--- title: "Westworld" year: 2016 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/westworld-2016" fi1m_score: 74 critics_score: 82 critics_reviews: 7 published: "2026-09-17T03:24:15.810017+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T03:24:29.469165+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." --- # Westworld (2016) Created by Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy · MPA TV-MA · Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Western **Fi1m score: 74** · Critics 82 from 7 reviews *In a sentence:* Anthony Hopkins builds a theme park so guests can shoot the staff, and the staff take it personally > Joy and Nolan’s remake of Crichton’s robot western has a first season as exact and unsettling as anything of its kind, with Evan Rachel Wood and Thandiwe Newton at their best. Then it falls in love with its puzzles and loses the people. ## Synopsis Westworld is a theme park built as the American West, where guests ride the train into Sweetwater and do as they please among the hosts, lifelike machines that cannot harm them. Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood), a rancher’s daughter, wakes each morning to the same day, drops the same tin can and meets the same gunslinger, Teddy Flood (James Marsden). Maeve Millay (Thandiwe Newton) runs the saloon. Below ground, the park’s creator, Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins), has given the hosts a new set of gestures, and the engineer Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright) notices some of them starting to remember. Above, a guest called the Man in Black (Ed Harris) has returned for something the park does not advertise. ## Review Michael Crichton’s 1973 film *Westworld* was about a robot gunslinger who would not stop. Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan keep the park and the gunslinger and turn the camera round, so the series is told from the machines’ side. Guests pay to ride into a Western that never runs out of whisky or things to shoot; the hosts who serve them wake each morning with no memory of the night before. The first season, ten episodes from 2 October 2016, is as good as this kind of television gets. Three more seasons followed, none as good, and by the fourth we were no longer sure the makers remembered why we had cared. Nathan Crowley and Zack Grobler build two worlds and keep them in argument. Above ground is a frontier town of pale timber and dust, shot by a camera department that includes Paul Cameron and Robert McLachlan in wide, warm daylight with the horizon low in the frame. Below is the laboratory: black glass, white light, naked bodies on stools, technicians in grey talking to the hosts as you might to a printer. Trish Summerville and Ane Crabtree dress the guests in hats a size too clean. The cutting between the two is the show in miniature: a gunfight, then a man with a tablet asking the corpse to sit up. The cast is the reason to start. Evan Rachel Wood plays Dolores Abernathy, a rancher’s daughter who says the same hopeful things about the world every morning, and the performance lives in the half-second when the script stalls and her face has nothing to do. Thandiwe Newton’s Maeve Millay, the saloon madam, gets the funniest and the most frightening material and treats them as the same thing. Anthony Hopkins plays the park’s creator, Dr. Robert Ford, at a murmur. Ed Harris, as a guest called only the Man in Black, walks through the town as if it were a corridor to somewhere else. Jeffrey Wright, as the engineer Bernard Lowe, is the quietest of them and the best. We were horrified early, and not by a shooting. A host is brought below, sat naked in the glass and told to drop all emotional affect, and the camera stays on her face while she does it. Nothing bleeds. Ramin Djawadi’s score does the other clever thing: pop songs picked out on the saloon’s player piano, slow enough that it takes a chorus to recognise them, by which point the point about repetition has been made without a line of dialogue. The trouble comes when the writers decide the mystery matters more than the people. The first season is a puzzle, and a fair one; the clues are on screen, and the editors, Andrew Seklir and Stephen Semel among them, cut so that a scene you took for the present can later turn out to be nothing of the sort. The second season, from 22 April 2018, runs the same trick harder across more timelines. We caught ourselves keeping notes, and then found we no longer minded which strand we were in. Hopkins and Harris are still fine. The show has stopped giving them anyone to talk to. The third season, from 15 March 2020 and down to eight episodes, changes the setting entirely and adds Aaron Paul as Caleb Nichols, a working man with bad luck, and Vincent Cassel as Serac, a billionaire who speaks in riddles. Paul is good. Cassel is asked to be mysterious and settles for smooth. Tessa Thompson’s Charlotte Hale, a company executive first seen in season one, is given far more to do, and Thompson is the one performer whose work improves as the series goes on. The fourth season, 26 June 2022, also eight episodes, is handsome and remote; we watched it with respect and without dread. Set beside other machine stories, Crichton’s film and [*Blade Runner*](https://film.one/film/blade-runner) (1982) among them, the first season holds its own: it asks the old question about what a person is and gives it faces. Watch those ten episodes with the lights off and someone to argue with. After that, carry on if you like puzzles more than people. We stopped. *Fi1m score 74, published 17 September 2026.* ### Reviews we read (7) - **The Guardian** (85/100, inferred): The critic finds the HBO series an absolute thrill, a seamless marriage of western and dystopian sci-fi corporate thriller that overcomes reservations about the original film. They praise the sophisticated robots reaching incipient consciousness, the top-notch cast including Anthony Hopkins, Thandie Newton and Ed Harris, and the intentional confusion in the narrative. