Verdict: 4/5. The Day of the Jackal succeeds less because its assassin-versus-investigator premise is new than because it executes that premise with unusual precision. Eddie Redmayne makes the Jackal’s disguises, preparation rituals and ordinary social encounters as tense as the shootings, while Lashana Lynch gives the pursuit urgency and moral pressure. The weakness is television’s familiar temptation to expand a lean thriller into a ten-episode web of domestic and personal subplots.
The Day of the Jackal is a sleek, cold-blooded international thriller about a professional assassin who moves through modern Europe under a succession of identities and the British intelligence officer determined to find him. The basic setup is familiar: an apparently untouchable killer, a determined investigator, and a chase that crosses borders. What makes this version worth watching is the detail of its execution.
This is a series about practical problems. How does a contract killer enter a building, construct a weapon, preserve a cover story, change his appearance, find an exit and disappear into a crowded city? How does an intelligence service distinguish a real identity from a manufactured one when every database, camera and phone can become part of the trail? The show repeatedly turns those questions into suspense.
A contemporary reinterpretation, not a remake of the film
The series is based on Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 political-thriller novel and follows Fred Zinnemann’s celebrated 1973 film adaptation. But it does not simply reproduce either version. Forsyth’s book and Zinnemann’s film are rooted in the historical attempt to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle. The 2024 series moves the story into a contemporary fictional setting, changes the target and expands the pursuit into a sustained international television drama.
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That distinction matters. Viewers expecting a scene-by-scene remake of the 1973 film, or the novel’s historical-political framework, may find this version more character-driven and more interested in the assassin’s private machinery. It retains the original central idea—a nearly unknowable professional killer pursued by authorities—but updates the mechanisms of secrecy. Multiple identities, digital surveillance, media technology and intelligence bureaucracy are not background decoration; they are the conditions under which this Jackal has to work.
For readers who want to see where the premise began, read Frederick Forsyth’s original novel. Penguin Random House lists the paperback as a 432-page edition published on September 4, 2012. It is the most useful comparison point for understanding how far the television series has moved from the source while preserving its central pursuit.
Eddie Redmayne makes routine behavior suspenseful
Redmayne is the reason the series works as well as it does. His Jackal is not presented as a quip-making action hero or a secretly noble rogue. He is a hired killer, and the show does not need to make him sympathetic to make him fascinating. His appeal is his control: the restraint of his voice, the economy of his movements, the precision of his grooming and the speed with which he calculates how other people perceive him.
He plays the character as a performer of surfaces. A polite conversation can be a cover operation. A change of clothes can be a tactical decision. An accent, a posture or a carefully selected piece of personal history can determine whether someone sees a harmless stranger or an intruder who needs to be remembered. Redmayne’s performance makes those transitions visible without making them feel overexplained.
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That tactile quality separates this Jackal from a generic spy thriller. The show is interested in preparation: tools, routes, disguises, timing and the physical behavior required to inhabit a false life. Redmayne gives the character a boyish, almost innocuous exterior, but the performance never lets that surface erase his lethal professionalism. The contrast is not a gimmick; it is the source of much of the unease.
Lashana Lynch provides the necessary counterweight
Lashana Lynch plays Bianca Pullman, the intelligence officer who begins tracking the Jackal. She supplies the series with its opposing intelligence and prevents it from becoming a glossy travelogue devoted only to admiring its assassin.
The pursuit is strongest when Bianca and the Jackal are treated as professionals whose decisions have consequences. He relies on improvisation, concealment and an ability to read a room. She relies on connecting fragments, testing assumptions and applying institutional pressure. The show’s most effective scenes are built around that contest of attention: one character trying to leave no trace, the other trying to understand what a trace would look like.
Rank #2
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Bianca’s presence also gives the thriller a moral center, although the series avoids reducing the conflict to a simple battle between pure good and pure evil. She is pursuing a killer, but she is also working inside an institution with its own pressures, limits and competing priorities. Lynch brings urgency to that professional mission and makes the pursuit feel personal without turning Bianca into a conventional action heroine.
The less successful material is Bianca’s domestic and personal life. The show needs those sections to demonstrate what the investigation costs her and to give the pursuit emotional stakes. However, they sometimes feel extended rather than deepened. When the series cuts away from the Jackal’s carefully managed evasion to follow less compelling personal complications, its momentum drops. The problem is not that Bianca has a life outside the case; it is that the case is often written with sharper pressure and more vivid detail.
Why the international scale matters
The globe-trotting structure is one of the show’s major assets. Different locations do more than provide attractive scenery. Each setting creates a new social environment in which the Jackal must perform a different version of himself. The movement between countries reinforces the instability of his identity and gives the investigation a distinctly modern texture.
Digital surveillance makes escape harder, but it does not make the chase simple. Cameras, communications records and online information can expose a person, while fabricated identities and manipulated appearances can create new layers of uncertainty. The series is most convincing when it treats technology as one more element in a practical contest rather than a magic solution. A device may produce a clue, but someone still has to interpret it, verify it and act before the Jackal changes the conditions again.
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The cost of making a lean thriller into ten episodes
The season consists of ten episodes, and that length is both an opportunity and a liability. Television allows the series to explore the Jackal’s identities, Bianca’s investigation and the pressures surrounding both characters in greater detail than a feature film could. It also gives the show room to make the chase feel like an extended campaign rather than a single pursuit.
