# Adolescence (TV series)

Adolescence is a 2025 British crime drama television miniseries from Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham and directed by Philip Barantini. It centres around a 13-year-old schoolboy Jamie Miller, who is arrested for the murder of a female classmate. Each episode was shot in one take. The miniseries was widely praised.

## Premise

In an English town, police break down the door of a family home and arrest Jamie Miller, a 13-year-old boy, on suspicion of murder of a classmate, Katie Leonard. Jamie is held at a police station for questioning, and then sent to a youth psychiatric facility. Investigations at Jamie's school and questioning by a child psychologist reveal that Jamie has been deeply disturbed by school bullying via social media centred on incel subculture.

## Cast

* Stephen Graham as Eddie Miller
* Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller
* Ashley Walters as DI Luke Bascombe
* Erin Doherty as Briony Ariston
* Faye Marsay as DS Misha Frank
* Christine Tremarco as Manda Miller
* Mark Stanley as Paul Barlow
* Kaine Davis as Ryan Kowalska
* Jo Hartley as Mrs Fenumore
* Amélie Pease as Lisa Miller
* Austin Haynes as Fredo
* Lil Charva as Moray
* Elodie Grace Walker as Georgie

## Episodes

| No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date |
| 1 | "Episode 1" | Philip Barantini | Jack Thorne & Stephen Graham | 13 March 2025 (2025-3-13) |
| DI Luke Bascombe and DS Misha Frank lead a police raid at the home of the Miller family: father Eddie, mother Manda, daughter Lisa and 13-year-old son Jamie. They arrest Jamie on suspicion of murder and take him to the nearby police station. A tearful Jamie professes his innocence as he is processed and taken to a detention cell while his family arrive at the station. Eddie agrees to be Jamie's "appropriate adult" and be with him as he is searched and questioned. Bascombe clashes with Paul Barlow, the solicitor appointed to represent Jamie. Eddie oversees Jamie getting strip searched. Bascombe and Frank question Jamie, the subject soon turning to Jamie's sexual relationships, where it is revealed Jamie has made several sexually explicit comments about female models on social media. He is then questioned about Katie Leonard, a girl in the same year as him at school who has been murdered. Barlow suggests a break to discuss something, but Eddie insists his son has nothing to hide. Bascombe shows the pair CCTV footage of Jamie stabbing Katie to death in a car park the previous evening. After Bascombe terminates the interview, Jamie and Eddie weep in the interrogation room; Eddie briefly recoils when Jamie touches him before they tightly embrace. |||||
| 2 | "Episode 2" | Philip Barantini | Jack Thorne & Stephen Graham | 13 March 2025 (2025-3-13) |
| Three days after the murder, Bascombe and Frank visit Jamie's secondary school to speak to Jamie and Katie's classmates, and to see if they can find the location of the murder weapon. Bascombe's son Adam is also a student at the school. The officers find the teachers overwhelmed and struggling to handle unruly students. Across the school, news of the murder and Jamie's involvement are widespread among the students; Katie's friend Jade is especially upset by the murder and refuses to answer any of the officer's questions. She later assaults Jamie's friend Ryan, accusing him of getting Katie killed. When Bascombe and Frank check on Ryan at the infirmary, he is initially cooperative, but soon turns evasive and unwilling to answer questions, leaving the room when the murder weapon is mentioned. Adam approaches his father and explains how certain emojis are used by teenagers on social media to show their levels of attraction to others online. He reveals that Katie had accused Jamie of being an incel on Instagram, in effect leading a cyberbullying campaign against him. Bascombe and Frank are troubled by the revelation. As they attempt to question Ryan again, he suddenly flees through the window and Bascombe chases him out of the school. When Ryan is caught, he reveals the knife Jamie used to stab Katie was his. Ryan is arrested as the school day ends. Bascombe picks up Adam to take him home while Eddie visits the site of Katie's murder to leave flowers in remembrance. |||||
| 3 | "Episode 3" | Philip Barantini | Jack Thorne & Stephen Graham | 13 March 2025 (2025-03-13) |
| Seven months after the murder, psychologist Briony Ariston meets with Jamie at a youth detention facility to prepare a pre-trial report on his mental health. She is the second psychologist to fulfill this role and briefly discusses the importance of using all five visits to make her assessment on Jamie with a security guard. Jamie was recently involved in a violent altercation with another inmate, and it is revealed that Ryan is also pending trial, albeit on the lesser charge of conspiracy. Briony makes it clear to Jamie that her only goal is to evaluate his understanding of the circumstances surrounding the case, not the case itself. Jamie, however, engages in a tenuously gripped game of one-upmanship, which due to his emotional immaturity becomes a chaotic interaction and brings his alleged crime, its possible motivations and the subculture underlying them to the forefront of the discussion. Upon being pressed for an explanation by Briony, he provides a full chronology of events: after another classmate had spread Katie's topless photo around the school, Jamie asked Katie out, figuring she would be “weak” and thus more likely to accept; she promptly rebuffed him, and shortly thereafter wrote derisive Instagram posts about him. Throughout the whole interview, Jamie's mood fluctuates wildly between friendly, paranoid, aggressive, and threatening. This includes several furious outbursts, a possible accidental confession and displays of learned entitlement and pent-up anger that leave Briony severely shaken, leading her to prematurely declare the session with Jamie as her last. As an agitated Jamie is escorted back to his cell, Briony silently cries before leaving the facility. |||||
| 4 | "Episode 4" | Philip Barantini | Jack Thorne & Stephen Graham | 13 March 2025 (2025-03-13) |
| Thirteen months after the murder, the Millers have made attempts to return to normality as Jamie awaits trial. On Eddie's 50th birthday, his van is spray painted by teenagers. Eddie plans to take Manda and Lisa to the cinema later that day to lighten the mood, but they first go to a hardware store to remove the paint from the van. There, Eddie is further distressed by a young employee recognising him and awkwardly expressing support for Jamie. Eddie buys some paint to recoat the van. Outside he spots the teens who tagged the van and angrily threatens them, before throwing the can of paint on his van out of anger. On the drive home, Jamie calls and announces his plan to plead guilty. At the house, Eddie and Manda come to terms with Jamie's upcoming trial, blaming themselves for not paying enough attention to his online radicalisation. Eddie visits Jamie's empty bedroom and weeps loudly, wishing he had done better by his son. |||||

