---
title: "Justified"
year: 2010
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/justified"
fi1m_score: 87
critics_score: 80
critics_reviews: 5
published: "2026-09-17T01:44:42.869523+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-17T01:44:43.418888+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."
---

# Justified (2010)

Created by Graham Yost · MPA TV-MA · Crime, Drama

**Fi1m score: 87** · Critics 80 (early) from 5 reviews

*In a sentence:* Everyone in Harlan has a gun, a grudge and a better vocabulary than you

> Graham Yost’s adaptation of Elmore Leonard is the rare long series we would recommend in full: Olyphant and Goggins circling each other for six years, in dialogue nobody else on television was writing. Two seasons drift, and the women wait too long for their turn.

## Synopsis

Deputy US Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) gives a Miami thug twenty-four hours to leave town and, when the man stays, shoots him across a lunch table. His punishment is a transfer to Lexington, Kentucky, an hour from Harlan County, the coal country he grew up in and swore never to see again. His chief, Art Mullen (Nick Searcy), wants him kept quiet. Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), who dug coal beside Raylan as a young man, is blowing up churches with a rocket launcher and preaching to a gang in the woods, and Boyd’s sister-in-law Ava (Joelle Carter) has shot her husband at dinner. Raylan’s ex-wife Winona (Natalie Zea) and criminal father Arlo (Raymond J. Barry) are within range.

## Review

Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) opens *Justified* by giving a man twenty-four hours to leave Miami and shooting him across a lunch table when he does not. The Marshals Service moves him to Lexington, Kentucky, an hour from Harlan County, where he grew up and does not want to be. Graham Yost built the series from an Elmore Leonard story, *Fire in the Hole*, and kept the thing that makes Leonard Leonard: everybody talks before they shoot, and most of them talk better than they shoot. It ran six seasons of thirteen episodes, 2010 to 2015.

It is excellent, one of the few long American series we would tell someone to watch through. The reason is Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins). Boyd dug coal beside Raylan as young men, and in the pilot he is running a gang from a camp in the woods and blowing up churches with a rocket launcher. The pilot treats him as a villain of the week; he is billed second for a reason. Goggins plays him as a preacher, a bank robber and a philosopher, with a vocabulary out of the King James Bible and a smile that stops below the eyes, and for six years the show is about whether these two men will end up across a table with guns out.

Olyphant is quieter. Raylan is a Leonard hero: fast, polite and slightly ashamed of enjoying how fast he is. Olyphant plays him under a hat, voice down and hands still, and lets the other actors do the moving. His chief Art Mullen (Nick Searcy) points out every few episodes that Raylan shoots more people than any marshal in the district, and he does. Jacob Pitts and Erica Tazel, as deputies Tim Gutterson and Rachel Brooks, get a fraction of the lines their faces deserve. Natalie Zea’s Winona, the ex-wife, and Raymond J. Barry’s Arlo, a crook of a father, keep Raylan’s home life as untidy as his job.

The second season is the one we would put in front of a sceptic. Margo Martindale plays Mags Bennett, who runs the marijuana and moonshine in the hills behind a general store, with Jeremy Davies as her son Dickie, limping, grinning, never trusted. We have not been as frightened by anyone in a cardigan. Martindale offers a guest a jar of her apple pie moonshine early on, and the way she watches him drink told us who ran Harlan, and it was not the man with the badge. Neal McDonough’s Robert Quarles, the Detroit gangster of the third season, is louder and less frightening; the show is strongest when its villains were born in the county. Jere Burns’s Wynn Duffy, a small-time fixer with a caravan and remarkable eyebrows, outlasts most of them.

Seventeen directors share the six years, among them Michael Dinner, John Dahl and Dean Parisot, and the look hardly moves between them: flat Kentucky daylight, wooden porches, a hollow with one road in and out. Keith Henderson’s cutting leaves conversations alone; a scene across a kitchen table is allowed to run until somebody stands up. Steve Porcaro’s score keeps low and keeps out, so the talk carries.

Now the caveat. The third and fifth seasons drift. The writers run short of ways to keep Raylan and Boyd apart and start shipping in gangsters from elsewhere, and the first season’s weekly fugitive plots are forgotten by the credits. Ava Crowder (Joelle Carter) gets more to do as the series goes, and Carter is good when it comes, but for long stretches she is a prize the two men circle rather than a person. Seventy-eight hours is a lot, and perhaps a dozen are filler.

Leonard has been well served on screen, in [*Out of Sight*](https://film.one/film/out-of-sight) and [*Jackie Brown*](https://film.one/film/jackie-brown), and this stands with them; it is the longest anyone has stayed in his company. Start with the first ten minutes. If the pause before Raylan draws does nothing for you, this is not your programme. If it does, you have seventy-eight episodes and will want to ration them. The 15 certificate is fair: people are shot, often, and nearly always after a conversation.

