--- title: "Chernobyl" year: 2019 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/chernobyl" fi1m_score: 86 critics_score: 79 critics_reviews: 11 published: "2026-09-17T13:10:13.269365+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T13:10:13.630411+00:00" region: "US" 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." --- # Chernobyl (2019) Created by Craig Mazin · MPA TV-MA · Drama **Fi1m score: 86** · Critics 79 from 11 reviews *In a sentence:* Five hours of grey men in grey rooms deciding how many people the truth is worth > Craig Mazin and Johan Renck’s five-part account of the 1986 reactor explosion is exact, frightening and hard to look away from. It explains itself once too often at the end, but Harris and Skarsgård carry it. ## Synopsis Pripyat, Ukraine, in the early hours of 26 April 1986. A safety test at reactor four of the Chernobyl power plant ends in an explosion, and deputy chief engineer Anatoly Dyatlov (Paul Ritter) tells his control room that it has not. Firefighter Vasily Ignatenko (Adam Nagaitis) is sent to the burning roof without being told what is burning; his wife Lyudmilla (Jessie Buckley) watches the glow from their window. In Moscow, physicist Valery Legasov (Jared Harris) is called to brief a committee and finds that nobody wants to hear what he is saying. He is sent to the site with party official Boris Shcherbina (Stellan Skarsgård), who has been assured the situation is under control. ## Review Craig Mazin’s five-part series opens in a Moscow flat on 26 April 1988, two years to the day after the explosion, with Valery Legasov (Jared Harris) speaking into a cassette recorder. Then it goes back to the night itself and stays there for most of an hour. The plan is simple: show what happened, in order, and show who knew and when. We recommend it warmly, with one condition. Know how much of it you are going to have to look at. The first hour is the best. In the control room of reactor four, deputy chief engineer Anatoly Dyatlov (Paul Ritter) has just heard the building come apart and decides that it has not. He tells Alexandr Akimov (Sam Troughton) and Leonid Toptunov (Robert Emms) that a tank has burst, orders water pumped into a core that no longer exists, and sends men to go and look at it. Ritter plays him as a man whose career depends on the next sentence being true. In a bunker under the plant, the director, Viktor Bryukhanov (Con O’Neill), and chief engineer Nikolai Fomin (Adrian Rawlins) sit through a meeting at which it is agreed to seal off the town and cut its phone lines. We were horrified, and then angry, and the anger lasted longer, because nobody on screen is shouting. They are filling in forms. Jakob Ihre shoots all of it in the colours of a Soviet corridor: pale green paint, orange sodium lamps, grey daylight. Above the plant he puts a column of blue light that the people of Pripyat gather on a railway bridge to admire, and it is the prettiest thing in the series, which is the point. Luke Hull’s production design gives the control room its walls of dials and the bunker its long table. Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score is barely a score. It is hums, clicks and metal groans that could be coming from the building, and when a dosimeter starts ticking you cannot always tell which is which. Editors Simon Smith and Jinx Godfrey cut that first night between the control room, the bunker, the bridge and the Ignatenkos’ flat, and they never hurry. Harris and Stellan Skarsgård carry the middle three hours. Harris plays Legasov as a tired, careful man who has already worked out how the story ends and is trying to get the arithmetic in before it does. Skarsgård’s Boris Shcherbina, the party official sent to keep him in line, starts as an obstacle and becomes something else, and Skarsgård does it without one scene of visible conversion. Their first helicopter ride, in which Legasov refuses to let the pilot fly over the open core and Shcherbina threatens to have him thrown out of it, settles the working relationship in about a minute. Emily Watson’s Ulana Khomyuk, a physicist from Minsk who arrives with her own readings, is well played and we could see the joins: she is there to ask the questions the plot needs asked, and she asks them one after another. Jessie Buckley’s strand is the one that got us. She plays Lyudmilla, the firefighter’s wife, with her back straight and her mouth shut, never once reaching for our sympathy. It worked on us more than any of the speeches. The flaws are the ones you would guess. Mazin does not know when to stop explaining: Legasov teaches the physics twice, the second time with red and blue placards, and it feels like a school assembly. There are a great many men in identical grey suits, Odile Dicks-Mireaux