## Production
### Development

Adolescence was originally conceived by Stephen Graham as a response to a sudden increase in violent knife crime in Britain, including the murder of Ava White and Elianne Andam. He decided to create a drama exploring the motivation of extreme acts of violence against girls by young boys, and collaborated with screenwriter Jack Thorne. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's arts programme Front Row, Thorne stated that the two writers wanted to "look in the eye of male rage" and examine the influence of public figures such as Andrew Tate on boys.
The series was announced in March 2024 with the working title Adolescence to be written by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham. It is a four-part limited crime drama told in a real-time, one-shot style, with Phillip Barantini as director. Warp Films, Matriarch Productions and Plan B Entertainment are producing the series for Netflix. Jo Johnson is series producer, and Graham, Thorne and Barantini are executive producers alongside Mark Herbert, Emily Feller, Hannah Walters, Jeremy Kleiner, Dede Gardner and Nina Wolarsky.

### Casting

Owen Cooper was cast in the role of the teenage murder suspect Jamie Miller at the age of 15, with no previous experience. Casting director Shaheen Baig had considered 500 boys for the part, but Cooper attracted her attention after sending her a demo tape, and secured the role.

### Filming

Graham, Owen Cooper, Ashley Walters, and Erin Doherty star. Filming began in the United Kingdom in July 2024, and finished in around October 2024.
Adolescence is noted for its extensive use of one-shot filming, as each episode is shot in one take. Shooting was planned through multiple rehearsals building up to full technical run-throughs, during which the director of photography would plan camera movements. Each one-hour episode was shot around 10 times, with two takes per day. Episode were shown as completed in one take, with no cuts or blending of shots together with CGI.
Filming locations for Adolescence included South Kirkby, South Elmsall and Sheffield in Yorkshire. Minsthorpe Community College in South Elmsall was used as a location for the school scenes in Episode 2. The interior scenes at the police station were shot at a specially constructed film set at the Production Park studio facility in South Kirkby, in order to accommodate the complexities of single-shot filming.

## Broadcast

The series was released on Netflix on 13 March 2025.

## Reception

Adolescence was widely praised by critics. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Adolescence has an approval rating of 98% based on 51 critics' reviews, with an average rating of 9.2 out of 10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Stylistically bold and beautifully acted from top to bottom, Adolescence is a masterclass in televisual storytelling and a searing viewing experience that scars." Metacritic calculated a weighted average of 90 out of 100 based on 25 reviews.
Writing in The Guardian, Lucy Mangan stated that Adolescence was "the closest thing to TV perfection in decades", singling out the acting by Owen Cooper and Erin Doherty for particular praise. Anita Singh of The Daily Telegraph found the series to be "a devastating watch" and the acting to be "phenomenal", although she said that the single-take filming technique could feel "like a gimmick". However, Sophie Butcher of Empire praised the continuous shooting, stating that it was "the most dizzying TV feat of the year" which served to enhance the on-screen emotion.
Anneliese Midgley, who is a UK Member of Parliament called for the show to be screened to Parliament and schools, arguing it could help counter misogyny and violence against women and girls.