---
title: "Dark Winds"
year: 2022
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/dark-winds"
fi1m_id: "dark-winds"
imdb_id: "tt15017118"
tmdb_id: 128904
wikidata_id: "Q108532534"
fi1m_score: 79
critics_score: 83
critics_reviews: 9
published: "2026-09-30T22:53:45.303879+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-30T22:53:46.138162+00:00"
region: "TH"
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."
---

# Dark Winds (2022)

Created by Graham Roland · Drama, Crime, Mystery

## Identity

Dark Winds

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/tv/dark-winds
- **Type:** Series
- **Fi1m ID:** dark-winds
- **IMDb ID:** tt15017118
- **TMDB ID:** 128904
- **Wikidata ID:** Q108532534
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15017118/, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/128904, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q108532534

**Fi1m score: 79** · Critics 83 from 9 reviews

*In a sentence:* A lawman who barely speaks, a landscape that barely changes, and a hitman who wandered in from a sillier show

> Graham Roland’s adaptation of Tony Hillerman’s novels is a patient, well-made crime series carried by Zahn McClarnon’s stillness as Joe Leaphorn. The first season’s mystery is its weakest part; the people and the place are worth your evening anyway.

## Synopsis

Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) of the Navajo Tribal Police is called to a killing out in the desert and finds the FBI, in the shape of Leland Whitover (Noah Emmerich), already there and more interested in its own business than in the dead. A new deputy, Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon), arrives from the city with clean shoes, a college vocabulary and no idea how to stand in a hogan. Officer Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten), who knows the roads and the families, works the case with them, while Leaphorn’s wife Emma (Deanna Allison) takes in a frightened pregnant girl, Sally Growing Thunder (Elva Guerra). Out on the highways a hitman, Colton Wolf (Nicholas Logan), is heading the same way, and Frank Nakai (Eugene Brave Rock) watches from the edges.

## Review

Graham Roland’s series takes Tony Hillerman’s Navajo Tribal Police novels to a place where the roads are long, the phones are few and the FBI turns up when it wants something. What Roland and a largely Native writing and directing team are after is a procedural in which the police, the victims and the suspects all belong to the place, and the men in suits are the visitors. On that they succeed. The first season’s mystery is the weakest thing in it. The people are good enough that we kept watching anyway.

Zahn McClarnon is the reason. He plays Joe Leaphorn with his hands in his pockets and his voice at one level, a man who has learned that out here the officer who talks least learns most. The scene that got at us is small. Leaphorn and his wife Emma (Deanna Allison) sit at their kitchen table and talk around something neither will name, and McClarnon does nothing with his face at all. It moved us more than any of the killings did. It is the kind of grief that has been in a house so long it has become furniture.

Paul Elliott shoots the reservation in wide, flat daylight, red rock and pale sky, and he keeps the same light for a murder scene as for a drive to the trading post. Nothing is dressed up for a visitor. Guy Barnes and Mark Garner’s production design gets the period right without pushing it: a police station of filing cabinets and one radio. Peggy Stamper puts Leaphorn in a uniform he plainly lives in, and Jim Chee in town shoes that mark him as an outsider before he has said a word. Kevin, Deana and Sean Kiner’s score sits low under the dialogue and knows when to let the wind take over.

Kiowa Gordon’s Chee arrives as the new deputy, and Noah Emmerich’s Leland Whitover of the FBI wants him useful and has no interest in who did the killing. Gordon plays a man who left, did well, and has come back with a college vocabulary and no idea how to stand in a hogan. Emmerich plays Whitover as a reasonable man who could not care less. Jessica Matten’s Bernadette Manuelito is the season’s quiet success: a young officer who knows the terrain and the families, and does most of the actual police work while the men look at maps. Eugene Brave Rock’s Frank Nakai has more menace in a look than the plot ever gives him to use.

The trouble is the crime. The one that opens the season looks good and makes little sense, and the more the six episodes try to connect it to the killing, to Jeremiah Bitsui’s Benjamin Tso and to Elva Guerra’s frightened Sally Growing Thunder, the more you can see the joins. Nicholas Logan’s Colton Wolf, a blank-faced hitman, belongs to another show; every time he appears the series stops being about a place and starts being about a genre. Editors J. Kathleen Gibson, Brian Wessel and Joaquin Elizondo cut between three or four strands and cannot always hide that one of them is idling. We were bored by the hitman, and then irritated that a series this careful had let him in.

