening in court, the long slide, the return. Lightness, when it comes, is a joke in a pub before the worst happens. McGovern has always been more interested in how people break than in how they cope, and ten hours of breaking is more than most living rooms can take at a sitting. Set against McGovern’s own work it is leaner than [*Cracker*](https://film.one/tv/cracker) and less varied than [*The Street*](https://film.one/tv/the-street), and closer to a sermon than either. The sermon is a good one. Watch it an episode at a time, with a gap between them, and not late at night. The second series, which arrived on 14 August 2012, runs to four hours and is, if anything, harder. *Fi1m score 76, published 7 October 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is Accused worth watching?** *Accused* is worth watching for anyone who wants plain, humane crime drama about ordinary people, and we scored it 76. Stephen Graham, Marc Warren and Mackenzie Crook are the reasons to stay, and the courtroom bookends are the weakest part. Take it an episode at a time: ten hours of McGovern's bleakness is more than one sitting can hold. **How long is Accused, and what is it rated?** *Accused* has episodes of about 1h 00m. It is a drama and crime series. **Where can I watch Accused in the UAE?** *Accused* is not on any streaming or rental service in the UAE at the moment. It is available in 9 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily. **How violent or frightening is Accused, and is it suitable for children?** *Accused* has no UK certificate and is rated TV-14 in the United States, which marks it as adult drama rather than family viewing. There is little on-screen violence that the review notes; the strain is in the dread of watching an ordinary person slide towards a charge sheet. It is not for children, and the squeamish will find the mood harder than any single scene. **How does Accused compare to Cracker?** *Accused* is leaner and quieter than [*Cracker*](https://film.one/tv/cracker), the earlier and angrier McGovern series, with no Robbie Coltrane doing the shouting. *Cracker* has humour and a single difficult centre to carry you through; *Accused* changes its cast each hour and offers almost no lightness. Pick *Cracker* for a character to live with, *Accused* for a sermon told well. **What should I watch after Accused?** After *Accused*, try [*Cracker*](https://film.one/tv/cracker) (1993, Fi1m 85): McGovern earlier and angrier, with Robbie Coltrane doing the shouting. Then [*A Separation*](https://film.one/film/a-separation) (2011, Fi1m 93): An Iranian divorce becomes a court case; every person in it is right; and [*Anatomy of a Fall*](https://film.one/film/anatomy-of-a-fall) (2023, Fi1m 86): A trial that tells you about a marriage rather than a death. ### Reviews we read (2) - **The Guardian**, Lucy Mangan (70/100, inferred): Mangan finds the drama compelling but criticizes its unrelenting misery and lack of lightness. She praises its dissection of how ordinary lives can become fragile and precarious. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2010/nov/16/accused-jimmy-mcgovern-review) - **Den of Geek**, Louisa Mellor (75/100, inferred): Mellor finds the episode excellent overall, despite feeling its murder-trial plot is the weakest link. She especially praises Sean Bean’s captivating, vulnerable performance as Tracie. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/accused-tracies-story-review/) ## Details - **Created by:** Jimmy McGovern - **Creator:** Jimmy McGovern - **Director:** David Blair, Richard Laxton, Ashley Pearce - **Writer:** Jimmy McGovern, Danny Brocklehurst, Esther Wilson, Carol Cullington, Shaun Duggan, Isabelle Grey, Alice Nutter - **Cinematography:** Fabian Wagner - **Cast:** Stephen Graham as Tony Baines; Benjamin Smith as Frankie Nash; Neve McIntosh as Roz Black; Marc Warren as Kenny Armstrong; Bronagh Gallagher as Siobhan; Mackenzie Crook as Lance Corporal Alan Buckley; Jodie Whittaker as Emma Croft; Andrea Lowe as Donna Armstrong - **Runtime:** 1h 00m - **Release (the UAE):** 15 November 2010 - **Genres:** Drama, Crime ## Where to watch in the UAE Not streaming, renting or buying in the UAE at the last check. Also available in: AT, AU, CA, CH, DE, GB, IE, NZ, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Dekalog* (1988): Kieślowski’s ten moral tangles in one Warsaw block; the quieter, stranger cousin of this. - *Cracker* (1993), Fi1m 85: McGovern earlier and angrier, with Robbie Coltrane doing the shouting. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/cracker.md) - *A Separation* (2011), Fi1m 93: An Iranian divorce becomes a court case; every person in it is right. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/a-separation.md) - *Boys from the Blackstuff* (1982): Alan Bleasdale’s Liverpool, where losing a job is the crime that starts everything. - *Anatomy of a Fall* (2023), Fi1m 86: A trial that tells you about a marriage rather than a death. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/anatomy-of-a-fall.md) --- © 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/tv/accused