---
title: "Sons of Anarchy"
year: 2008
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/sons-of-anarchy"
fi1m_score: 67
critics_score: 59
critics_reviews: 7
published: "2026-09-17T00:59:41.236405+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-17T00:59:53.763675+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."
---

# Sons of Anarchy (2008)

Created by Kurt Sutter · MPA TV-MA · Crime, Drama

**Fi1m score: 67** · Critics 59 from 7 reviews

*In a sentence:* A leather Hamlet with a mother who would have had the whole thing sorted by the interval

> Kurt Sutter’s biker saga has two formidable villains in Katey Sagal and Ron Perlman, and a hero who cannot quite carry it. The first three seasons are good crime drama; the last four keep restaging the same betrayal.

## Synopsis

Charming, a small town in northern California. The Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club runs guns through the town and keeps outsiders out, with the police chief Wayne Unser (Dayton Callie) on its payroll. Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam), the club’s vice-president, finds a manuscript left by his dead father, one of the founders, questioning what the club has become. His mother Gemma (Katey Sagal) is married to the current president, Clay Morrow (Ron Perlman), who has no patience for questions. When a rival gang burns the club’s gun warehouse, Clay wants revenge and Jax wants to think. Jax’s addict ex-wife gives birth to a premature son, and his old girlfriend Tara Knowles (Maggie Siff), now a doctor, is back in town.

## Review

Kurt Sutter’s series is about a motorcycle club in Charming, a small town in northern California, that runs guns and in return keeps the place free of chain stores, drug dealers and outsiders. Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam) is the club’s vice-president. In the first episode he finds a manuscript by his dead father, one of the founders, arguing that the Sons were meant to be better than this, and he reads it while his mother Gemma (Katey Sagal) and her second husband Clay Morrow (Ron Perlman), the president, watch him with alarm. The shape is [*Hamlet*](https://film.one/film/hamlet). It first aired on 3 September 2008 and ran for seven seasons and ninety-two episodes; the first three are good crime drama and the last four are the same drama, repeated.

The pleasures are the parents. Sagal plays Gemma as the woman who actually runs Charming, handling the club’s laundry and its cover-ups in the same tone, and she can make a hand on a daughter-in-law’s shoulder feel like a threat. Perlman’s Clay has arthritis in both hands and is doing the arithmetic on how long a president can still ride, and the fear under the swagger is the best thing in the series. Around them the club is well drawn: Mark Boone Junior’s Bobby, the sensible one; Kim Coates’s Tig, whose oddities get most of the laughs; Tommy Flanagan’s Chibs, who talks like Glasgow and fights like it. Ryan Hurst’s Opie, out of prison and trying to go straight for a wife tired of waiting, is the one who got to us. He barely speaks. He stands in his kitchen with a coffee mug while the club pulls at one arm and his family at the other, and that big silent man moved us more than any speech the show wrote.

It looks right. Paul Maibaum, Edward J. Pei and Jonathan Freeman shoot Charming in hard flat daylight with no shade in it and light the clubhouse so low that faces float above the table. The rides are filmed from a car alongside, bikes two by two on empty road, and the series never gets them wrong. Sidney Wolinsky and Hunter M. Via cut nearly every episode towards a closing montage, a slow cover of an old song over faces in cars and at the bar; it works the first dozen times and is a formula by the thirtieth. Paris Barclay, who also produces, keeps his episodes moving; Peter Weller, Adam Arkin and Allen Coulter take turns; Sutter directs some himself.

The trouble is at the centre. Hunnam is handsome and watchful and rides well, but Jax is written as the wisest man in every room, and Hunnam cannot always make the wisdom sound like his own. His Californian vowels wander, and when the script hands him his father’s philosophy to read aloud he delivers it like a man reading. Maggie Siff, as Tara Knowles, the doctor who left town to get away from him and has come back, is steadily better than what she is given.

Then there is the pattern. Each season an outside force arrives, a rival club, a federal agent, an Irish connection; somebody at the table is suspected of talking; Gemma keeps a secret that would end everything; the club votes. Season 4 runs to fourteen episodes and needs about nine. By the sixth season we knew the shape of an episode before the credits ran, and we were irritated at being able to guess, because the actors deserved surprises. The violence rises with the episode count. Early on it is quick, ugly and has consequences; later a torture scene turns up where a plot point should be, and the camera stays.

[*The Sopranos*](https://film.one/tv/the-sopranos) knew Tony was a bad man and let us like him anyway. [*The Shield*](https://film.one/tv/the-shield) knew Vic Mackey was a villain from the first hour. Sutter never decides whether the Sons are heroes or criminals, and in the early seasons that is the drama, because Jax cannot decide either. Later it is an excuse. The show keeps calling the club a family, keeps showing the family doing things no family should survive, and asks us to forgive it because the music is sad.

The first three seasons are tense, funny and properly acted, and earn their 15 certificate. Stop at the end of the third. Everything after it is the same season with more funerals.

*Fi1m score 67, published 17 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

The reviews lean positive but are split almost down the middle, and even the admirers share a reservation or two. The acting draws the most consistent praise: nearly every critic, including the two who dislike the series, calls the cast first-rate, and Den of Geek singles out Katey Sagal as Gemma. Those who warm to it see a family drama and a Shakespearean tragedy dressed as a crime thriller, with the club politics and character work counting for more than the shootings. The Ringer, writing a decade on, goes furthest, calling it often excellent and occasionally better than that.

