---
title: "Slow Horses"
year: 2022
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/slow-horses"
fi1m_id: "slow-horses"
imdb_id: "tt5875444"
tmdb_id: 95480
wikidata_id: "Q104880809"
fi1m_score: 82
critics_score: 74
critics_reviews: 9
published: "2026-09-10"
updated: "2026-09-10T18:09:55.330714+00:00"
region: "CL"
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."
---

# Slow Horses (2022)

Created by Adam Randall, Saul Metzstein, James Hawes, Jeremy Lovering · Crime, Drama, Mystery

## Identity

Slow Horses

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/tv/slow-horses
- **Type:** Series
- **Fi1m ID:** slow-horses
- **IMDb ID:** tt5875444
- **TMDB ID:** 95480
- **Wikidata ID:** Q104880809
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5875444/, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/95480, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q104880809

**Fi1m score: 82** · Critics 74 from 9 reviews

*In a sentence:* The spies nobody wants, in the office nobody cleans, run by a man who weaponises his own socks

> Mick Herron’s failed spies make a fine series, and Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb is the reason. The office is the show; the thriller plot each run of six episodes hangs on is ordinary, and the series gets away with it.

## Synopsis

Slough House is where MI5 puts the officers it would rather not employ but cannot quite sack. River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) is sent there after a public mistake. His new boss is Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), who runs the place from an upstairs office and appears never to have washed. Around them sit the other rejects: Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves), Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung) and Louisa Guy (Rosalind Eleazar). At head office, Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas) is running an operation of her own, and the slow horses are not meant to be anywhere near it. Adapted from Mick Herron’s novels, six episodes a series.

## Review

Slough House is where MI5 sends the officers it cannot sack. Mick Herron’s novels handed the writers that premise, and Will Smith and his colleagues do the sensible thing with it: they treat the building as the main character. River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) arrives after a mistake made in front of everybody, and the first episode spends its opening minutes running him through it at full tilt, so that we know how good he might have been. Then it sits him at a desk going through a journalist’s rubbish. The verdict, since you are in a hurry: this is very good, and the best of it has almost nothing to do with spying.

Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb runs the place from an upstairs room that smells, even through a screen, of last night’s takeaway. Oldman plays him as a man who has decided to be repulsive on purpose. Guy Speranza dresses him in a raincoat that has not met a dry cleaner in years, a cardigan and socks with the toes out, so that whenever he stands next to Kristin Scott Thomas’s Diana Taverner, who runs things at head office in tailoring you could cut yourself on, the joke is made before anyone speaks. We laughed out loud, more than once, at the sheer commitment of it. Then, in the second episode, Lamb does a small decent thing without looking at anybody, and we realised the filth was cover.

The office around him is cast with care. Saskia Reeves’s Catherine Standish keeps the files and her dignity. Christopher Chung’s Roddy Ho believes he is the only competent person in the building, and is nearly right about the computers and wrong about everything else. Rosalind Eleazar’s Louisa Guy has the face of someone passed over who knows exactly why. Aimee-Ffion Edwards turns up later as Shirley Dander and hits people. None of these are big parts, and each gets a look or a line that tells us what the person did to end up here. Lowden holds the middle. River is the only one who still thinks he might get out, and Lowden plays that hope as faintly embarrassing, which is right.

Tom Burton and Choi Ho Man have built Slough House as a place that stopped being redecorated some decades ago: brown carpet, a kettle furred with limescale, desks that do not match, a staircase nobody has hoovered. Danny Cohen and David Chizallet light it yellow, as if one bulb has been doing all the work, and shoot head office in blue-grey glass and white corridors, so that a straight cut from one to the other is a joke in itself. Daniel Pemberton’s title theme, a slouch of a song that sounds as if the singer has been up all night, does the same job in sound.

What works less well is the reason each run of six episodes exists. Every series hangs on a thriller plot, and the first one is the kind you have seen before; we will not describe it. Whenever it takes over from the desks, we wanted it to hurry up, and by the fourth episode we were checking how long was left, which we never did while Lamb was on screen. The show knows it is a comedy with a thriller attached, and the thriller is the part it takes least care over. Later runs bring in Hugo Weaving and give more room to Jonathan Pryce as David Cartwright, the old hand River still defers to, and they are at their best when they, too, stay in the building.

