--- title: "The English" year: 2022 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/the-english" fi1m_id: "the-english" imdb_id: "tt11771270" tmdb_id: 99346 wikidata_id: "Q107104445" fi1m_score: 70 critics_score: 75 critics_reviews: 11 published: "2026-09-30T22:55:15.965197+00:00" updated: "2026-09-30T22:55:24.285001+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." --- # The English (2022) Created by Hugo Blick · 49m · MPA TV-MA · Drama, Western ## Identity The English - **Canonical:** https://film.one/tv/the-english - **Type:** Series - **Fi1m ID:** the-english - **IMDb ID:** tt11771270 - **TMDB ID:** 99346 - **Wikidata ID:** Q107104445 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11771270/, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/99346, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q107104445 **Fi1m score: 70** · Critics 75 from 11 reviews *In a sentence:* Two grieving people ride a thousand miles of the most beautiful nowhere ever filmed, mostly in epigrams > Hugo Blick’s six-part western is photographed like a painting and acted, by Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer, with real stillness. The middle episodes pile up strangers and subplots until we lost the thread, and the dialogue is written to be quoted rather than said. ## Synopsis Kansas, 1890. Lady Cornelia Locke (Emily Blunt), an Englishwoman travelling alone with a bag of money, steps off a stagecoach driven by Sebold Cusk (Toby Jones) at a remote hotel run by Richard M Watts (Ciarán Hinds). Tied up outside is Eli Whipp (Chaske Spencer), a Pawnee who has spent years scouting for the United States cavalry and has just been discharged, riding north to claim land he says he is owed. Cornelia has crossed an ocean to find and kill the man she holds responsible for her son’s death. Watts has plans for her money. The first episode puts the Englishwoman and the scout in the same yard, with the same enemy, and sends them across the plains together with their reasons for going still mostly unspoken. ## Review Hugo Blick writes and directs all six episodes of *The English*, a western about two people crossing the plains in 1890 for reasons neither will say out loud at first. Lady Cornelia Locke (Emily Blunt) has come from England with a bag of money and a man she means to kill. Eli Whipp (Chaske Spencer) is a Pawnee who scouted for the cavalry for years, has just left it, and is riding north to land he was promised. They meet at a hotel in Kansas run by Richard M Watts (Ciarán Hinds), who has Eli strung up outside and has already counted Cornelia’s money as his own. It is a good series and an annoying one, and we would recommend it to anyone who likes the genre, with the warning that the third and fourth hours will test their patience. The hotel sequence is the best thing in it. Hinds plays Watts as a host, pouring drinks and making conversation about England while explaining, politely, why Cornelia will not be leaving. We were horrified, and it was the courtesy that did it: a man deciding whether to kill a woman in the tone of one asking if she takes sugar. Blunt sits through it in a lilac travelling dress with her hands folded, and Spencer, roped to a post outside the window, does the listening for us. Blick stages it slowly, in one location, and it is the only stretch of the series where nothing feels padded. It is a handsome thing throughout. Arnau Valls Colomer shoots the plains at the ends of the day, sky taking up most of the frame and people reduced to two dark marks on the grass, so that every conversation looks like it is happening at the edge of the world. Chris Roope’s buildings stand alone with nothing behind them: a hotel, a farmhouse, a fort, each one apparently the last structure for a hundred miles. Phoebe De Gaye dresses Cornelia in pinks and lilacs, the only soft colour in a landscape of ochre and dust, which tells you what the series thinks she is doing there before she does. Federico Jusid’s score is mostly guitar and low strings, and the decision to open on Mazzy Star’s *Fade Into You* is a good one; it sets the mood of a lament before anything has happened. Spencer is the reason to keep going. He plays Eli with a low voice and almost no gesture, a man who has learned that saying less keeps him alive, and we watched him harder than anyone else on screen. Blunt is doing something showier and it mostly works: Cornelia treats her grief as a job to be finished, and the moments where the job slips and the woman shows are the ones we remember. The two of them together, riding in silence or arguing about who owes whom, are enough to carry a series. Blick does not quite trust them to. Instead he keeps introducing people. A Cheyenne woman, Touching Ground (Tonantzin Carmelo), and the family Eli finds himself among. A cattle baron and his men. A sheriff, a lawless town, a homesteader with her own dead to account for. Each is given a scene of the sort that sounds like it was written to be read