Chris Eyre, who directed *Smoke Signals*, is among the directors, and the series is at its best when it follows his habit of watching people sit and talk for longer than a cop show is supposed to. Billy Luther and Erica Tremblay, who both write and direct here, and McClarnon himself, directing an episode, keep that going. Most critics rate the later seasons above the first, and we would not argue; the mysteries tighten and McClarnon is given more to carry. But the first season is where you meet these people, and they are worth meeting properly.

The 15 certificate is for violence that is sudden and brief. Watch two episodes before you decide. The first is busy setting up a crime it does not much care about; the second is where the series finds out what it is for. Then stay for McClarnon, and forgive the hitman.

*Fi1m score 79, published 30 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

The reviews lean strongly positive, and they agree on one thing above all: Zahn McClarnon. Almost every critic singles out his Joe Leaphorn as the reason to watch, praising a restrained, inward performance that carries the mystery. The second cluster of praise is the setting: most critics find the portrayal of Navajo life authentic and lived-in, and several credit the Indigenous talent behind the camera as well as in front of it. Reviews of later seasons run warmer still, with more than one critic calling the third series the show’s strongest.

The reservations gather around the plotting. The Hollywood Reporter finds the first season’s central mystery unconvincing and the whole uneven, while /Film thinks the genre elements sometimes stumble. Even admirers mention shoehorned side stories and uneven pacing. The spread is fairly narrow: no one dislikes the series, and the lone mixed notice treats it as a promising start rather than a failure.

## Straight answers

**Is Dark Winds worth watching?**

*Dark Winds* is worth watching for anyone who likes a patient crime series where the people and the place matter more than the puzzle, and we scored it 79. Zahn McClarnon's still, quiet Joe Leaphorn carries it; the first season's mystery is its weakest part, and a blank-faced hitman wanders in from a sillier show. Give it two episodes before deciding.

**Where can I watch Dark Winds in Thailand?**

*Dark Winds* is streaming on Netflix in Thailand. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service.

**How violent or frightening is Dark Winds, and is it suitable for children?**

*Dark Winds* carries a UK 15 certificate for violence that is sudden and brief, and it is not suitable for children. The killings are few and not dwelt on, and the series spends far more time on people sitting and talking than on menace, so the squeamish should cope. Older teenagers used to crime drama will find nothing here that a 15 does not imply.

**How does Dark Winds compare to Top of the Lake?**

*Dark Winds* and [*Top of the Lake*](https://film.one/tv/top-of-the-lake) both follow police in a remote landscape working a case that touches a frightened pregnant girl, but the earlier series is the stranger and more ambitious of the two, and Jane Campion's is the surer piece of storytelling. *Dark Winds* is the steadier watch, better on its people and its place than on its mystery. Choose Campion for oddness and nerve; choose Roland for a lawman you want to spend six evenings with.

**Is Dark Winds based on a true story or a book?**

*Dark Winds* is based on Tony Hillerman's Navajo Tribal Police novels, adapted for television by Graham Roland; it is not a true story. The series keeps Hillerman's setting and his lawmen, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, and we would not say how closely it follows any single book. You do not need to have read the novels; the first season introduces everyone from scratch.

**What should I watch after Dark Winds?**

After *Dark Winds*, try [*Top of the Lake*](https://film.one/tv/top-of-the-lake) (2013, Fi1m 82): A missing pregnant girl, a small New Zealand town, and a landscape that keeps its secrets. Then [*Wind River*](https://film.one/film/wind-river) (2017, Fi1m 76): A death on a Wyoming reservation and an FBI agent who does not know the terrain; and [*Reservation Dogs*](https://film.one/tv/reservation-dogs) (2021, Fi1m 86): The comic cousin: Oklahoma teenagers, small crimes, and McClarnon as a very different lawman.