One dissenting review found the whole thing too familiar, and we can see what it means: disgraced agents, double-crosses, a service that would rather bury a mistake than fix it. That is looking in the wrong place. The plots are familiar. When Lamb is on screen, nothing else in the genre is doing quite this.

Six episodes at a time is the right dose, and it works better at home than it would in a cinema, because Lamb mutters and you will want to rewind.

*Fi1m score 82, published 10 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics like Slow Horses, and the praise lands in the same place almost every time: Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb, the unwashed, wheezing head of Slough House. Several reviews single out Kristin Scott Thomas and Olivia Cooke alongside him, and the ensemble is generally credited with making a dingy office full of failed spies worth watching. Critics also warm to the approach: an old-fashioned surveillance thriller that builds its tension without gadgets, set in a London that looks properly grubby.

The reservations cluster around tone. The Telegraph finds the promised dark comedy thinner than advertised, Collider thinks the series cannot decide whether it is a drama or a comedy, and Variety finds the hostage plot more familiar than the jokes around it. The Guardian is the lone dissenter, finding the whole concept too familiar to grip. The spread is otherwise narrow: nearly everyone else lands somewhere between solid and impressive.

## Straight answers

**Is Slow Horses worth watching?**

*Slow Horses* is worth watching for anyone who likes a comedy of failure with a spy plot attached, and we scored it 82. Gary Oldman's Jackson Lamb and the shabby office around him are the point; the thriller each run of six episodes hangs on is ordinary, and we found ourselves waiting for it to finish. Watch it at home, where you can rewind his muttering.

**Where can I watch Slow Horses in Chile?**

*Slow Horses* is streaming on Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video in Chile. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service.

**How violent or frightening is Slow Horses, and is it suitable for children?**

*Slow Horses* carries a UK 15 certificate, which rules it out for children and younger teenagers. The review finds it more comedy than thriller, and the violence it does contain sits inside a spy plot with double-crosses rather than horror; Aimee-Ffion Edwards's Shirley Dander, we note, hits people. Expect coarse language and an adult tone rather than sustained fear.

**How does Slow Horses compare to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy?**

*Slow Horses* is a comedy about the spying that [*Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy*](https://film.one/tv/tinker-tailor-soldier-spy-1979) takes seriously, and Jackson Lamb is close to a parody of Alec Guinness's Smiley. The earlier serial is the deeper work, seven hours of patient listening that rewards the patience it asks for; the newer one is the funnier and the easier evening. Choose Guinness for the mole hunt, Oldman for the office.

**What should I watch after Slow Horses?**

After *Slow Horses*, try [*Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy*](https://film.one/tv/tinker-tailor-soldier-spy-1979) (1979, Fi1m 88): Alec Guinness’s Smiley: the slow, shabby, patient spying that Lamb is a parody of. Then [*Deutschland 83*](https://film.one/tv/deutschland) (2015, Fi1m 74): A young agent well out of his depth, played for both comedy and dread.

