--- title: "The Night Of" year: 2016 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/the-night-of" fi1m_score: 81 critics_score: 83 critics_reviews: 8 published: "2026-09-17T13:11:58.921043+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T13:12:13.349012+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 Night Of (2016) Created by Richard Price, Steven Zaillian · 1h 00m · MPA TV-MA · Crime, Drama, Mystery **Fi1m score: 81** · Critics 83 from 8 reviews *In a sentence:* The lawyer’s eczema gets more screen time than the murder, and it is the right call > Zaillian and Price’s eight-hour account of one arrest is patient, exact and superbly acted, with Riz Ahmed and John Turturro doing the best work in it. It drifts in the middle and treats its women carelessly, but it is worth the time. ## Synopsis Queens, New York. Nasir ‘Naz’ Khan (Riz Ahmed), a college student who lives with his parents Salim (Payman Maadi) and Safar (Poorna Jagannathan), borrows his father’s taxi to drive to a party in Manhattan. A young woman climbs into the back seat, thinking he is on duty, and he lets her stay. They drink, they go back to her place, and in the morning he wakes to find her stabbed to death. He runs, is stopped for a traffic offence, and is sitting in a precinct when the call about the murder comes in over the radio. John Stone (John Turturro), a lawyer with bad skin and worse clients, takes him on. Detective Dennis Box (Bill Camp) starts building the case against him. ## Review Nasir Khan (Riz Ahmed) is a college student in Queens who borrows his father’s taxi to get to a party in Manhattan. A young woman gets into the back seat, he does not have the heart to throw her out, and by morning she is dead and he is on the street with her blood on him. That is the first hour of *The Night Of*, and it is as tight an hour as the genre has managed. Steven Zaillian and Richard Price take the remaining seven to follow one arrest through the New York courts, and the result is a fine piece of work with two faults. Zaillian directs the opening episode almost without music. Robert Elswit, Igor Martinović and Frederick Elmes share the cinematography and keep the night in sodium orange and the precinct in the grey-green of fluorescent tubes. Naz is picked up for a traffic offence, and for a long stretch we watch the police fail to connect the boy on the bench with the call on the radio. When the search turns up the knife in his jacket, we felt sick. Not surprised, because we had seen him take it, but sick, because Ahmed plays it as someone who has only just understood that the night is not over. John Turturro plays John Stone, the lawyer who is in the precinct when Naz is brought in and takes the case because it is there. Stone has eczema so bad he wears sandals in winter. Price and Zaillian give the condition as much screen time as the murder, and they are right to: it tells us Stone is a man who has stopped expecting to be looked at. Turturro underplays it and is funnier and sadder than the part required. Bill Camp is as good as Dennis Box, the detective close to retirement who does his job quietly and is troubled, not much, by the thought that he may be doing it to the wrong man. Payman Maadi and Poorna Jagannathan play Naz’s parents, Salim and Safar, and their scenes are the ones that got past our guard. The taxi is impounded, and Maadi plays the humiliation of asking the police for his own car back with a patience that is hard to watch. Jeannie Berlin, as the prosecutor Helen Weiss, gets the driest lines and delivers them as if she has said them in a hundred courtrooms. Ahmed holds it together. Naz is sent to Rikers Island and comes back from each visit a slightly different man, and Ahmed changes him by degrees, in the shoulders and the eyes, until we could no longer say what he had or had not done. We are not going to say either. Now the faults. Eight hours is a long time for one arrest, and the middle episodes drift, with Stone’s feet and the prison corridors standing in for plot. Nick Houy and Jay Cassidy cut the courtroom passages cleanly, but around the fifth hour we found ourselves checking how many were left. The women are the other problem. The victim is a body and a set of clues. Amara Karan’s Chandra, the junior lawyer who does most of the work of the defence, is written with care for six hours and then handed a decision we did not believe and will not describe. The series is scrupulous about its Pakistani-American family and careless about half its cast. It is adapted from the BBC series *Criminal Justice*. What Price and Zaillian add is New York in detail: the taxi garage, the evidence room, the way a case moves through a courthouse as paperwork long before it moves as story. James Marsh directs an episode and you would not know which. Jeff Russo’s score is low strings and a nagging figure and stays out of the way. The reviews so far have been warm and we share most of that. Watch it across a week rather than a weekend. It was made as eight hours and it breathes better with gaps between them. The first episode alone would be worth your evening. The rest is worth it too, most of the time. *Fi1m score 81, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews are warm across the board. Most critics describe a series that starts as a murder mystery and becomes something else: a slow, detailed account of how the justice system grinds people down, and how chance and prejudice decide who gets convicted. Praise gathers on the writing of Richard Price and Steven Zaillian, on a New York setting several find immersive enough to forgive the plot its gaps, and on two performances: Riz Ahmed as the accused and John Turturro as the eczema-afflicted defence lawyer. Where they part is over pace. Collider finds it a slog in places, and Paste, the coolest of the eight, thinks the female characters