''The Underground Railroad'' is an American

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and d ...

historical

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

streaming television Streaming television is the digital distribution of television content, such as TV shows, as streaming media delivered over the Internet. Streaming television stands in contrast to dedicated terrestrial television delivered by over-the-air a ...

limited series created and directed by

Barry Jenkins Barry Jenkins (born November 19, 1979) is an American filmmaker. After making his filmmaking debut with the short film ''My Josephine'' (2003), he directed his first feature film '' Medicine for Melancholy'' (2008) for which he received an Inde ...

based on the 2016 novel of the same name by

Colson Whitehead Arch Colson Chipp Whitehead (born November 6, 1969) is an American novelist. He is the author of eight novels, including his 1999 debut work '' The Intuitionist''; '' The Underground Railroad'' (2016), for which he won the 2016 National Book Awar ...

. The series premiered on Amazon Prime Video on May 14, 2021. The series won the

Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film The Golden Globe Award for Best Limited or Anthology Series or Television Film is one of the annual Golden Globe Awards given to the best miniseries or made-for-television film. Winners and nominees 1970s Best Television Film 1980s Best Minise ...

, received a Peabody Award, and garnered several other nominations including the

Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series The Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series represents excellence in the category of limited series that are two or more episodes, with a total running time of at least 150 minutes. Criteria The program must tell a compl ...

Premise

A fictional story of people attempting an escape from

slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

in the

southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

in the 1800s utilizing a key plot element that employs the literary style of magic realism. In reality, "The

Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. ...

" was a network of

abolitionists Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The Britis ...

, hidden routes, and safe houses that helped enslaved African-Americans escape to freedom in the early to mid-1800s. In the novel and the series, it is an actual railroad complete with engineers, conductors, tracks, and tunnels. Cora, an enslaved woman from

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

, joins newcomer Caesar to ride the subterranean train to freedom.

Cast

Main

* Thuso Mbedu as Cora Randall * Chase W. Dillon as Homer, Ridgeway's assistant *

Joel Edgerton Joel Edgerton (born 23 June 1974) is an Australian actor and filmmaker. He is best known for his appearance in the ''Star Wars'' films ''Attack of the Clones'' (2002) and ''Revenge of the Sith'' (2005) as a young Owen Lars, a role he reprised i ...

as Arnold Ridgeway, a

slave catcher In the United States a slave catcher was a person employed to track down and return escaped slaves to their enslavers. The first slave catchers in the Americas were active in European colonies in the West Indies during the sixteenth century. I ...

** Fred Hechinger as Young Arnold Ridgeway *

Peter Mullan Peter Mullan (; born 2 November 1959) is a Scottish actor and filmmaker. He is best known for his role in Ken Loach's ''My Name Is Joe'' (1998), for which he won Best Actor Award at 1998 Cannes Film Festival, 2000's '' The Claim'' and all th ...

as Ridgeway Senior, father of Arnold Ridgeway * Mychal-Bella Bowman as Fanny Briggs/Grace * Sheila Atim as Mabel

Recurring

* Aaron Pierre as Caesar Garner *

William Jackson Harper William Fitzgerald Harper (born February 8, 1980), known professionally as William Jackson Harper, is an American actor and playwright. He is best known for his role as Chidi Anagonye on the NBC comedy ''The Good Place'' (2016–2020), for which ...

as Royal *

Lily Rabe Lily Rabe (born June 29, 1982) is an American actress. She is best known for her multiple roles on the FX anthology horror series ''American Horror Story'' (2011–2021). For her performance as Portia in the Broadway production of ''The Merchant ...

as Ethel Wells * Chukwudi Iwuji as Mingo * Calvin Leon Smith as Jasper *

Damon Herriman Damon Herriman is an Australian actor. He is known for his film and television work in Australia and the United States. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Dewey Crowe in '' Justified''. In 2019, he portrayed the cult leader and crimina ...

as Martin Wells *

Amber Gray Amber Renae Gray (born April 2, 1981) is an American actress and singer. She is known for portraying Hélène Bezukhova in the 2016 Broadway musical '' Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812'' and for originating the role of Persephone in th ...

as Gloria Valentine * Benjamin Walker as Terrance Randall *

Justice Leak Justice Adam Leak (born September 1, 1979) is an American film, television and stage actor best known for his portrayal of Harland Osbourne in the 2007 film ''The Great Debaters''. Early life Leak was born and raised in Montgomery, Alabama by ...

