Directors: Ally Pankiw, Sam Miller, John Crowley, Uta Briesewitz, Toby Haynes
Writers: Charlie Brooker, Bisha K. Ali
Cast: Annie Murphy, Salma Hayek, Michael Cera, Himesh Patel, Aaron Paul, Josh Hartnett, Kate Mara, Myha’la Herrold, Samuel Blenkin, Zazie Beetz, Danny Ramirez, Anjana Vasan, Paapa Essiedu
Technology is bad, but people are worse. That’s been the throughline of Charlie Brooker’s anthology series Black Mirror ever since it first aired more than a decade ago. Episodes with a genuine spark of optimism are rare, as are happy endings. Now returning after a four-year gap, the Netflix series is as downbeat as ever, despite brief flashes of levity. Where Black Mirror once felt prescient, an omen of things to come, now its nightmarish visions are rooted in a real, tangible present – deepfake content, our true-crime obsession, violations of privacy normalised by the proliferation of technology. The show is no longer attempting to predict the future. Instead, it’s reflecting more contemporary horrors.
Certain themes recur across season 6 – implicit and explicit references to the Netflix model, the level of intrusion and invasiveness the life of a celebrity entails, racism, people who aren’t always who they appear to be. Some of its episodes, attempting crossovers with other genres, raise questions about what a Black Mirror episode even is, or what the show has come to constitute. Its best segments, however, drive home an uncomfortable truth: It’s futile to worry about technology in the distant future; the monsters are already in our house. Here are all five episodes of Black Mirror season 6, ranked from worst to best:
