Peacock’s 2-Part Spy Thriller Is Officially One of Streaming’s Best Remakes

Published Oct 10, 2026, 9:47 AM EDT Liam Gaughan is a film and TV writer at Collider. He has been writing film reviews and news coverage for ten years. Between relentlessly adding new titles to his watchlist and attending as many screenings as he can, Liam is always watching new movies and television shows. In addition to reviewing, writing, and commentating on both new and old releases, Liam has interviewed talent such as Mark Wahlberg, Jesse Plemons, Sam Mendes, Billy Eichner, Dylan O'Brien, Luke Wilson, and B.J. Novak. Liam aims to get his spec scripts produced and currently writes short films and stage plays. He lives in Allentown, PA. The Day of the Jackal is one of the best films by the Academy Award-winning director Fred Zinneman, and one that reinvented the international spy thriller subgenre within the context of political paranoia in the ‘70s. While many political thrillers in the New Hollywood era dealt with the fallout of the Watergate scandal, The Day of the Jackal opened up to international intrigue involved in the revolving door of infrastructure upheaval in Europe during the Cold War. It’s an incredibly faithful adaptation of the 1971 novel of the same name, and not one that would be improved upon by a stylistically similar retread that attempts to attack the same exact themes. Peacock’s The Day of the Jackal is a successful reboot because it modernizes the story for a new era in which conspiracy theories have gained more traction in mainstream reporting. It’s also one of the slickest, most entertaining productions Peacock has ever made, proving that the service has what it takes to compete in the streaming wars. Edward Fox’s performance in the original classic is nothing short of brilliant, but Eddie Redmayne completely inhabits the role of “the Jackal,” an enigmatic assassin and USKF veteran, in the remake. The Jackal is a highly trained, lethal operative who performs high-level assassinations for mysterious employers, and he’s tasked with staging a false-flag attack to draw out and execute a far-right German politician with dangerous intentions. This leads to an investigation by the MI6 Agent Bianca Pullman (Lashana Lynch), who sees a pattern in the Jackal’s activity that none of her superiors seem to be interested in pursuing. The Day of the Jackal has an open-ended premise that could feasibly stretch on for several seasons, but the first set of episodes succeeds as a self-contained, riveting espionage adventure in its own right. ‘The Day of the Jackal’ Is an Inventive Reinterpretation The cold, detached nature of the Jackal in the original film worked because it was telling a confined story about one specific political coup, but the series goes to greater lengths to understand the character’s psychology, turning him into an unusual anti-hero. At no point does The Day of the Jackal try to sand off the character’s edges or make him into a “misunderstood” villain, but it does acknowledge the messier state that politics are in during a time in which powerful tycoons hold just as much influence as governmental bodies. That the Jackal works purely for the sake of sustaining his compartmentalized life, without any regard for the ramifications of his actions, makes him more sympathetic because he is just a pawn within a larger scheme. The show also goes to great lengths to show that “the Jackal” is a construct of a man who has successfully divided his life into distinct sections to balance his psyche; his wife Nuria Gonzalez Martin (Úrsula Corberó) knows him only as “Charles,” who is almost a completely different character than the Jackal. The Day of the Jackal takes advantage of the freedom of a streaming series that can get into the nuances of the Jackal’s process, as the first episode goes into detail about the complex way in which he maps out his targets and leaves crime scenes without a chase. Yet, the most significant improvement that the series makes compared to the film is presenting itself as a cat-and-mouse chase between the Jackal and Bianca, the latter of whom is far from a by-the-book law enforcement officer. It’s evident from the beginning that Bianca is not dissimilar from the Jackal because she is willing to put human lives in danger to achieve her goals, and she’s also willing to work behind the backs of her superiors when the official procedures end up being hindrances. The major difference between her and the Jackal is that Bianca does truly care about ramifications, which puts her at odds with the national agency that she is working within; while the MI6 of The Day of the Jackal primarily exists to preserve the status quo, Bianca is willing to look for the truth, regardless of what route it takes. ‘The Day of the Jackal’ Succeeds as a Serialized Spy Thriller The Day of the Jackal succeeds as a modern political parable because the show examines the insignificance of the individual in the face of venture manipulation on behalf of the true villains, including Charles Dance as the particularly ruthless financier Timothy Winthrop. The first season charts the Jackal’s heightened awareness of being compromised, drawing a compelling parallel to Bianca as she confronts the conspirators aligned with Winthrop; that Bianca is a former police officer and the Jackal is a veteran makes for an interesting parallel, ensuring that the characters feel present within each other’s lives, despite little shared screen time together. There’s a curiosity that the series shows for everyone wrapped up in the plot, resulting in a strong ensemble that includes memorable performances from Chukwudi Iwuji as Bianca’s domineering superior and Richard Dormer as the Jackal’s weapons handler. All of the thematic and narrative modernization in The Day of the Jackal would have been superfluous had the right actor not been cast in the titular role, and thankfully Redmayne gives what might be the best performance of his career, as he’s believable as both an intellectual mastermind and an exacting killer. Redmayne’s decision to show the Jackal as being remorseless, but not cruel, adds an interesting wrinkle that makes the show’s ethics even more ambiguous. It’s one of the more compelling depictions of sociopathy in recent television, and provides more than enough reason to follow The Day of the Jackal into the future.