Rank #3
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But the premise is fundamentally clean. A killer is trying to complete contracts; an investigator is trying to identify and stop him. As the season progresses, additional personal complications and subplots accumulate around that central line. Some add texture. Others feel like narrative baggage attached to a story that would be more powerful if it trusted its core machinery.
This is the recurring trade-off of the adaptation. The expanded format makes the Jackal more watchable as a character, but it also risks making the story less lean. The show is at its best when it focuses on professional detection and evasion—when a minor mistake, a suspicious detail or an improvised solution can change the balance. It is less assured when it pauses that contest to explain or extend material that does not carry the same tension.
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Stylish, but not morally comfortable
The series’ greatest strength creates one of its central complications. It is very good at making the Jackal’s ingenuity watchable. His competence drives the suspense, and his ability to adapt gives the show its momentum. Yet the pleasure of watching a brilliantly executed plan can create distance from the victims and the consequences of the violence.
That moral coldness is part of the design. The Jackal is not a clean-cut agent with a personal code, and the show does not need to pretend otherwise. Still, viewers should recognize the tension between the series’ elegant surfaces and the human cost beneath them. Its style can encourage admiration for technique even when the subject is murder. The show raises that issue more effectively through its atmosphere than through explicit moral commentary, but it does not always interrogate the consequences as closely as it observes the method.
Who should watch it?
The Day of the Jackal is a strong recommendation for viewers who enjoy international espionage, procedural cat-and-mouse stories, morally cold antiheroes and performance-led suspense. It is particularly effective for audiences who prefer watching a plan develop—and then watching an unexpected problem force the characters to improvise—to action built entirely around explosions and set pieces.
It is a less certain recommendation for anyone seeking a tightly compressed thriller or a faithful recreation of the novel and 1973 film. The contemporary setting and expanded character work are deliberate choices, not errors of continuity, but the season occasionally feels overstuffed. Those who come primarily for Bianca’s investigation may also find the domestic material less absorbing than the professional chase.
Rank #4
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Where to watch and what comes next
In the United States, the series is a Peacock Original and is available through Peacock’s official viewing page. The U.S. premiere was November 14, 2024. Peacock launched the ten-episode season with five episodes, followed by weekly releases and a two-episode finale on December 12, 2024.
Sky holds rights in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. Availability elsewhere is territory-specific, so viewers outside those markets should check their local service listings rather than assume that the U.S. or Sky release applies to them.
Peacock and Sky renewed the series for a second season on November 22, 2024. NBCUniversal’s 2026 upfront materials list Season 2 for 2027 and name Eddie Redmayne, Úrsula Corberó, Charles Dance, Eleanor Matsuura, Weruche Opia and Pablo Schreiber in the announced cast listing. David Harrower is identified as writer and Brian Kirk as director. A precise premiere date has not been confirmed in the supplied information, so “2027” should be treated as the announced year rather than a fixed launch date.
Final verdict
The Day of the Jackal earns its existence through execution. The assassin-versus-investigator premise has been used before, but Redmayne’s precise, unsettling performance and the show’s attention to modern identity management make the familiar machinery feel immediate. Lynch gives the pursuit the resistance it needs, and the international production turns movement, technology and surveillance into sources of pressure.
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It is not flawless. The ten-episode structure carries more subplots than the central chase can comfortably support, and the personal material surrounding Bianca is not always as compelling as the Jackal’s methodical evasion. The series can also make lethal professionalism look more attractive than its consequences deserve.
Even with those reservations, this is a gripping, tactile thriller with a killer lead performance. Eddie Redmayne is No. 1 with a bullet—and the series is at its best whenever it lets him turn the ordinary business of disappearing into suspense.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is The Day of the Jackal a remake of the 1973 film?
It is a contemporary television reinterpretation of Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 novel and follows the 1973 film adaptation. It keeps the central idea of an elusive assassin pursued by authorities, but changes the historical framework, target and character development rather than remaking the film scene for scene.
Is Eddie Redmayne’s Jackal a hero?
No. The character is a hired assassin, not a conventional hero or secretly noble spy. The series makes him compelling through his competence, adaptability and control, while leaving viewers to confront the moral distance created by its stylish presentation of his work.
How many episodes are in Season 1?
Season 1 has 10 episodes. In the United States, Peacock released five episodes at launch, then followed with weekly episodes and a two-episode finale on December 12, 2024.
Where can U.S. viewers watch The Day of the Jackal?
It is a Peacock Original and is listed on Peacock’s official program page. Availability in other countries varies: Sky holds rights in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy, while viewers elsewhere should check local listings.
Will there be a second season?
Yes. Peacock and Sky renewed the series in November 2024. NBCUniversal’s 2026 upfront materials list Season 2 for 2027, but the exact premiere date has not been confirmed in the available information.
The Bottom Line
Bottom line: A- / 4 out of 5. The Day of the Jackal is a slick, gripping modernization of a classic assassin story. Its expanded television format occasionally overburdens the chase, but Eddie Redmayne’s tactile, controlled performance makes even a disguise, an exit route or a routine conversation feel dangerous.
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