as James Randall * Lucius Baston as Prideful * Owen Harn as Chandler * Bri Collins as Olivia * Ryan James as Red *

Will Poulter William Jack Poulter (born 28 January 1993) is a British actor. He first gained recognition for his role as Eustace Scrubb in the fantasy adventure film '' The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader'' (2010). He received critical ...

as Sam * Peter de Jersey as John Valentine *

IronE Singleton Robert "IronE" Singleton (born November 30, 1975) is an American actor. He is best known for portraying Alton in '' The Blind Side'' and for starring as Theodore "T-Dog" Douglas in the AMC series '' The Walking Dead''. Since leaving the cast of ...

as Mack * Marcus "MJ" Gladney Jr. as Ellis *

Cullen Moss Cullen Moss (born July 8, 1975) is an American film, television and voice actor. He is best known for his roles on '' One Tree Hill'' and ''The Notebook''. Early life Moss is a native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina who graduated from Mount Ta ...

as Judge Smith * Jim Klock as Tom Hardman

Episodes

Production

Development

On September 16, 2016, it was announced that

was set to adapt

's novel '' The Underground Railroad'' into a limited series. Jenkins was expected to produce the series alongside Adele Romanski. Production companies involved with the series were set to include

Plan B Entertainment Plan B Entertainment, Inc., more commonly known as Plan B, is an American production company founded in November in 2001 by Brad Grey, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston and Kristin Hahn. In 2005, after Pitt and Aniston divorced, Grey became the CEO o ...

. On March 27, 2017, it was reported that

Amazon Video Amazon Prime Video, also known simply as Prime Video, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming and rental service of Amazon offered as a standalone service or as part of Amazon's Prime subscription. The service pr ...

had given the production a script-to-series commitment. On June 5, 2018, it was announced that Amazon given the production a formal greenlight and that Jenkins would direct all eleven episodes of the series. In June 2019,

Nicholas Britell Nicholas Britell (born October 17, 1980) is an American film composer. He has scored both of Barry Jenkins's studio films, ''Moonlight'' (2016) and ''If Beale Street Could Talk'' (2018), both of which received nominations for Best Original Sco ...

announced he would serve as composer on the series.

Casting

In April 2019, Thuso Mbedu, Chase W. Dillon, Aaron Pierre and

joined the cast of the series. In August 2019,

and

joined the cast of the series in recurring roles. In September 2019, Lucius Baston joined the cast of the series in a recurring role. In October 2019,

joined the cast of the series in a recurring role. In November 2019, Jim Klock joined the cast of the series in a recurring role. In January 2020,

joined the cast of the series in a recurring role. In February 2020, Fred Hechinger and the rest of the cast was announced.

Filming

Filming began in August 2019 in

Savannah, Georgia Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the British colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later t ...

, and production lasted 116 days before concluding on September 22, 2020.

Release

''The Underground Railroad'' was released on Amazon Prime Video on May 14, 2021.

Reception

Critical response

Review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reported an approval rating of 94% based on 106 critic reviews, with an average rating of 8.9/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "With a superb ensemble and Barry Jenkins' singular eye, ''The Underground Railroad'' delicately translates its source material into a powerfully humane series that is as challenging as it is necessary."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

gave the series a weighted average score of 92 out of 100 based on 37 critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Reviewing the series for ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'',

Alan Sepinwall Alan Sepinwall (born October 19, 1973) is an American television reviewer and writer. He spent 14 years as a columnist with ''The Star-Ledger'' in Newark until leaving the newspaper in 2010 to work for the entertainment news website HitFix. He ...

gave a rating of 4/5 and described the series as "an imperfect take on a painful, sprawling subject. But its emotional highs and lows are stronger than anything you are likely to find on TV this year, just as those images are more gorgeous and nightmarish." Stephen Robinson of ''

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

'' gave the series an A and said, "Jenkins has assembled an amazing cast, including William Jackson Harper as Cora's love interest, Royal, and Lily Rabe, who chills the screen as Ethel, the wife of a North Carolina abolitionist (Damon Herriman)."

Accolades

References

Notes

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Underground Railroad, The 2020s American drama television miniseries 2021 American television series debuts 2021 American television series endings English-language television shows Amazon Prime Video original programming Magic realism television series Television shows based on American novels Television series by Amazon Studios Television shows filmed in Georgia (U.S. state) Television series set in the 19th century Works about American slavery Works about the Underground Railroad