Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man Review: Tommy Shelby's Cinematic Reckoning at 82%/88%

Is The Immortal Man worth it for non-fans?

No — start the series first. The film assumes love for Tommy Shelby and rewards it at 88% Popcornmeter; newcomers will drown in myth references. Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man brings Cillian Murphy back when a 1950s Birmingham church bombing tied to old enemies threatens the next generation of Shelbys. Tom Harper directs from Steven Knight’s screenplay, expanding the series finale into cinematic scale. Rebecca Ferguson and Barry Keoghan join Tim Roth and Sam Claflin on the postwar board. The 120-minute Netflix/BBC Film release carries 82% critics, Metascore 70, Letterboxd 3.6, and IMDb 7.5 — fan heat outpacing critic rapture, as IP extensions often do.

Harper’s smoke and shadow

Harper understands that Peaky Blinders was always cinema trapped in television aspect ratio — too much weather, too much face, too much silence that needs a big screen. Murphy’s Tommy remains one of the medium’s great haunted portraits, and Harper finally gives him shadows deep enough to match the performance. Production design returns to industrial Birmingham with elegiac register: postwar Britain as graveyard of ambitions. Keoghan brings feral energy that disrupts Tommy’s controlled grief; Ferguson holds scenes with stillness that matches Murphy’s economy. Ferguson’s role is not love interest filler — she embodies the cost of Tommy’s immortality as political weapon. Some critics wished for less fan-service scaffolding; I hear that. The film is built for those who earned the scaffolding.

Murphy’s postwar Tommy

Knight’s screenplay gives Harper set pieces the series hinted at — church steps, factory floors, council chambers — but scaled for cinema’s patience with held shots. Antony Byrne’s cinematography favors amber streetlight and industrial grey; smoke is not aesthetic garnish but historical atmosphere you breathe. Murphy’s close-ups are the film’s thesis: Tommy ages in eyes before makeup announces it. Keoghan disrupts with feral energy that reminds us the Shelbys were never respectable; Ferguson’s stillness matches Murphy beat for beat. The bombing plot is MacGuffin and reckoning simultaneously — external threat forcing internal accounting.

What does “immortal” mean here?

Tommy’s mythic survival — curse, strategy, and family burden — not supernatural literalism. Knight’s script treats immortality as reputation: the man who cannot die because his enemies need him alive for their own narratives. The church bombing plot provides external stakes; internal stakes are whether any Shelby generation escapes Tommy’s gravity. The 88% Popcornmeter reflects viewers who waited years for this texture. Metascore 70 reflects critics measuring against standalone crime epics rather than series crescendos. Both measurements are fair from their vantage points. The score by Steven Knight’s longtime collaborators carries the series’ DNA without feeling like a double-length episode — Harper uses cinema’s patience with held shots and wider frames to justify the ticket price. Non-fans should note: character names, history, and Tommy’s PTSD arc are referenced, not re-explained.

Best of 2026 placement

On Best of 2026, Immortal Man ranks on fan heat more than critic purity — compare with Rose of Nevada for UK cinema with higher Tomatometer consensus. Netflix theatrical-plus-streaming strategy widened reach; see it big if you care about production design and Murphy’s close-ups. Marcus Webb’s Crime 101 covers American crime mythmaking from a different freeway.

Verdict

Fresh event — Kaiser Khan’s pick for Peaky faithful, optional for the uninitiated. The immortal man is Tommy Shelby; Harper and Knight know it and mostly deliver.