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/oct/04/westworld-review-seamless-marriage-cowboys-dystopians) - **Vulture**, Matt Zoller Seitz (85/100, inferred): Westworld is a meticulously constructed, self-aware and layered adult drama perfectly suited to the current TV discussion era, richer and slipperier than its marketing suggested. It excels at scrutinizing storytelling, simulacra, and viewer complicity while delivering bursts of feeling amid its puzzle-box structure. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2016/09/tv-review-westworld-hbo.html) - **IndieWire**, Ben Travers (B+): The series is an ambitious, deep-thinking HBO drama that pits Western philosophy against the Wild West with swagger and promise of answers ahead. It highlights the strong performances and conceptual ambition from creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/shows/westworld-review-season-1-hbo-anthony-hopkins-ed-harris-1201731817/) - **Collider**, Allison Keene (★★★★): The critic praises the series as bold and compelling, highlighting its thoughtful exploration of consciousness and humanity in the hosts, strong performances especially from Evan Rachel Wood and Thandie Newton, and its blend of Wild West and sci-fi elements. They single out the philosophical depth and world-building for praise. [Read](https://collider.com/westworld-review-hbo/) - **Den of Geek**, Louisa Mellor (80/100, inferred): HBO’s Westworld is cerebral sci-fi that explores complex questions of freedom, identity, morality and power far beyond the original film’s premise, staying serious and philosophical throughout. It benefits from standout casting, strong production values, and an effective allegory about movie-making itself. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/westworld-review-spoiler-free/) - **/Film**, Jack Giroux (80/100, inferred): The review finds the series an exciting, disturbing, and thoughtful reimagining that explores the untapped ideas from the original film, praising the focus on the hosts' perspectives, unsettling violence, and the addictive subtleties and details in the storytelling and performances. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/546831/westworld-review/) - **The Ringer**, Alison Herman (80/100, inferred): The critic finds the pilot ambitious and well-paced, earning its lengthy runtime with strong setup and big questions about consciousness and creation. She praises the show's blend of Western and sci-fi elements along with its grand scope. [Read](https://www.theringer.com/2016/09/30/westworld/westworld-earns-its-hour-6e5194a0645) ## Details - **Created by:** Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy - **Creator:** Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy - **Director:** Richard J. Lewis, Jonathan Nolan, Frederick E. O. Toye, Paul Cameron, Craig Macneill, Jennifer Getzinger, Vincenzo Natali, Stephen Williams, Nicole Kassell, Neil Marshall, Hanelle M. Culpepper, Uta Briesewitz, Michelle MacLaren, Meera Menon, Lisa Joy, Helen Shaver, Anna Foerster, Craig Zobel, Tarik Saleh, Jonny Campbell, Andrew Seklir, Amanda Marsalis - **Writer:** Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan, Denise Thé, Suzanne Wrubel, Jordan Goldberg, Carly Wray, Roberto Patino, Dan Dietz, Gina Atwater, Halley Wegryn Gross, Matthew Pitts, Ron Fitzgerald, Kevin Lau, Charles Yu, Allison Rock, Daniel T. Thomsen, Kath Lingenfelter, Will Soodik, Christina Ham, Desa Larkin-Boutté, Ed Brubaker, Karrie Crouse, Alison Schapker, Wes Humphrey - **Story:** Lisa Joy, Michael Crichton, Jonathan Nolan, Dominic Mitchell - **Teleplay:** Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan - **Cinematography:** Darran Tiernan, John Grillo, Robert McLachlan, Brendan Galvin, Jeffrey Jur, M. David Mullen, Paul Cameron, David Franco, John Conroy - **Editor:** Andrew Seklir, Anna Hauger, Tanya Swerling, David Eisenberg, Mark Yoshikawa, Amelia Allwarden, Ron Rosen, Stephen Semel, Thomas Sabinsky, Mako Kamitsuna, Sarah C. Reeves, Marc Jozefowicz - **Music:** Ramin Djawadi - **Production design:** Howard Cummings, Zack Grobler, Jon Carlos, Nathan Crowley - **Costume design:** Sharen Davis, Ane Crabtree, Debra Beebe, Trish Summerville - **Producer:** Stephen Semel, Michael Polaire, Carly Wray - **Cast:** Evan Rachel Wood as Dolores Abernathy; Thandiwe Newton as Maeve Millay; Jeffrey Wright as Bernard Lowe; Tessa Thompson as Charlotte Hale; Aaron Paul as Caleb Nichols; James Marsden as Theodore 'Teddy' Flood; Angela Sarafyan as Clementine Pennyfeather; Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Robert Ford - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA - **Release (the US):** 2 October 2016 - **Genres:** Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Western - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BqKiZhEFFw ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: buy, sd - Apple TV: buy, sd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AT, AU, BE, BG, CA, DE, ES, FI, FR, GB, IE, IT, JP, LT, NL, NO, NZ, PL, RS, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Blade Runner* (1982), Fi1m 85: The machines want more life and the humans cannot say why they should not — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/blade-runner.md) - *The Prisoner* (1967): A man wakes in a pleasant village that will not let him leave, or explain - *Ghost in the Shell* (1995), Fi1m 83: A cyborg policewoman asks whether her memories are hers; the answer is animated and cold — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/ghost-in-the-shell.md) - *Deadwood* (2004), Fi1m 91: The frontier town Westworld imitates, with real mud and better swearing — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/deadwood.md) - *Äkta människor* (2012): Swedish domestic androids, kitchen-table scale, and the unease lands harder for it --- © 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/westworld-2016