*Fi1m score 87, published 17 September 2026.*

### Reviews we read (5)

- **The AV Club**, Scott Tobias (A): The pilot is terrifically promising television with an irresistible fish-out-of-water hook and a hero of deceptive simplicity. It skillfully sets the table with an arresting opening scene, vivid characters, and a particular sense of time and place while suggesting potential for juicy storylines. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/justified-pilot-1798164529)
- **The Guardian**, Jonathan Bernstein (85/100, inferred): The critic finds the pilot of Justified a strong and enjoyable adaptation of Elmore Leonard material, marking a credible lead role for Timothy Olyphant as deputy marshal Raylan Givens. It singles out the low-key Miami standoff and Olyphant's quiet, commanding presence for praise. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2010/mar/27/us-tv-jonathan-bernstein-justified)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Barry Garron (70/100, inferred): Justified offers entertaining, straightforward crime drama centered on an ethical, old-school hero in Raylan Givens. It excels through clever dialogue, strong guest performances like Walton Goggins, and reliable taut storytelling without pushing dramatic boundaries. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/justified-tv-review-season-one-29396/)
- **Variety**, Brian Lowry (70/100, inferred): The series delivers a strong, old-fashioned crime drama buoyed by Timothy Olyphant's charismatic star turn as the laconic U.S. marshal Raylan Givens. It benefits from wry Elmore Leonard-style humor and a compelling rural Kentucky setting, though some plotting feels slightly sloppy. [Read](https://variety.com/2010/tv/reviews/justified-1117942389/)
- **Collider**, Brendan Bettinger (80/100, inferred): The critic praises the pilot's flawless cold open and Timothy Olyphant's wry performance as Raylan Givens, noting the show's moral ambiguity and strong supporting cast as strengths. They express optimism about the series revitalizing the Western genre on television. [Read](https://collider.com/tv-review-the-first-3-episodes-of-justified-starring-timothy-olyphant-are-fantastic/)

## Details

- **Created by:** Graham Yost
- **Creator:** Graham Yost
- **Director:** Peter Werner, Adam Arkin, Michael Dinner, Jon Avnet, Bill Johnson, John Dahl, Michael W. Watkins, Gwyneth Horder-Payton, Dean Parisot, Tony Goldwyn, Don Kurt, John David Coles, Billy Gierhart, Lesli Linka Glatter, Rod Holcomb, Frederick King Keller, Michael Katleman
- **Writer:** Graham Yost, Benjamin Cavell, Dave Andron, Chris Provenzano, Fred Golan, Taylor Elmore, Ingrid Escajeda, Wendy Calhoun, VJ Boyd, Leonard Chang, Elmore Leonard, Michael Dinner, Keith Schreier, Gary Lennon, Benjamin Daniel Lobato
- **Story:** Elmore Leonard, Chris Provenzano, Jon Worley
- **Teleplay:** Benjamin Cavell, Chris Provenzano, Jon Worley
- **Editor:** Keith Henderson
- **Music:** Steve Porcaro
- **Producer:** Don Kurt, Timothy Olyphant, Steven Heth
- **Cast:** Timothy Olyphant as Raylan Givens; Walton Goggins as Boyd Crowder; Nick Searcy as Art Mullen; Jere Burns as Wynn Duffy; Joelle Carter as Ava Crowder; Jacob Pitts as Tim Gutterson; Erica Tazel as Rachel Brooks; Natalie Zea as Winona Hawkins
- **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA
- **Release (the US):** 16 March 2010
- **Genres:** Crime, Drama
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86zzu8wz0-U

## Where to watch in the US

- Hulu: streaming, hd
- Disney+: add-on, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy, hd
- Apple TV: buy, hd

*Checked 2026-09-17.*

Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, HR, IE, IN, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PL, PT, RS, SE, SG, SI, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Deadwood* (2004), Fi1m 91: Olyphant’s other lawman, in a camp where the talk is filthier and the mud deeper. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/deadwood.md)
- *Out of Sight* (1998), Fi1m 86: Leonard on the big screen, with a marshal, a thief and a boot of a car. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/out-of-sight.md)
- *Winter's Bone* (2010), Fi1m 85: The Ozarks instead of Harlan; same hills, same families, far less comfort. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/winters-bone.md)
- *Happy Valley* (2014): A Yorkshire sergeant with Raylan’s stubbornness and none of his swagger.
- *Hell or High Water* (2016), Fi1m 84: Brothers rob banks across Texas while a ranger talks his way after them. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/hell-or-high-water.md)

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© 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/justified