--- title: "Treme" year: 2010 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/treme" fi1m_score: 82 critics_score: 80 critics_reviews: 7 published: "2026-09-17T01:42:22.770168+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T01:42:42.255950+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." --- # Treme (2010) Created by David Simon, Eric Overmyer · 1h 00m · MPA TV-MA · Drama **Fi1m score: 82** · Critics 80 from 7 reviews *In a sentence:* Everybody is broke, half the streets are still wrecked, and the trombone player is late for the funeral > David Simon and Eric Overmyer’s series about New Orleans after the flood has no plot to speak of and does not need one. It is slow, talkative and full of music played all the way through, and it earns its patience. One character we could happily have lost. ## Synopsis New Orleans, three months after Hurricane Katrina. In the Treme neighbourhood the water has gone and most of the people have not come back. Antoine Batiste (Wendell Pierce), a trombonist, hustles for gigs he cannot afford the cab fare to reach. His ex-wife LaDonna Batiste-Williams (Khandi Alexander) keeps her bar open while searching for a brother who went into the prison system before the storm and has not come out. Civil rights lawyer Toni Bernette (Melissa Leo) takes on the search. Albert “Big Chief” Lambreaux (Clarke Peters) returns to a gutted house and starts rebuilding his Mardi Gras Indian tribe, one feather at a time. Janette Desautel (Kim Dickens) runs a restaurant with no gas and few customers. Davis McAlary (Steve Zahn) plays records and picks fights. ## Review The programme is named after a neighbourhood, and that tells you how it works. David Simon and Eric Overmyer, who wrote together on [*The Wire*](https://film.one/tv/the-wire), have set *Treme* in New Orleans three months after Hurricane Katrina, and they have not given it a case to solve or a villain to catch. They have given it a dozen people and a city that has been half-drowned, and they ask what those people do next. Mostly they do what they did before, badly, with no money, and the series is about whether that counts as rebuilding. We think it is very good. We also think it asks more patience than most drama and that you should know that before you start. The cast is spread wide and the stories rarely touch. Wendell Pierce’s Antoine Batiste is a trombonist who is always in work and always broke, and Pierce plays him as a man who has decided charm is cheaper than rent. Khandi Alexander’s LaDonna Batiste-Williams runs a bar and hunts for a brother lost somewhere in the prison system, and Melissa Leo’s Toni Bernette, a lawyer, does the hunting with her. Clarke Peters is Albert “Big Chief” Lambreaux, a Mardi Gras Indian chief who comes home to a ruined house and starts sewing a new suit of beads and feathers before he has fixed the roof. Kim Dickens’s Janette Desautel keeps a restaurant open without a working gas line. Michiel Huisman and Lucia Micarelli are Sonny and Annie Talarico, a couple busking in the Quarter. Rob Brown’s Delmond Lambreaux, Albert’s son, plays trumpet in New York and would rather stay there. The music is not a soundtrack. Songs are played in full, in bars and on street corners and at funerals, and the camera waits for them to finish. Real musicians appear as themselves; Cornell Williams turns up in the credits as Cornell Williams. Antoine’s gigs are staged so that we hear the whole set, including the parts where he is coasting. The moment that got us came in the first season, when Albert walks down a dark street with no working lamps in his full chief’s suit, alone, chanting, and nobody is there to see him. We had not expected to cry at a man in feathers. It is the loneliness of it, a ritual performed for a crowd that has not come back. The writing room explains the texture of the talk. Anthony Bourdain is among the writers, and the kitchen scenes sound like someone who has worked a line on a bad night. Lolis Eric Elie and Chris Rose, both New Orleans writers, are credited, and the arguments about who is a real local and who is a tourist have the sourness of people who have had them for real. George Pelecanos and Tom Piazza are here too. Agnieszka Holland directs the opening episode and sets the pace: long scenes, no hurry, the wreckage in the background and never lingered on. Ernest R. Dickerson and Tim Robbins are among the directors who follow her, and the look holds. Now the complaint. Steve Zahn’s Davis McAlary is a DJ and would-be musician who lectures anyone within reach about authenticity, and the series likes him a great deal more than we did. He is meant to be exasperating and he is, but he is also given the speeches, and when *Treme* wants to tell us what it thinks about the city, the government or the tourists, it usually hands the job to him. We were bored by the fourth of these, and then irritated that a series this confident felt it needed them at all. The Sonny and Annie strand takes a season to find a reason to exist. Against Simon’s own standard, this is the gentler work. *The Wire* was an argument about a system, and *Treme* is a portrait of people living in the aftermath of one. Jon Seda’s Nelson Hidalgo, a developer who arrives in the second season with money and a grin, brings some of the old anger about who profits when a city is rebuilt, and Chris Coy’s reporter L.P. Everett does the same in the third. The fourth season is five episodes long and feels like it: threads are tied off quickly and kindly. Give it two episodes. If Antoine’s trombone and Albert’s needle and thread have not got you by the end of the second, it is not for you, and no harm done. If they have, there are thirty-six hours of it, and we envy you the first time. *Fi1m score 82, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews are uniformly warm, with all seven coming down on the positive side. Praise clusters around the