--- title: "Spider-Noir" year: 2026 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/spider-noir" fi1m_id: "spider-noir" imdb_id: "tt30460310" tmdb_id: 220102 wikidata_id: "Q123956515" fi1m_score: 67 critics_score: 64 critics_reviews: 7 published: "2026-09-10" updated: "2026-09-17T20:44:04.638738+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." --- # Spider-Noir (2026) Created by Oren Uziel · MPA TV-14 · Drama, Mystery, Crime ## Identity Spider-Noir - **Canonical:** https://film.one/tv/spider-noir - **Type:** Series - **Fi1m ID:** spider-noir - **IMDb ID:** tt30460310 - **TMDB ID:** 220102 - **Wikidata ID:** Q123956515 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30460310/, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/220102, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q123956515 **Fi1m score: 67** · Critics 64 from 7 reviews *In a sentence:* Around Cage in a fedora, talking to himself in the rain, while the plot politely waits for him to finish > Around Cage as a down-at-heel 1930s private eye is the whole case for this handsome, faithful, slightly hollow noir pastiche. He is a good case. The eight episodes around him are two too many. ## Synopsis Ben Reilly (Around Cage) is a private investigator in the 1930s with a past as the masked vigilante called The Spider and not much to show for it. He takes the cases nobody else wants and works them the old way, in hats, bars and badly lit offices. Around him are Joe ‘Robbie’ Robertson (Lamorne Morris), Cat Hardy (Li Jun Li) and Janet Ruiz (Karen Rodriguez), and above them the city’s villains: Finn ‘Silvermane’ Byrne (Brendan Gleeson), Flint Marko (Jack Huston) and Lonnie Lincoln, known as Tombstone (Abraham Popoola). Eight episodes, offered in both colour and black and white, made as a hard-boiled detective series with the superhero kept mostly out of sight. ## Review Around Cage voiced this character in [*Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse*](https://film.one/film/spider-man-into-the-spider-verse) (2018), a few minutes of black-and-white grumbling that stole its scenes. Someone has now built him eight hours of it. *Spider-Noir* is a superhero spin-off with the superhero mostly removed: Ben Reilly is a private investigator in the 1930s, once known as The Spider, now known to hardly anyone. The tagline is “With no power comes no responsibility”, and the series means it. It wants to be a gumshoe picture first and a comic-book property a distant second, and for long stretches it manages both. Cage is the reason to watch, and he knows it. He plays Reilly as a man doing an impression of a detective he once saw in a picture, and the distance between the impression and the man is where the comedy lives. The hard-boiled lines are delivered with a straight face and a slight, private amusement, as if he has heard them before and is checking whether we have. We laughed out loud, more than once, at readings that any other actor would have thrown away, and by the later episodes, when the writing lets him off the lead and he becomes properly odd, we were laughing with the series rather than at it. The series comes in two versions, colour and black and white, and Peter Deming and Darran Tiernan have lit it so that either will pass. Choose the black and white. In monochrome the shadows fall where they should and the cigarette smoke has somewhere to go; in colour the same frames are pleasant and a little too clean, like a period drama that has wandered into the wrong genre. Warren Alan Young’s sets do the art-deco offices and back rooms without fuss, Trayce Gigi Field puts everyone in a hat, and the score by Kris Bowers and Michael Dean Parsons does the brass-and-shadows work so steadily that we stopped noticing it, which is the right result. Around Cage the cast is better than the material. Lamorne Morris gives Joe Robertson a decency the series keeps underusing. Li Jun Li’s Cat Hardy and Karen Rodriguez’s Janet Ruiz each get scenes that suggest a sharper show, and are then shuffled aside for the next name on the poster. Brendan Gleeson does what Gleeson does, which is to lend a small part the weight of a large one; his Silvermane is the only villain who seems to want something. Jack Huston’s Flint Marko and Abraham Popoola’s Tombstone arrive looking like trouble and spend most of their time looking like it. Here is where it goes wrong. Eight writers are credited, along with four directors and four editors, and it shows in the seams. The middle episodes circle: a lead, a beating, a bar, a lead. Somewhere in the fifth hour we noticed we had stopped following who had done what to whom and were simply waiting for Cage to come back on screen, and that the series had not noticed we had gone. There is also a stretch, involving a scientist, that belongs