Nocturne Review: ★★★½☆ (3.5/5)
Nocturne is a dark and gripping thriller with a brilliant villain and a fine supporting cast. The second episode is weak, and the hero is a bit plain, but the mystery keeps you hooked.
Rating: ★★★½☆ (3.5/5)
Genre: Crime Thriller
Language: English
Creator: Rowan Joffe
Cast: Liev Schreiber, Zazie Beetz, Stephen Graham, Rory Culkin, Poorna Jagannathan
Some thrillers ask you to find the killer. Nocturne starts by telling you who he is and then asks something harder: how do you make a man like that talk? The ten-episode series arrives on Apple TV on 30 October 2026, and it is built around a very tense game between a monster and the people trying to stop him.
Liev Schreiber plays Jonah Lynn, an ex-soldier who became a homicide detective. He got tired of the tough streets of Philadelphia and moved to a small town in western Pennsylvania for a quiet life. It does not stay quiet.
He still goes out looking for two children who have been missing for a long time. The main suspect is Jurek Walter, played by Stephen Graham, a cunning serial killer locked inside a psychiatric hospital. Jurek says he is innocent and refuses to talk.
Then one of the missing kids shows up, and the clock starts ticking. The child’s condition makes it clear the second one may not have much time. To break Jurek, Jonah sends in Saga Bauer, an FBI agent he thinks of as a daughter.
Zazie Beetz plays her. In the series, she goes undercover as a patient and tries to get locked up right next to him. She believes she can work him. He is a master at working people. That clash is the heart of the show.
The cast is the biggest reason to watch. Stephen Graham is truly chilling here, and his American accent never slips. Zazie Beetz is just as good. Rory Culkin and Poorna Jagannathan are right behind them, and Chrissy Metz, Bill Camp and Gary Carr round out a strong group. Liev Schreiber is solid, but his character is simply not the most interesting one. Next to Graham and Beetz, he often feels like the quiet man in the room.
There is one odd choice worth a mention. The books by Lars Kepler are set in Sweden, and the hero is called Joona Linna. Here he becomes Jonah Lynn, and the story moves to the United States. Yet the villain keeps his foreign-sounding name, Jurek Walter. It is a small thing, but it feels strange that only the hero needed to sound local.
The show is based on two novels, Lazarus and The Sandman. Rowan Joffe created it, and John Hlavin is the showrunner. Tim Van Patten directs the first two episodes. Schreiber and Beetz also serve as executive producers.
Not everything works. Just like in the Netflix thriller we covered in our A Couple of Lies review, the second episode feels weak here. After that, the story picks up and stays solid right to the end.
If you want to know more before pressing play, our Nocturne release date guide covers everything about the series. And if you fancy something creepier after the credits roll, our Balaraw: Blood Island Review looks at a Filipino vampire mystery with a dark edge and a big heart.
Nocturne is not perfect, but it knows what it does best. Put Zazie Beetz and Stephen Graham in a room together, and you will not want to look away.
Nocturne is streaming now on Apple TV from 30 October 2026.