are thin and the handling of race uneven, while admiring how ordinary the Pakistani-American family at its centre is allowed to be. Variety notes holes in the central mystery and does not much mind. The spread is narrow: nobody dislikes it, and the only argument is how much patience it earns. ### Reviews we read (8) - **Variety**, Sonia Saraiya (90/100, inferred): The critic calls the series compulsively watchable and extraordinarily rewarding, a brilliant and addictive mystery. They single out the precise, immersive atmosphere and richly detailed New York setting that draws viewers in despite the gaps in the central mystery. [Read](https://variety.com/2016/tv/reviews/tv-review-the-night-of-hbo-john-turturro-1201810455/) - **The Guardian**, Lucy Mangan (85/100, inferred): The HBO series excels as it shifts from procedural crime drama to a deeper exploration of the randomness of justice, boosted by post-9/11 prejudices and a strong adaptation of the original. It features a hypnotic performance from Riz Ahmed as the accused and excellent work from John Turturro as the defence lawyer. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/sep/01/the-night-of-riz-ahmed-hbo-murder-drama) - **Vulture**, Matt Zoller Seitz (85/100, inferred): The series unfolds like a fat crime novel, hypnotic and engrossing as it explores the criminal justice system through precise procedural details and memorable characters. Seitz praises the writing by Richard Price and Steven Zaillian for its atmospheric depth and the way it treats guilt as a MacGuffin. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2016/06/tv-review-the-night-of.html) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Daniel Fienberg (80/100, inferred): The critic describes an atmospheric HBO crime drama with a strong opener and deep ensemble cast. They single out the ambitious portrayal of the criminal justice system and the weighty, detailed direction and performances that keep viewers invested. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/night-tv-review-908630/) - **The Telegraph** (4/5): The series is a glorious puzzle box that starts as a murder mystery but reveals itself as something smarter and more provocative, with echoes of true-crime hits like Making a Murderer. It is a show to lose yourself in and obsess over endlessly. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2016/09/02/why-the-night-of-is-tv-to-obsess-over---review/) - **Den of Geek**, Tony Sokol (4.5/5): The premiere is a strong start for prestige television, a suspenseful thriller that draws viewers in with its dark tone and layered characters. Sokol singles out the performances of Riz Ahmed and John Turturro as a solid center for the ensemble. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-night-of-premiere-review-the-beach/) - **Collider**, Allison Keene (★★★★): The critic praises the series as a gritty, deliberate legal procedural that effectively highlights the flaws and bureaucracy of the justice system through its focus on procedure and Turturro's standout performance as the eczema-afflicted lawyer. It notes some issues with pacing, making it feel like a slog at times, and weaknesses in certain character portrayals. [Read](https://collider.com/the-night-of-review-hbo/) - **Paste**, Brogan Morris (70/100, inferred): The piece acknowledges the show's flaws in pacing, female characters, and some handling of race but highlights its success in humanizing an everyday Pakistani-American Muslim family and challenging Islamophobia by making the lead relatable and ordinary rather than stereotypical. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/the-night-of/in-spite-of-its-flaws-the-night-of-still-gave-us-a) ## Details - **Created by:** Richard Price, Steven Zaillian - **Creator:** Richard Price, Steven Zaillian - **Director:** Steven Zaillian, James Marsh - **Teleplay:** Richard Price, Steven Zaillian - **Cinematography:** Igor Martinović, Frederick Elmes, Robert Elswit - **Editor:** Nick Houy, Jay Cassidy - **Music:** Jeff Russo - **Producer:** Scott Ferguson, Mark A. Baker - **Cast:** Riz Ahmed as Nasir 'Naz' Khan; John Turturro as John Stone; Bill Camp as Dennis Box; Payman Maadi as Salim Khan; Jeannie Berlin as Helen Weiss; Poorna Jagannathan as Safar Khan; Amara Karan as Chandra; Carter Hudson as Attorney in Line - **Runtime:** 1h 00m - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA - **Release (the US):** 10 July 2016 - **Genres:** Crime, Drama, Mystery - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=556N5vojtp0 ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming - Hulu: add-on, hd - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - 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, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IS, IT, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TH, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Criminal Justice* (2008): The British original, shorter and colder, with Ben Whishaw in the back of the cab - *A Separation* (2011), Fi1m 93: Payman Maadi in an Iranian courtroom where nobody is lying and nobody is telling the truth — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/a-separation.md) - *12 Angry Men* (1957), Fi1m 91: One room, one afternoon, and the same question about what a jury actually knows — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/12-angry-men.md) - *Rectify* (2013), Fi1m 87: A man comes out of prison and the small town waits; slow, patient, worth it — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/rectify.md) - *Anatomy of a Fall* (2023), Fi1m 86: A French trial in which the evidence is a marriage and the verdict is beside the point — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/anatomy-of-a-fall.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. 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