to a different and sillier programme, and the series takes a while to steady itself afterwards. None of this is disgraceful. It is padding, and eight episodes is a lot of coat to pad. The films it borrows from were cheap, fast and mean, and their detectives lost something in every reel. *Spider-Noir* is expensive, fond and safe. It has the hats and the voiceover and the rain, and it has little appetite for the despair underneath them, which is the part of noir that mattered. Nobody here looks likely to end up worse off than they started, and you can feel that from the first episode. Watch it in black and white, an episode at a time, and feel free to wander off whenever Cage is not on screen. Eight episodes, a 15 certificate, and one performance worth the whole of it. *Fi1m score 67, published 10 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics like Spider-Noir, and the praise clusters almost entirely on Nicolas Cage. Review after review describes his world-weary private eye as the reason to watch: mannered, sarcastic, silly, and well matched to a series more interested in trench coats and cigarette smoke than in tights. The period detail draws steady approval too, from the rat-a-tat dialogue to the shadows and art-deco surfaces, with several reviews calling it a labour of love that turns out better than the concept promised. The reservations are about the plotting. Even admirers mention weak villains, uneven tone and genre shifts that do not land. The spread is wide rather than narrow. The two dissenters, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, find the storytelling dull and repetitive, arguing that the show borrows the look of vintage gumshoe drama without adding much beneath it, and that it plays too safe to earn the noir label. ## Straight answers **Is Spider-Noir worth watching?** *Spider-Noir* is worth watching for Around Cage's performance and not much else, and we scored it 67. He plays the 1930s private eye Ben Reilly with a straight face and a private amusement that made us laugh out loud, but the eight episodes circle in the middle and two of them are padding. Watch it in black and white, one episode at a time. **How long is Spider-Noir, and what is it rated?** *Spider-Noir* is rated TV-14 by the MPA in the US. It is a drama and mystery series. **Where can I watch Spider-Noir in the US?** *Spider-Noir* is streaming on Amazon Prime Video in the US. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How violent or frightening is Spider-Noir, and is it suitable for children?** *Spider-Noir* carries a UK 15 certificate and a US TV-14, and it is a hard-boiled crime drama rather than a superhero adventure, with beatings, bars and cigarette smoke rather than costumed fights. It is not frightening, but the tone and violence are adult, so it suits teenagers and grown-ups and is not one for younger children. **How does Spider-Noir compare to The Big Sleep?** *Spider-Noir* borrows its hats, rain and voiceover from films like [*The Big Sleep*](https://film.one/film/the-big-sleep), and the Howard Hawks picture is the better and sharper of the two. Both have muddled plots carried by their leads, but Bogart and Bacall talk faster and mean more, while the series is fond, safe and stretched across eight episodes. Start with Hawks; come to Cage afterwards. **What should I watch after Spider-Noir?** After *Spider-Noir*, try [*The Big Sleep*](https://film.one/film/the-big-sleep) (1946, Fi1m 84): Bogart and Bacall talking faster than the plot; the model for everything here. Then [*Chinatown*](https://film.one/film/chinatown) (1974, Fi1m 93): Nicholson’s private eye finds out what the city is built on. Nobody wins; and [*The Third Man*](https://film.one/film/the-third-man) (1949, Fi1m 92): Vienna in rubble, a zither, and shadows that Deming and Tiernan clearly studied. ### Reviews we read (9) - **Radio Times** (4/5): Nicolas Cage is pitch-perfect as the grizzled lead in this enjoyable if frivolous retro Marvel spin-off. The well-realised noir style and strong sense of the period make it a labour of love that exceeds expectations for the concept. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/nicolas-cage-spider-noir-review/) - **The Guardian** (80/100, inferred): The series is a stylish, fast and witty homage to 1940s hard-boiled noir, full of shadows, cigarette smoke and sharp banter, with Nicolas Cage's mannered performance fitting the highly stylised world. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/may/27/spider-noir-review-nicolas-cages-stylish-take-on-the-superhero-as-a-1940s-detective-is-huge-fun) - **The Telegraph**, Ed Power (4/5): Cage channels Humphrey Bogart and Bugs Bunny as a world-weary PI in a fun mash-up of vintage gumshoe film and superhero spin-off that prefers retro detective clichés over tights. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2026/05/27/spider-noir-amazon-prime-video-review/) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Daniel Fienberg (40/100, inferred): The show is an inconsistent disappointment with frustratingly dull storytelling that cribs from vintage gumshoe dramas while adding little, though the cast is strong and Cage gets to be fully weird in the second half. It is occasionally a hoot but requires wading through nondescript material. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/spider-noir-review-nicolas-cage-amazon-1236603901/) - **Variety**, Aramide Tinubu (30/100, inferred): The series is beautifully shot in color and black-and-white but ultimately a lackluster, repetitive and predictable vigilante tale with little substance beneath its stylish 1930s surface. It plays it far too safe and fails to capture true noir decadence. [Read](https://variety.com/2026/tv/reviews/spider-noir-review-prime-video-nicolas-cage-1236756324/) - **Empire**, Alex Godfrey: The series is an absurdly brilliant, brilliantly absurd concoction of film noir and superhero elements with rat-a-tat dialogue and a wall-to-wall cast of private dicks, shady dames and super-villains. Nicolas Cage's lead performance is the standout, delivering a big swing that pays off from start to finish. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/tv/reviews/spider-noir/) - **NME**, Alex Flood (75/100, inferred): The critic praises Nicolas Cage's sarcastic, witty, and silly performance as the down-on-his-luck PI Ben Reilly/The Spider in this campy art-deco 1930s detective series. It highlights the fun to be had despite occasional issues with action stunts. [Read](https://www.nme.com/reviews/tv-reviews/spider-noir-review-nicolas-cage-3946959) - **Collider**, Aidan Kelley (7/10): The critic calls it a fun pulpy throwback to vintage superhero capers, highlighting Cage's charismatic lead performance and strong supporting cast while noting some tonal inconsistency and weaker villains. [Read](https://collider.com/spider-noir-review-nicolas-cage-prime-video/) - **Den of Geek**, Joe George (4 out of 5): The critic finds it a delightful hard-boiled TV series faithful to noir and comics. Praises Cage's performance and clear storytelling, but notes some missteps with mad scientists and genre shifts. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/spider-noir-review-spider-man-does-whatever-bogie-can/) ## Details - **Created by:** Oren Uziel - **Creator:** Oren Uziel - **Director:** Alethea Jones, Harry Bradbeer, Nzingha Stewart, Greg Yaitanes - **Writer:** Oren Uziel, Steve Lightfoot, Jack Henderson, Jennifer Frazin, Megan Liao, Tori Sampson, Bruce Marshall Romans, Christopher Chen - **Cinematography:** Darran Tiernan, Peter Deming - **Editor:** Tirsa Hackshaw, Eric Kissack, Jennifer Barbot, Geraud Brisson - **Music:** Michael Dean Parsons, Kris Bowers - **Production design:** Warren Alan Young - **Costume design:** Trayce Gigi Field - **Producer:** Kari Hobson, Annie Court - **Cast:** Nicolas Cage as Ben Reilly / The Spider; Lamorne Morris as Joe 'Robbie' Robertson; Li Jun Li as Cat Hardy; Karen Rodriguez as Janet Ruiz; Abraham Popoola as Lonnie Lincoln / Tombstone; Jack Huston as Flint Marko; Brendan Gleeson as Finn 'Silvermane' Byrne; Michael Kostroff as Mayor Morris - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-14 - **Release (the US):** 25 May 2026 - **Genres:** Drama, Mystery, Crime - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5QW457407U ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: streaming, uhd - Amazon Prime Video: free, uhd *Checked 2026-09-10.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, TH, TR, US, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Big Sleep* (1946), Fi1m 84: Bogart and Bacall talking faster than the plot; the model for everything here. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-big-sleep.md) - *Chinatown* (1974), Fi1m 93: Nicholson’s private eye finds out what the city is built on. Nobody wins. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/chinatown.md) - *The Third Man* (1949), Fi1m 92: Vienna in rubble, a zither, and shadows that Deming and Tiernan clearly studied. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-third-man.md) - *Babylon Berlin* (2017), Fi1m 82: A detective, a nightclub and a conspiracy in Weimar Berlin; the period done properly. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/babylon-berlin.md) - *Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse* (2018), Fi1m 87: Where Cage first wore the hat; under two hours and none of them wasted. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/spider-man-into-the-spider-verse.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/spider-noir