The dissent is about violence and pace. The Hollywood Reporter finds the savagery gratuitous and the characters hard company to keep; Variety, after two episodes, judges it stuck in neutral with people who lack dimension. Even the positive notices concede blustery talk and a familiar antihero template. The spread is wide, and the two negative reviews are the earliest, filed on the opening episodes.

### Reviews we read (7)

- **The AV Club**, Noel Murray (B+): The series is well-acted, twisty, and often shocking with a distinctive take on motorcycle gangs. It can get overheated with blustery talk and feels overly familiar after similar antihero shows. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/sons-of-anarchy-season-one-1798206747)
- **Empire**, William Thomas (70/100, inferred): The series is a compelling family drama framed as a crime thriller and Shakespearean tragedy about a gun-running biker gang. Strong character work and club dynamics stand out over the violence. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/tv/reviews/sons-anarchy-season-1-review/)
- **The Independent** (65/100, inferred): The critic likens the show to The Sopranos with motorcycles and a leather-clad Hamlet, noting its focus on anti-heroes in a biker gang dealing guns. It highlights the violence as both central and overly glamorous, with some comedic touches that may not suit all viewers. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-night-s-television-sons-of-anarchy-bravofind-me-a-family-channel-4-1684443.html)
- **The Hollywood Reporter** (30/100, inferred): The relentlessly grim and wrenching series makes it hard to stomach time with its savage characters, though ambition and first-rate acting are clear. Excessive random violence crosses into gratuitous territory. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/sons-anarchy-125799/)
- **Variety**, Brian Lowry (30/100, inferred): After two episodes the gritty biker drama about a gun-running gang appears stuck in neutral despite an intriguing cast and bleak world. Violence is visceral but characters lack dimension early on. [Read](https://variety.com/2008/scene/markets-festivals/sons-of-anarchy-3-1200507425/)
- **The Ringer**, Shea Serrano (85/100, inferred): The critic describes Sons of Anarchy as a very good show that was often excellent and occasionally transcendent, crediting its smart, funny, gruesome, inventive, and emotionally powerful storytelling. He singles out the central performances and intricate plotting for particular praise while lamenting its omission from a best-episodes list. [Read](https://www.theringer.com/2018/08/15/tv/sons-of-anarchy-underrated-mayans-mc-spinoff-fx)
- **Den of Geek**, Dave Adamson (3/5): The review praises the series as well-written, well-acted and well-executed with strong characters and engaging gang politics, comparing it favorably to The Sopranos and The Shield while noting its dramatic tension and contemporary edge. It highlights the cast, including Katey Sagal's standout performance as Gemma, and the balance of violence, language, sex and community elements. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/sons-of-anarchy-season-one-dvd-review/)

## Details

- **Created by:** Kurt Sutter
- **Creator:** Kurt Sutter
- **Director:** Paris Barclay, Guy Ferland, Peter Weller, Gwyneth Horder-Payton, Billy Gierhart, Kurt Sutter, Stephen Kay, Adam Arkin, Terrence O'Hara, Phil Abraham, Paul Maibaum, Karen Gaviola, Craig Yahata, Billy Geirhart, Seith Mann, Charles Murray, Michael Dinner, Mario Van Peebles, Charles Haid, Allen Coulter, Tim Hunter
- **Writer:** Kurt Sutter, Dave Erickson, Chris Collins, Misha Green, Liz Sagal, Regina Corrado, Mike Daniels, Kem Nunn, Roberto Patino, Charles Murray, Jack LoGiudice, Peter Elkoff, Brett Conrad, Gladys Rodríguez, Marco Ramirez, Brady Dahl, Adria Lang, John Barcheski, Stevie Long, Vaun Wilmott, Nichole Beattie, Julie Busher, Josh Botana, James D. Parriott, David Labrava, Pat Charles
- **Story:** Kurt Sutter, Brady Dahl, Cori Uchida
- **Teleplay:** Chris Collins, Kurt Sutter, Jack LoGiudice, Brady Dahl
- **Cinematography:** Paul Maibaum, Edward J. Pei, Jonathan Freeman
- **Editor:** Hunter M. Via, Sidney Wolinsky
- **Producer:** James D. Parriott, Kurt Sutter, Paris Barclay
- **Cast:** Charlie Hunnam as Jax Teller; Johnny Lewis as Kip "Half Sack" Epps; Katey Sagal as Gemma Teller Morrow; Ron Perlman as Clay Morrow; Tommy Flanagan as Filip 'Chibs' Telford; Mark Boone Junior as Bobby Munson; Ryan Hurst as Harry 'Opie' Winston; Kim Coates as Alex 'Tig' Trager
- **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA
- **Release (the US):** 3 September 2008
- **Genres:** Crime, Drama
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paBZJJXUEtg

## Where to watch in the US

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

*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, GR, HK, HR, HU, IE, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Golden Globes 2010: Best Actress – Television Series Drama (won)

## If you liked this

- *The Shield* (2002): The same cable-era ugliness, but it always knew its hero was the villain
- *Animal Kingdom* (2010), Fi1m 84: An Australian crime family run by a grandmother who out-Gemmas Gemma without raising her voice — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/animal-kingdom.md)
- *Easy Rider* (1969): The bikes, the road and the freedom talk, before anyone thought to sell guns
- *Gomorrah* (2014): Neapolitan gangland with the sentiment removed; the betrayals hurt because nobody sings
- *Peaky Blinders* (2013), Fi1m 77: A family gang, a brooding leader and a matriarch, in Birmingham caps rather than California leather — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/peaky-blinders.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/sons-of-anarchy