--- title: "Narcos" year: 2015 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/narcos" fi1m_score: 76 critics_score: 78 critics_reviews: 8 published: "2026-09-17T18:48:51.738733+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T18:48:52.470046+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." --- # Narcos (2015) Created by Chris Brancato, Doug Miro, Carlo Bernard · MPA TV-MA · Crime, Drama **Fi1m score: 76** · Critics 78 from 8 reviews *In a sentence:* A fine Escobar, kept waiting while a man from the DEA explains Colombia to us > Wagner Moura’s soft-voiced Escobar is reason enough to watch, and the newsreel cut into the drama gives it weight. But the American narration explains what the pictures have shown, and by the third season the series has changed its subject and is running on habit. ## Synopsis Colombia at the end of the 1970s. Pablo Escobar (Wagner Moura), a Medellín smuggler, learns from a Chilean chemist that a paste cooked from coca leaves sells in Miami for more money than he can count. Within a few years he owns a ranch with a zoo, an airstrip and a good part of the city’s police. Steve Murphy (Boyd Holbrook), a DEA agent, arrives in Bogotá with his wife Connie (Joanna Christie) and is partnered with Javier Peña (Pedro Pascal), who has been in the country long enough to know which Colombians can be trusted. Colonel Horacio Carrillo (Maurice Compte) leads the police unit prepared to shoot back. Escobar wants something money has not bought him: a seat in Congress. ## Review *Narcos* sets out to tell the story of Pablo Escobar as history rather than legend, and it nearly does. Chris Brancato, Carlo Bernard and Doug Miro built it as three runs of ten episodes, starting in Medellín at the end of the 1970s. Real newsreel is cut into the drama every few minutes, so a face Wagner Moura has just invented is followed by the actual man on the actual news. It is good, and worth your evening if the genre is yours. The reason it is not better is a voice that will not stop talking. Moura is the reason to watch. He plays Escobar soft-spoken and heavy-lidded, a paunch under a knitted jumper, and he speaks with a slowness that reads as certainty. The scenes at home with Tata (Paulina Gaitán) are the best written in the first season: he is plainly fond of his wife and his mother and his children, and he has people killed between meals. We caught ourselves liking him, more than once, and were ashamed of it. The series has arranged that on purpose. Luis David Sansans and Mauricio Vidal shoot Medellín handheld, grainy and yellowed by heat, so when the editor Nathan Gunn cuts to a 1980s news camera the join is nearly invisible. Anthony Medina’s production design gives Escobar a ranch with a zoo, an airstrip and furniture that cost a great deal and matches nothing. Bina Daigeler puts Javier Peña (Pedro Pascal) in aviators and tight jeans and Escobar in the pullovers of a provincial accountant. Pedro Bromfman’s score keeps to percussion and low guitar, and Rodrigo Amarante’s title song, a bolero sung by a man who already sounds sorry, is the best minute of every episode. The trouble is Steve Murphy. Boyd Holbrook is fine on screen, but the series gives him a narration, and the narration does not trust us. It explains a scene we have just understood. We were bored by it and then annoyed, because each time the drama found a rhythm an American drawl stopped it to tell us the price of a kilo. Everyone reaches for [*Goodfellas*](https://film.one/film/goodfellas), and fairly, but Scorsese’s narrator had done everything he described. Murphy is mostly reading the file. Pascal has the better part and knows it. Peña does his work in bars and bedrooms with informants he does not deserve, and Pascal plays him tired rather than cool, which is rarer. Maurice Compte’s Colonel Horacio Carrillo, who runs the police unit willing to shoot first, is the most frightening man in the first season who is not Escobar. Joanna Christie’s Connie Murphy is there to look worried at a window, and Christie does what can be done with that. The first season is the rise, told at a gallop, and Gunn’s montages, a map, a song, a stack of notes, a plane, cover years in a minute and do it too often. The second is the hunt, and tighter. The third changes subject to the Cali cartel, the brothers Gilberto and Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela (Damián Alcázar and Francisco Denis) and their head of security Jorge Salcedo (Matias Varela). Varela gives the season what the first two lacked, a man in the middle who cannot get out. It is quieter and well made, and it is a series that has lost its centre and carried on. Most critics have been warm and we are with them. One complaint deserves an answer: that the series is too fond of Escobar and too shy of what he did. It is fond of him. It is not shy. Policemen are shot in the street from a distance, flatly, without music, and that horrified us more than anything staged closer would have. The Americans are so thinly written that the villain is the only man on screen with a home. Watch two episodes a night rather than ten, and give it your attention; it is not something to have on while you cook. The 15 certificate is about right: the violence is frequent and it is not dwelt on. *Fi1m score 76, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics like Narcos, and the praise clusters in the same places. Seven of the eight reviews are positive, and they return to Wagner Moura’s performance as Pablo Escobar, which several call the anchor of the series, and to a breadth of storytelling that follows the DEA and Colombian politics as closely as it follows the cartel. The documentary-like approach, with archive footage cut into the drama, is singled out repeatedly, as is a gritty, grounded feel that reviewers say separates it from earlier Escobar dramas. The reservations are about shape rather than substance. Den of Geek finds the first episode heavy with exposition before the series settles. The AV Club enjoys it while conceding it leans on familiar war-on-drugs tropes. Collider notes a sympathy for Escobar and a reluctance to show the full horror of his actions. The one mixed review, from IndieWire, thinks the pacing is uneven and the series does not make enough of its material. The spread is narrow; nobody dislikes it. ### Reviews we read (8) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Tim Goodman (85/100, inferred): The critic praises the series for its impressive breadth and depth, grittier grounded feel, and superior writing, acting and directing that sets it apart from other Escobar biopics. They single out the wider focus on multiple perspectives around the story and the documentary-like style for praise. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/narcos-netflix-pablo-escobar-816232/) - **The AV Club**, Joshua Alston (B+): Narcos is a compelling and addictive drama that embraces familiar war-on-drugs tropes with enthusiasm and style, making for entertaining television despite lacking originality. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/netflix-s-drug-war-drama-narcos-gives-summer-television-1798184730) - **The Telegraph** (4/5): The critic calls the series superb and devastatingly addictive, praising its layered depiction of Pablo Escobar's empire-building and the DEA's efforts, along with Wagner Moura's nuanced lead performance. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/on-demand/2016/07/21/narcos-is-devastatingly-addictive--season-1-review/) - **Variety**, Brian Lowry (80/100, inferred): The critic describes it as a compelling drama and history lesson with a Goodfellas vibe that offers a taut, gripping narrative. They single out the incorporation of actual footage and the broader chronicle of Latin American political history for praise. [Read](https://variety.com/2015/tv/reviews/narcos-review-pablo-escobar-drama-netflix-1201570440/) - **Vulture** (80/100, inferred): The series is addictive smart entertainment, a meaty dramatization anchored by a fantastic performance from Wagner Moura as Escobar and confident storytelling that feels of its moment. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2015/08/narcos-review-new-netflix-show-is-addictive.html) - **IndieWire**, Liz Shannon Miller (60/100, inferred): The series shows promise in its depiction of the drug trade but struggles with uneven pacing and narrative choices that fail to fully capitalize on its potential. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/shows/review-narcos-season-1-had-promise-but-netflix-could-have-learned-from-entourage-58813/) - **Collider**, Chris Cabin (★★★★): The critic finds Netflix's series a rollicking and engaging take on Pablo Escobar's story that ultimately delivers blazing fury and elegant moodiness. It singles out the show's sympathy for Escobar and occasional reluctance to fully depict the horror of his actions for praise or complaint. [Read](https://collider.com/narcos-review-netflix-series-pablo-escobar/) - **Den of Geek**, Gabriel Bergmoser (75/100, inferred): Narcos stumbles with a weak first episode heavy on exposition but rapidly improves into a compelling binge-watch with strong performances, gritty realism, and a fresh take on real events. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/narcos-netflixs-new-crime-thriller-is-worth-sticking-with/) ## Details - **Created by:** Chris Brancato, Doug Miro, Carlo Bernard - **Creator:** Chris Brancato, Doug Miro, Carlo Bernard - **Director:** Andrés Baiz, Josef Kubota Wladyka, Fernando Coimbra, Gerardo Naranjo, Gabriel Ripstein, José Padilha, Guillermo Navarro - **Writer:** Carlo Bernard, Doug Miro, Chris Brancato, Andrew Black, Zachary Reiter, Eric Newman, Clayton Trussell, Nick Schenk, Dana Calvo, Julie Siege, Jason George, Steve Lightfoot, Adam Fierro, Santa Sierra, Bart Nickerson, Ashley Lyle, Allison Abner, David Matthews, Dana Ledoux Miller, Zach Calig - **Story:** Rasheed Newson, T.J. Brady, Gideon Yago, Steve Lightfoot - **Teleplay:** Carlo Bernard, Doug Miro, Zachary Reiter, Rasheed Newson, T.J. Brady, Gideon Yago, Curtis Gwinn - **Cinematography:** Mauricio Vidal, Luis David Sansans - **Editor:** Nathan Gunn - **Music:** Pedro Bromfman - **Production design:** Anthony Medina - **Costume design:** Bina Daigeler - **Producer:** Tim King, Paul Eckstein, José Luis Escolar - **Cast:** Wagner Moura as Pablo Escobar; Pedro Pascal as Javier Peña; Matias Varela as Jorge Salcedo; Boyd Holbrook as Steve Murphy; Damián Alcázar as Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela; Joanna Christie as Connie Murphy; Francisco Denis as Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela; Maurice Compte as Horacio Carrillo - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA - **Release (the US):** 28 August 2015 - **Genres:** Crime, Drama - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNWAKZzgbp4 ## Where to watch in the US - Netflix: streaming *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, AZ, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, SK, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - BAFTA Television Awards 2016: Best International Programme (nominated) ## If you liked this - *Elite Squad* (2007): José Padilha’s Rio police film, angrier and faster than anything here - *City of God* (2002), Fi1m 86: Brazilian favela crime story, edited like a fever, with children in the leads — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/city-of-god.md) - *Gomorrah* (2014): Naples crime series with no narration and nobody to root for - *Traffic* (2000), Fi1m 82: Soderbergh’s drug trade in three colours, from Tijuana to a Washington bedroom — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/traffic.md) - *Sicario* (2015), Fi1m 80: The border war as horror film, with Roger Deakins shooting the desert as a threat — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/sicario.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/narcos