HBO’s 8-Part Crime Masterpiece Is Still One of the Streamer’s Greatest Shows of the 21st Century

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Published Jun 16, 2026, 7:29 PM EDT

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It’s one of the coldest takes ever to say, “Yeah, HBO has produced and aired some pretty great drama shows over the years.” While you're not going to find quality with 100% of the television shows that are attached to the HBO name, the odds are still in your favor. After all, The Sopranos, The Wire, Six Feet Under, Deadwood, and The Pitt (the last of them being more recent) are all highly acclaimed shows, and some of them really pushed boundaries in terms of what television could be. You also can’t look past Oz, in terms of those boundary-pushers, since the content there was arguably more extreme than in The Sopranos, and the first season of that prison drama aired two years before that beloved other show about mobsters, therapy, family, and gabagool (Gabagool? Over here!).

There have also been some rather impressive miniseries that have been produced by – and aired on – HBO, with perhaps the most popular being Chernobyl, which got a ton of buzz back in 2019, and continues to hold up as must-watch TV. A few years earlier, there was also The Night Of, which got a decent amount of attention and acclaim back in 2016, albeit not quite to the extent it might've deserved. It’s coming up on 10 years since the first (of eight) episodes aired, so it feels like a good opportunity to throw some praise its way. The Night Of is obviously too old to be a recent release, and not quite old enough to have definitely endured as a classic just yet, but that doesn’t mean it should be overlooked, if you’ve not seen it yet (and it also doesn’t mean that it won’t be considered a classic miniseries one day).

The Premise of 'The Night Of'

The Night Of begins as a mystery show, revolving around a young man who goes by Naz (Riz Ahmed) having a one-night stand that ends in a way he can’t entirely remember. Well, he can’t remember the details of it, and wakes up in confusion, with the woman he’d just met murdered. He’s the prime suspect, and so he gets arrested, at which point The Night Of begins to feel like a prison show, as that’s where Naz spends a good chunk of the series. Things then become more of a courtroom drama-like series, later on, since Naz enlists the help of a lawyer named John Stone (John Turturro) to defend him.

Elements here probably sound familiar, if you’ve seen your fair share of crime/drama shows before, but The Night Of does thankfully find interesting things to do within such genres.

There are obviously elements here that are probably familiar, if you’ve seen your fair share of crime/drama shows before, but The Night Of does thankfully find interesting things to do within such genres. It’s also got a pretty good collection of supporting characters, and some talented actors playing them, with a memorable supporting turn from Michael Kenneth Williams, in particular, as a prisoner Naz gets to know during his time at Rikers Island (Williams is probably best known for his roles in other iconic HBO dramas like The Wire and Boardwalk Empire, playing Omar Little and Chalky White, respectively).

How 'The Night Of' Hooks You With a Great Opening Episode

There are certainly heavy parts of The Night Of beyond the opening episode, but it is that first episode that is arguably the peak of the overall miniseries, and something that easily gets you hooked for what’s to follow. It’s done in a way that feels a little like a more modern version of Franz Kafka’s The Trial, and while the miniseries eventually offers more answers than that work of literature did, there’s still a tremendous amount of dread and uncertainty early on.

There is also a nightmarish quality to the way Naz isn't instantly arrested for the murder, but is instead arrested for a traffic violation, which sets him on a course to being accused of committing murder, all the while seeming genuinely unsure of how the murder happened in the first place. The Night Of does thankfully spend a good amount of time on the immediate aftermath of the night referred to in the title, and it’s remarkably effective at feeling like a drawn-out nightmare. It’s not even a horror show or anything, yet it might well be more intense and visceral than a good many of them, at least for this first episode.

'The Night Of' Uses Its Eight Episodes to Dig Deeper Than Many Crime Movies Can

Chandra Kapoor (Amara Karan), Nasir Khan (Riz Ahmed) and John Stone (John Turturro) in court in The Night Of

Since it’s an HBO show, there is an extra level of intensity to the initial crime, the prison scenes, and the courtroom stuff, compared to what you might see on a network TV show, with all of that making it much more intense in terms of being a thriller. Sure, the content in The Night Of could be depicted in a movie, but if it were a movie, it also wouldn’t have sufficient time to go as in-depth about all the relevant things wrapped up in such a story. The prison scenes might be sped through, or maybe the courtroom scenes would be de-emphasized, but here, as it is, everything’s given sufficient room to breathe.

You do also get an appropriate conclusion at the end of it all, with a sense of life going on for some of the characters, in certain ways (without ruining things), but not in a way that demands multiple seasons. The Night Of is self-contained and very much satisfying with the eight episodes of it that exist. If you need something to watch over the course of several nights, or maybe an appropriately long (but not too long) weekend binge, and you’ve not seen this yet, it’s very much worth exploring. It’s far from a happy-feeling or comfort show, but if you're a fan of the kinds of dramatic shows that HBO is well-known for producing/airing, this does deserve to be counted among the streamer’s best of the past decade or so.

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