has dressed them that way deliberately, and it takes two episodes to tell the liars from the merely frightened. Everyone speaks English in their own accent, which we liked; it spares us a room of British actors doing Russian voices. The tagline asks what the cost of lies is, and the series answers in bodies, which is not subtle. It does not need to be. It is a 15 certificate and a hard one. Watch one episode a night; five in a row is a punishment nobody has earned, and the pause gives the ticking time to stop. *Fi1m score 86, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics come away shaken and impressed. Nine of the eleven reviews are positive, and the praise clusters in two places: the central performances from Harris, Skarsgård and Watson, and the decision to show what radiation does to a body without flinching. Several reviews describe the series as horror rather than historical drama, with dread building steadily across the episodes, and most credit it for tracing the Soviet regime’s secrecy and buck-passing as carefully as the accident itself. The reservations are about tone more than craft. Even admirers call it relentlessly bleak, and a few find the exposition heavy-handed or the whole thing draining by the final hour. Consequence thinks it works better as a fable about lies than as history. The one outright dissent comes from The Guardian, which finds the storytelling confusing and chaotic despite the acting, and argues the series mirrors the disaster’s disorder too literally to grip. ### Reviews we read (11) - **The i Paper**, Adam Sweeting (★★★★★): The critic calls it the most unmissable show on TV, praising how the filmmakers did not need to exaggerate the horrific events. It highlights the Soviet regime's secrecy and incompetence hampering relief efforts, with strong performances from Harris and Skarsgard adding warmth and humour amid the catalogue of horrors. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/chernobyl-channel-4-review-the-most-unmissable-show-on-tv-296007) - **The Times**, James Jackson (★★★★★): The series delivers a pulse-troubling depiction of the nuclear accident and an unsettling examination of political buck-passing, with grim intensity and magnificent performances that make for uncommonly bleak but compelling television. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/tv-review-chernobyl-trust-me-vbhmjq0kb) - **Variety**, Caroline Framke (90/100, inferred): The series is a fittingly grave retelling of one of the worst human disasters, leaning into horror and building a steadily creeping unease to convey the scale of the atrocity. It praises the core trio of performances by Harris, Skarsgard and Watson for conveying determination to tell the truth against bureaucratic opposition. [Read](https://variety.com/2019/tv/reviews/chernobyl-hbo-review-tribeca-1203199222/) - **Vulture** (75/100, inferred): The critic finds the miniseries an unsparing and pessimistic account of the disaster and official response that is difficult to watch. It singles out the details of human pettiness, bureaucratic failure, and the graphic consequences of radiation for particular note. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2019/05/chernobyl-hbo-mini-series-review.html) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Tim Goodman (70/100, inferred): It is very difficult to watch but a solid, factually accurate retelling that succeeds by never wincing at the fallout and truth of the issue. The critic singles out the powerful cautionary tale of cover-ups and incompetence, though noting the relentless bleakness and some heavy-handed exposition. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/chernobyl-review-1205306/) - **The Guardian** (40/100, inferred): The miniseries strands viewers in a confusing sprawl of unanswered questions and chaotic storytelling despite strong performances. It fails to deliver gripping realism or flair, reflecting the disaster's disorder too literally in the drama. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/may/07/chernobyl-review-chaos-reigns-in-confusing-nuclear-disaster-epic) - **Paste**, Amy Glynn (8.9/10): The series brilliantly and unbearably dramatizes the nuclear disaster in a devastatingly realistic way, with excellent performances from the lead cast and strong direction. It underscores the political and human costs of denial and corruption while being emotionally harrowing. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/chernobyl/hbo-chernobyl-review-stellan-skarsgard-jared-harri) - **Den of Geek**, Andrew Husband (85/100, inferred): The review presents the series as a gripping and terrifying docudrama that functions as horror by sticking close to the real events and lies surrounding the disaster. It singles out the performances, direction, and themes of truth versus deception for praise. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/chernobyl-is-more-terrifying-than-you-think/) - **/Film**, Chris Evangelista (85/100, inferred): The miniseries is an intense and infuriating look at the disaster and the Soviet government's lies and willful ignorance surrounding it. It highlights strong performances, especially from Harris, Skarsgård, and Watson, and serves as a timely warning about ignoring truth. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/566163/chernobyl-review/) - **The Ringer**, Michael Baumann (75/100, inferred): The critic argues that Chernobyl is less about the initial accident than its lasting human and systemic consequences. The review highlights how the series uses the disaster to explore blame, cover-ups, and the dangers of complex technological systems. [Read](https://www.theringer.com/2019/05/06/tv/chernobyl-hbo-miniseries-nuclear-accident) - **Consequence** (60/100, inferred): The miniseries is stronger as a political fable about lies and willful ignorance than as pure history, with effective thriller elements and horror in the radiation scenes, but it becomes draining and does not fully transcend its subject matter. [Read](https://consequence.net/2019/05/tv-review-chernobyl/) ## Details - **Created by:** Craig Mazin - **Creator:** Craig Mazin - **Director:** Johan Renck - **Writer:** Craig Mazin - **Story:** Svetlana Alexievich - **Cinematography:** Jakob Ihre - **Editor:** Simon Smith, Jinx Godfrey - **Music:** Hildur Guðnadóttir - **Production design:** Luke Hull - **Costume design:** Odile Dicks-Mireaux - **Producer:** Sanne Wohlenberg - **Cast:** Jared Harris as Valery Legasov; Stellan Skarsgård as Boris Shcherbina; Emily Watson as Ulana Khomyuk; Paul Ritter as Anatoly Dyatlov; Jessie Buckley as Lyudmilla Ignatenko; Adam Nagaitis as Vasily Ignatenko; Sam Troughton as Alexandr Akimov; Robert Emms as Leonid Toptunov - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA - **Release (the US):** 6 May 2019 - **Genres:** Drama - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9APLXM9Ei8 ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming, uhd - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Hulu: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on, uhd - Amazon Prime Video: buy, sd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, JP, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TH, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - BAFTA Television Awards 2020: Best Drama Series (won) - Critics' Choice Awards 2020: Best Movie/Miniseries Supporting Actor (won) - Golden Globes 2020: Best Limited or Anthology Series or Television Film (won); Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film (won) - Critics' Choice Awards 2019: Best Movie/Miniseries (nominated) - Primetime Emmy Awards 2019: Outstanding Art Direction for a Period Series, Miniseries or a Movie (won); Outstanding Cinematography for a Miniseries or Movie (won); Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special (won); Outstanding Limited Miniseries (won); Outstanding Music Composition for a Miniseries, Movie, or a Special (won); Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Limited Series or Movie (won); Outstanding Sound Editing for a Limited or Anthology Series, Movie or Special (won); Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Limited Series or Movie (won); Outstanding Special Visual Effects (won) - Satellite Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film 2019: Satellite Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film (won) - Satellite Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film 2019: Satellite Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film (won) ## If you liked this - *Threads* (1984), Fi1m 92: Sheffield after the bomb, told with the same flat refusal to look away — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/threads.md) - *Come and See* (1985), Fi1m 92: A Byelorussian boy in the war; the most frightening film about a landscape we know — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/come-and-see.md) - *The Death of Stalin* (2017), Fi1m 83: The same Soviet committee rooms, played for laughs that curdle on the way out — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-death-of-stalin.md) - *Contagion* (2011), Fi1m 78: Procedure as drama: how institutions behave when the numbers get worse each morning — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/contagion.md) - *Stalker* (1979), Fi1m 86: Three men walk into a forbidden zone; slow, wet, and stranger than any disaster — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/stalker.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/chernobyl