Peaky Blinders is a British historical crime drama television series created by Steven Knight. Set in Birmingham, it follows the exploits of the Peaky Blinders crime gang in the direct aftermath of the First World War. The fictional gang is loosely based on an urban youth gang active in the city from the 1880s to the 1920s.
The series features an ensemble cast: led by Cillian Murphy, starring as Tommy Shelby, Helen McCrory as Elizabeth “Polly” Gray, Paul Anderson as Arthur Shelby, Sophie Rundle as Ada Shelby, and Joe Cole as John Shelby, the group’s senior members. Sam Neill, Annabelle Wallis, Iddo Goldberg, Tom Hardy, Charlotte Riley, Finn Cole, Natasha O’Keeffe, Paddy Considine, Adrien Brody, Aidan Gillen, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sam Claflin, Amber Anderson, James Frecheville, and Stephen Graham appeared across multiple episodes of the series. The series premiered on 12 September 2013 and was broadcast on BBC Two until the fourth series, after which it moved to BBC One for the fifth and sixth series.
Netflix, under a deal with the Weinstein Company and Endemol, acquired the rights to release the show in the United States and around the world. In January 2021, it was announced that the sixth series, released in 2022, would be the final series. A feature-length film titled Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, which is set a few years after the series finale, was released on 6 March 2026.
Overview
Peaky Blinders is a crime drama centred on a family of mixed Irish Traveller and Romani origins based in Birmingham, England, starting in 1919, several months after the end of the First World War. It centres on the Peaky Blinders street gang and their ambitious, cunning crime boss Tommy Shelby. The gang comes to the attention of Major Chester Campbell, a detective chief inspector in the Royal Irish Constabulary sent by Winston Churchill from Belfast, where he had been sent to fight against the Irish Republican Army flying columns, the Communist Party of Great Britain, street gangs, and common criminals in order to clean up the city.[1][2] Winston Churchill (played by Andy Nyman in series 1 and Richard McCabe in series 2) charges him with suppressing disorder and uprising in Birmingham and recovering a stolen cache of arms and ammunition meant to be shipped to Libya.[3][4] The first series concludes on 3 December 1919—”Black Star Day”, the event where the Peaky Blinders plan to take over Billy Kimber’s betting pitches at the Worcester Races.
The second series has the Peaky Blinders expand their criminal organisation in the “South and North while maintaining a stronghold in their Birmingham heartland”.[5] It begins in 1921 and ends with a climax at Epsom racecourse on 31 May 1922, Derby Day.[6]
The third series takes place in 1924, following Tommy and the gang as they enter an even more dangerous world by expanding once again, this time internationally. The third series also features Father John Hughes (Paddy Considine), who is involved in an anti-communist organization; Ruben Oliver (Alexander Siddig), a painter whom Polly enlists to paint her portrait; Russian Grand Duchess Tatiana Petrovna (Gaite Jansen); and Linda Shelby (Kate Phillips), the new wife of Arthur.
The fourth series begins on Christmas Eve 1925, with the Peaky Blinders getting word that the New York Mafia, led by Luca Changretta (Adrien Brody), is coming to avenge the murder of Luca’s father Vicente, killed by Tommy in the previous series, and ends following the general strike of May 1926, with Tommy using communist leader Jessie Eden for information and being elected as a Member of Parliament in 1927.
The fifth series runs two years later, from 29 October 1929 (Black Tuesday) to 7 December 1929, the morning after a rally led by Oswald Mosley.
The sixth series begins on 5 December 1933, as prohibition is repealed in the United States. The Nazi Party has obtained power in Germany, leading to a growth in membership of Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. Tommy must not only deal with Mosley but also with plots from the Irish Mob as well as the Anti-Treaty IRA.