### Reviews we read (9)

- **IndieWire**, Kristen Lopez (A): The critic praises the series as a tightly wound, compelling murder mystery that reaches beyond familiar detective-show conventions. She singles out Zahn McClarnon’s magnetic performance and the show’s nuanced portrayal of Indigenous identity and mistreatment. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/shows/dark-winds-review-amc-neo-noir-showcase-zahn-mcclarnon-1234729743/)
- **The AV Club**, Saloni Gajjar (A-): Gajjar finds the second season more focused, gripping, and effective than the first. She particularly praises Zahn McClarnon’s performance and the Indigenous talent shaping the series on both sides of the camera. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/dark-winds-season-2-review-amc-tv-1850677994)
- **Vulture**, Roxana Hadadi (90/100, inferred): The critic calls season three the series’ strongest yet and argues that Zahn McClarnon delivers a career-highlight performance. She especially praises his nuanced, inward portrayal in the sixth episode, which deepens Leaphorn’s moral and spiritual struggle. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/article/dark-winds-season-3-review-zahn-mcclarnon-performance.html)
- **The Guardian**, Graeme Virtue (85/100, inferred): Virtue finds the series a knotty, atmospheric mystery that feels brisk enough to binge. He particularly praises Zahn McClarnon’s multifaceted performance as Joe Leaphorn. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/oct/18/dark-winds-review-this-brooding-navajo-mystery-begs-to-be-binged)
- **Variety**, Daniel D'DAddario (75/100, inferred): The review finds the series tightly told and welcomingly direct, with its Native perspective enriching a familiar crime-drama form. It especially praises Zahn McClarnon's compelling central performance. [Read](https://variety.com/2022/tv/reviews/dark-winds-zahn-mcclarnon-amc-1235288542/)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Daniel Fienberg (65/100, inferred): Fienberg finds the first season an uneven but promising prelude, with an unconvincing central mystery. He praises Zahn McClarnon’s restrained performance and the show’s authentic, lived-in portrayal of Navajo culture. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/dark-winds-review-1235162769/)
- **Collider**, Michael John Petty (9/10): The critic calls Season 3 the series’ best installment yet, despite some uneven pacing and plotlines that could be condensed. Zahn McClarnon’s performance as Joe Leaphorn is singled out for particular praise. [Read](https://collider.com/dark-winds-season-3-review/)
- **Paste**, Shane Ryan (8.7/10): Ryan finds the series engrossing and praises its atmospheric detective story and respectful portrayal of Navajo life. He singles out Zach McClarnon’s performance and says the subtle supernatural elements deepen the mystery, despite some weaker acting and shoehorned side stories. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/dark-winds/dark-winds-review)
- **/Film**, Joshua Meyer (70/100, inferred): The critic finds the series watchable and worthwhile, though its genre elements sometimes stumble. They praise the cast’s chemistry and the distinctive sense of place and culture. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/871730/dark-winds-review-zahn-mcclarnon-leads-a-solid-cast-in-amcs-navajo-centric-foray-into-genre-thrills/)

## Details

- **Created by:** Graham Roland
- **Creator:** Graham Roland
- **Director:** Chris Eyre, Michael Nankin, Billy Luther, Steven Judd, Sanford Bookstaver, Erica Tremblay, Zahn McClarnon, Jim Chory, Craig Zisk
- **Writer:** John Wirth, Max Hurwitz, Steven Judd, Thomas Brady, Erica Tremblay, Billy Luther, Rhiana Yazzie, Graham Roland, Shandton Williams II, Shaandiin Tome, Jason Gavin, DezBaa', Wenonah Wilms
- **Teleplay:** Maya Rose Dittloff, Erica Tremblay, Billy Luther, Graham Roland, Anthony Florez, Razelle Benally
- **Novel:** Tony Hillerman
- **Cinematography:** Paul Elliott
- **Editor:** J. Kathleen Gibson, Brian Wessel, Joaquin Elizondo
- **Music:** Kevin Kiner, Sean Kiner, Deana Kiner
- **Production design:** Guy Barnes, Mark Garner
- **Costume design:** Peggy Stamper
- **Producer:** Steven Judd, Billy Luther, Wayne Morris
- **Cast:** Zahn McClarnon as Lt. Joe Leaphorn; Kiowa Gordon as Jim Chee; Jessica Matten as Bernadette Manuelito; Deanna Allison as Emma Leaphorn; Elva Guerra as Sally Growing Thunder; Nicholas Logan as Colton Wolf; Jeremiah Bitsui as Benjamin Tso; Eugene Brave Rock as Frank Nakai
- **Release (Thailand):** 12 June 2022
- **Genres:** Drama, Crime, Mystery
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcmY-9eeBIM

## Where to watch in Thailand

- Netflix: streaming

*Checked 2026-09-30.*

Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, DE, DK, EC, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, ID, IE, IN, IS, IT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PT, SE, SG, TH, US, VN. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Smoke Signals* (1998): Chris Eyre’s road film: two young men, one pickup, and the same unhurried way of watching.
- *Mystery Road* (2013): An Aboriginal detective in the Australian outback; a murder nobody in town wants solved.
- *Top of the Lake* (2013), Fi1m 82: A missing pregnant girl, a small New Zealand town, and a landscape that keeps its secrets. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/top-of-the-lake.md)
- *Wind River* (2017), Fi1m 76: A death on a Wyoming reservation and an FBI agent who does not know the terrain. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/wind-river.md)
- *Reservation Dogs* (2021), Fi1m 86: The comic cousin: Oklahoma teenagers, small crimes, and McClarnon as a very different lawman. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/reservation-dogs.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/dark-winds