### Reviews we read (11)

- **The AV Club**, Alison Foreman (A-): Slow Horses is an old-school British spy thriller done right, relying on classic tension-builders rather than gadgets or CGI. Strong performances, especially from Gary Oldman and Olivia Cooke, sell the slow-burn surveillance mystery and its edge-of-your-seat payoffs. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/slow-horses-review-apple-tv-plus-gary-oldman-1848690580)
- **Empire**, Boyd Hilton (85/100, inferred): The critic praises the grimly authentic espionage yarn populated by funny, intriguing “losers, misfits and boozers.” Gary Oldman delivers a tour de force as the wheezily profane Jackson Lamb. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/tv/reviews/slow-horses/)
- **Evening Standard** (80/100, inferred): The starry cast excels in this impressive, gripping adaptation of the misfit spy saga. It rearranges familiar tropes into something arresting and often funny, with strong ensemble work despite the unglamorous setting. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/slow-horses-review-apple-tv-gary-oldman-jack-lowden-kristin-scott-thomas-mick-herron-b990231.html)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Daniel Fienberg (80/100, inferred): A rewarding slow burn about disgraced spies in a depressing workplace, with gritty London texture, twists, and an excellent ensemble led by Oldman’s compelling performance. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/slow-horses-review-1235121908/)
- **The Times**, Camilla Long (75/100, inferred): The show is a classy production centered on the decaying Slough House and Oldman's slobbish Jackson Lamb. It features strong support from Kristin Scott Thomas and a snaky plot with switchbacks, though it takes time to engage. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/slow-horses-the-spy-who-came-in-from-the-khazi-tfr399x5v)
- **The Telegraph**, Anita Singh (70/100, inferred): The adaptation of Mick Herron's novels is solidly entertaining and well-acted, with Gary Oldman as the grubby Jackson Lamb standing out. It mixes espionage thrills with the misfit agents' dynamics but falls short on the promised dark comedy. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/slow-horses-review-gary-oldman-slums-inside-seedy-world-mi5/)
- **Variety**, Caroline Framke (70/100, inferred): The show works best as a spy comedy with sharp jokes, strong ensemble chemistry, and Oldman’s prickly energy, though the dramatic plot elements and hostage storyline feel more familiar and less successful. [Read](https://variety.com/2022/tv/reviews/slow-horses-review-oldman-1235219990/)
- **The Guardian** (40/100, inferred): The series is a tense but familiar spy thriller about disgraced MI5 agents at Slough House. The critic notes strong performances from Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas but finds the overall concept and execution deja vu-inducing. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/apr/01/slow-horses-review-jaded-spies-gary-oldman-kristen-scott-thomas)
- **IndieWire**, Steve Greene: The series offers a grimy, unglamorous look at intelligence work centered on outcasts and mistakes at MI5's Slough House. It delivers a tangled spy story that mixes realism with familiar genre tricks. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/shows/slow-horses-review-gary-oldman-apple-tv-plus-spy-show-1234710974/)
- **Collider**, Abby Cavenaugh (B): The critic finds the series unsure of its tone, with strong performances from Oldman, Lowden and Scott Thomas but few laughs and an identity crisis between drama and comedy. They single out the dynamic between Lamb and Cartwright for praise amid otherwise convoluted subplots. [Read](https://collider.com/slow-horses-tv-series-review-gary-oldman-kristin-scott-thomas-apple-tv-plus/)
- **NME**, Elizabeth Aubrey: The critic praises the return of Gary Oldman's Jackson Lamb and the expanded roles for the ensemble in season two, calling it a blast with strong performances and dark humor. They single out the meticulous scripting and action sequences for praise while noting some convoluted plotting. [Read](https://www.nme.com/reviews/tv-reviews/slow-horses-season-2-review-gary-oldman-3359761)

## Details

- **Created by:** Adam Randall, Saul Metzstein, James Hawes, Jeremy Lovering
- **Director:** Adam Randall, Saul Metzstein, James Hawes, Jeremy Lovering
- **Writer:** Will Smith, Jonny Stockwood, Mark Denton, Morwenna Banks, Sean Gray, Edward Docx
- **Cinematography:** Danny Cohen, David Chizallet
- **Editor:** Zsófia Tálas, Morten Højbjerg, Luke Dunkley, Katie Weiland, Fiona Brands, Harrison Wall, Ben Whitehead, Sam Williams, Robert Frost
- **Music:** Daniel Pemberton, James Griffith, Pablo Clements
- **Production design:** Choi Ho Man, Tom Burton
- **Costume design:** Guy Speranza
- **Producer:** Jane Robertson, Anna O'Malley
- **Cast:** Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb; Jack Lowden as River Cartwright; Kristin Scott Thomas as Diana Taverner; Hugo Weaving as Frank Harkness; Jonathan Pryce as David Cartwright; Saskia Reeves as Catherine Standish; Christopher Chung as Roddy Ho; Rosalind Eleazar as Louisa Guy
- **Release (Chile):** 1 April 2022
- **Genres:** Crime, Drama, Mystery
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9ZJChzPn0U

## Where to watch in Chile

- Apple TV: streaming, uhd
- Amazon Prime Video: add-on, uhd

*Checked 2026-09-10.*

Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PH, PL, PT, SE, SG, TH, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy* (1979), Fi1m 88: Alec Guinness’s Smiley: the slow, shabby, patient spying that Lamb is a parody of. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/tinker-tailor-soldier-spy-1979.md)
- *The Sandbaggers* (1978): Whitehall espionage as office politics, with the budget meetings as tense as the fieldwork.
- *The Bureau* (2015): French intelligence work done as workplace drama, unglamorous and exact about the cost.
- *The Ipcress File* (1965): Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer, an insubordinate spy who cooks and resents his superiors.
- *Deutschland 83* (2015), Fi1m 74: A young agent well out of his depth, played for both comedy and dread. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/deutschland.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/slow-horses