aloud at an awards dinner, and then the series has to remember where it left the two leads. Somewhere in the fourth episode we stopped being able to say who had wronged whom, and we were bored, and then irritated at being bored by a series this well made. Ben Yeates and Andy Morrison cut the wide shots with patience, but no editor can shorten a plot. The dialogue is the other problem. Everyone in this West speaks as though they have had a fortnight to think about what to say, and the lines are frequently good, which makes it worse; you can hear the writer enjoying them. Toby Jones, as the coachman Sebold Cusk, gets one early scene and makes his speech sound like a man talking rather than a script, and we wished more of the cast had been allowed to do the same. The last two episodes pull it back. The strands come together, the violence is fast and ugly rather than operatic, and the ending, which we will not describe, is earned by Blunt and Spencer rather than by the plot. Watch it two episodes at a time, and do not stop at the fourth. The scenery will keep you there; the two people standing in it are the reason to stay. *Fi1m score 70, published 30 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics come away impressed. Eight of the eleven reviews are positive, and the praise clusters in two places: the performances of Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer, whose chemistry is singled out again and again, and the cinematography, which nearly every critic mentions and several treat as the main reason to watch. A number also admire Hugo Blick’s ambition in reworking the Western, and a couple pick out Federico Jusid’s score. The reservations are about the plot. Even the warmest reviews concede the story grows tangled, and the cooler ones make that the whole complaint: too many strands, a slack middle, supporting characters who pull focus from the central pair. The spread is wide, running from full marks to one outright dismissal. Variety finds the sprawl buries a compelling story, and Paste thinks the characters never gain any depth. Both, tellingly, still praise the leads. ## Straight answers **Is The English worth watching?** *The English* is worth watching for anyone who likes westerns and can sit through a slack middle, and we scored it 70. Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer are the reason to stay, and Arnau Valls Colomer's plains photography is the reason it is easy to. The third and fourth episodes pile on strangers and subplots, so take it two at a time and do not stop there. **How long is The English, and what is it rated?** *The English* has episodes of about 49m and is rated TV-MA by the MPA in the US. It is a drama and western series. **Where can I watch The English in the US?** *The English* is streaming on Zee5 and Amazon Prime Video in the US. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How violent or frightening is The English, and is it suitable for children?** *The English* is a UK 15 and not suitable for children. The violence in the final episodes is fast and ugly rather than showy, and the early hotel sequence, in which Ciarán Hinds discusses killing a woman as politely as offering tea, unsettled us more than any of it. Older teenagers used to adult westerns will manage; the squeamish should expect grief, hangings and blood. **How does The English compare to Meek's Cutoff?** *The English* is the bigger and more decorative of the two; [*Meek's Cutoff*](https://film.one/film/meeks-cutoff) is the tighter and more honest about what crossing the plains was actually like, which was mostly waiting. Kelly Reichardt keeps to a few emigrants and a single slow ordeal, where Hugo Blick keeps adding characters and quotable speeches. Choose Reichardt for patience rewarded, Blick for scenery and two strong leads. **What should I watch after The English?** After *The English*, try [*Meek's Cutoff*](https://film.one/film/meeks-cutoff) (2010, Fi1m 82): Emigrants lost on the Oregon trail; slow, dusty, and far more honest about waiting. Then [*Dead Man*](https://film.one/film/dead-man-walking) (1995, Fi1m 84): Jarmusch’s black-and-white frontier, with Gary Farmer as the guide Eli Whipp could have been. ### Reviews we read (11) - **Evening Standard**, Nick Clark (5/5): Clark calls the series magnificent, gripping entertainment, with only minor plot and dialogue quibbles. He especially praises Chaske Spencer’s riveting lead performance and the show’s striking cinematography. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/the-english-on-bbc-two-review-magnificent-western-emily-blunt-b1039019.html) - **Empire**, Boyd Hilton (90/100, inferred): The critic calls the series a thrillingly fresh, ambitious Western and praises Emily Blunt’s performance. They also single out Hugo Blick’s operatic action sequences and vivid supporting characters. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/tv/reviews/the-english/) - **The Guardian** (5 out of 5 stars): The critic calls the series a gorgeous, glorious new take on the Old West. They praise its sweeping, revelatory vision of a lawless land. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/series/tv-review/2022/nov/10/all) - **IndieWire**, Ben Travers (B+): Travers finds the series sharply written and largely entertaining, though its plot can become overcomplicated. He praises the performances and the striking mix of graceful visuals, romance, and violence. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/shows/the-english-review-amazon-emily-blunt-1234780067/) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Daniel Fienberg (70/100, inferred): Fienberg finds the series ambitious and worthwhile despite a convoluted, sloppy middle that keeps it from becoming truly special. He praises the striking cinematography and the performances and chemistry of Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/the-english-emily-blunt-amazon-hugo-blick-1235256055/) - **The AV Club**, Saloni Gajjar (C+): The review finds the series visually gorgeous but let down by convoluted plotting and slow pacing. It praises Emily Blunt’s immersive performance, while also highlighting Chaske Spencer’s quietly moving work. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-english-tv-review-prime-video-bbc-emily-blunt-1849756536) - **Variety**, Caroline Framke (35/100, inferred): Framke finds the series frustrating, with its many plotlines obscuring a compelling central story. She praises Blunt and Spencer’s chemistry and performances, but faults the sprawling supporting plots for disrupting the show’s rhythm. [Read](https://variety.com/2022/tv/reviews/the-english-review-emily-blunt-amazon-1235429343/) - **Collider**, Maggie Lovitt (B+): Lovitt finds the series compelling and moving, praising its humanity amid the brutality of the frontier. She singles out Federico Jusid’s sublime score, especially its use of Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You.” [Read](https://collider.com/the-english-review-emily-blunt-chaske-spencer/) - **/Film**, Danielle Ryan (80/100, inferred): Ryan finds the series compelling and powerful despite occasional confusion from its complex narrative. She praises the performances, especially Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer, along with the dialogue and gorgeous cinematography. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/1096364/the-english-review-a-gorgeous-and-gruesome-tale-of-vengeance-in-the-old-west/) - **Consequence**, Clint Worthington (70/100, inferred): Worthington finds the miniseries flawed but bold, thrilling, and ultimately hard to look away from. He especially praises Chaske Spencer’s performance, alongside the show’s score and striking visual style. [Read](https://consequence.net/2022/11/the-english-review-emily-blunt-amazon/3/) - **Paste**, Shane Ryan (6.7): Ryan finds the series intriguing but ultimately disappointing, with its writing and story unable to deliver on its promise. He praises the striking western vistas and Toby Jones’s standout performance, while criticizing the characters’ lack of depth. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/the-english/the-english-review) ## Details - **Created by:** Hugo Blick - **Creator:** Hugo Blick - **Director:** Hugo Blick - **Writer:** Hugo Blick - **Cinematography:** Arnau Valls Colomer - **Editor:** Ben Yeates, Andy Morrison - **Music:** Federico Jusid - **Production design:** Chris Roope - **Costume design:** Phoebe De Gaye - **Producer:** Colin Wratten - **Cast:** Emily Blunt as Lady Cornelia Locke; Chaske Spencer as Eli Whipp; Sam Alexander as Trooper Scott; Ben Temple as Dutch Van de Lote; Tonantzin Carmelo as Touching Ground; Jimmy Shaw as Cam McKewan; Edward Crook as Captain Grann; Ciarán Hinds as Richard M Watts - **Runtime:** 49m - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA - **Release (the US):** 10 November 2022 - **Genres:** Drama, Western - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ocyF_Iuj7U ## Where to watch in the US - Zee5: streaming - Amazon Prime Video: streaming, uhd *Checked 2026-09-30.* Also available in: AE, AT, AU, CA, DK, FI, GB, IN, NO, NZ, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Meek's Cutoff* (2010), Fi1m 82: Emigrants lost on the Oregon trail; slow, dusty, and far more honest about waiting. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/meeks-cutoff.md) - *The Proposition* (2005): An Australian outback western with the same brutality and better-earned poetry. - *Godless* (2017): Another limited western series with a woman at its centre and fewer digressions. - *Dead Man* (1995), Fi1m 84: Jarmusch’s black-and-white frontier, with Gary Farmer as the guide Eli Whipp could have been. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/dead-man-walking.md) - *Sweet Country* (2017): An Aboriginal stockman on the run in 1920s Australia; plain, angry, and beautifully shot. --- © 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/the-english