world-building: critics find post-Katrina New Orleans convincingly drawn, and most single out the music and the ensemble performances as the reasons the neighbourhood feels lived in rather than staged. Several see The Wire in the intertwining stories and the street-level dialogue, while noting that this is a softer, more intimate piece. The reservations are about pace. Almost every notice calls the series slow, meandering or leisurely; Variety says it demands patience, and The Guardian notes occasional preachiness and false notes. The spread is narrow, from good to excellent, with The AV Club at the top and The Telegraph most cautious, suggesting the show’s success depends on whether it deepens viewers’ sense of the disaster. Nobody dislikes it; the argument is only over how much patience it earns. ### Reviews we read (7) - **The AV Club**, Scott Tobias (A): The critic finds Treme a confident, humane series that affirms love of humanity and resilience after Katrina through humor, tenderness, insight, and rich regional music. It stands out for allowing its world to unfold gradually without a driving narrative. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/treme-do-you-know-what-it-means-1798164713) - **The Times**, Chris Ayres (85/100, inferred): The pilot of Treme suggests David Simon can maintain his run of hits, following residents three months after Katrina with strong integration of music and cuisine. The camerawork makes ravaged streets look exquisite, and the closing scene is a work of art. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/katrina-gets-the-wire-treatment-ktdkdsz32lr) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Randee Dawn (80/100, inferred): The review notes that the show shares DNA with The Wire through its ensemble of intertwining stories and street-level dialogue, but focuses on post-Katrina rebirth in New Orleans. It praises the masterful world-building and performances while noting a slow start. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/treme-tv-review-hbo-season-one-29472/) - **The Independent**, Sarah Hughes (80/100, inferred): Treme creates a believable world but is more meandering and intimate than The Wire, with a softer heart and powerful emotional moments. It hits the right notes most of the time through character-driven drama and music. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/treme-better-than-the-wire-1941822.html) - **The Guardian** (75/100, inferred): Treme is a sprawling, elliptical drama about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on a New Orleans neighbourhood, with characters establishing themselves at a stately pace. It is as supple and confident as a jazz riff, despite occasional false notes and preachiness. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2011/feb/21/treme-tv-review) - **Variety**, Brian Lowry (75/100, inferred): The critic describes the series as rich and textured but too leisurely in pace, requiring patience like its post-Katrina New Orleans setting. Strong performances and authentic atmosphere are highlighted as rewarding elements for dedicated viewers. [Read](https://variety.com/2010/tv/reviews/treme-1117942520/) - **The Telegraph** (70/100, inferred): Treme offers a complex, inside look at post-Katrina New Orleans through the lives of its residents, capturing the city's essence via human characters rather than fast-paced crime drama. Its success depends on whether viewers gain a heightened sense of the disaster's impact. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/7585957/Treme-on-HBO-The-Wire-creator-David-Simons-new-show-US-TV-review.html) ## Details - **Created by:** David Simon, Eric Overmyer - **Creator:** David Simon, Eric Overmyer - **Director:** Anthony Hemingway, Ernest R. Dickerson, Agnieszka Holland, Alex Hall, Adam Davidson, Brad Anderson, Roxann Dawson, Simon Cellan Jones, Jim McKay, Tim Robbins, Alex Zakrzewski, Christine Moore, Rob Bailey, Dan Attias - **Writer:** Eric Overmyer, David Simon, George Pelecanos, Anthony Bourdain, David Mills, James Yoshimura - **Story:** David Simon, Eric Overmyer, George Pelecanos, Anthony Bourdain, Lolis Eric Elie, Chris Offutt, Jordan Hirsch, Chris Rose - **Teleplay:** Lolis Eric Elie, David Simon, Eric Overmyer, George Pelecanos, Chris Offutt, Micah Kibodeaux, Chris Yakaitis, Chris Rose, Will Ralston, Mari Kornhauser, Tom Piazza - **Producer:** Joe Incaprera, Anthony Hemingway - **Cast:** Khandi Alexander as LaDonna Batiste-Williams; Rob Brown as Delmond Lambreaux; Chris Coy as L.P. Everett; Kim Dickens as Janette Desautel; Michiel Huisman as Sonny; Melissa Leo as Toni Bernette; Lucia Micarelli as Annie Talarico; Clarke Peters as Albert "Big Chief" Lambreaux - **Runtime:** 1h 00m - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA - **Release (the US):** 11 April 2010 - **Genres:** Drama ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Hulu: add-on, hd - Apple TV: buy, sd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $18.99, sd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, HR, ID, IE, IL, IS, IT, LT, MX, MY, NO, PA, PE, PH, PL, RS, SE, SG, SI, TH, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Wire* (2002): Simon’s earlier city portrait, angrier and tighter, with Pierce and Peters again. - *When the Levees Broke* (2006): Spike Lee’s documentary on the flood; the facts behind the fiction. - *Down by Law* (1986), Fi1m 83: Jarmusch’s New Orleans in black and white, three idiots and a lot of waiting. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/down-by-law.md) - *Round Midnight* (1986): Tavernier lets the jazz play out whole, as Treme does, with Dexter Gordon. - *Beasts of the Southern Wild* (2012), Fi1m 78: Louisiana under water again, seen from a child’s height and stranger for it. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/beasts-of-the-southern-wild.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/treme