Tom Hardy's Returning Crime Series Is Coming To Steal MobLand's Crown

Published Oct 10, 2026, 3:29 PM EDT Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020. While MobLand might be Tom Hardy’s best small screen crime thriller right now, Guy Ritchie’s Paramount show will soon face competition when its star’s iconic period drama returns to screens. There is, it is fair to say, no shortage of great mob TV shows available on streaming in 2026. Fans of genre classics can seek out HBO hits like The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire, while those who want a more meta viewing experience can watch Paramount’s underrated miniseries The Offer. That smart, self-aware showbiz satire chronicles the ways that the real-life mob were surprisingly heavily involved in the production of director Francis Ford Coppola’s iconic The Godfather trilogy. Of course, most mob shows aren’t as playful as The Player screenwriter Michael Tolkin’s nostalgic look back on the heady days of New Hollywood. Many mafia shows have a harder edge, as evidenced by Guy Ritchie’s superb series for the same streaming service. The London-set crime drama MobLand is a gripping, gritty star vehicle for Tom Hardy. The screen veteran plays the stoic fixer Harry Da Souza, an unflappable career criminal who works with the hot-headed, self-destructive Harrigan crime family. A London mob dynasty, the Harrigan brood includes stars like Pierce Brosnan, Paddy Considine, and Helen Mirren, all of whom keep Harry busy with their constant double crosses and dirty dealings. However, as great as MobLand is, Taboo’s season 2 return could mark Hardy’s best gangster show in years. Taboo Season 1 Is Tom Hardy's Best TV Role (& Season 2 Is Set To Get Better) Ever since his early movies Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, Ritchie has been fascinated by the mob. At his most playful, as seen in Netflix’s The Gentlemen and the 2019 movie of the same name that the crime comedy spinoff series is based on, Ritchie still infuses the criminal underworld with a potty-mouthed sense of humor that keeps things wild and unpredictable. However, the dour, dark MobLand is a lot closer in tone to Taylor Sheridan’s Mayor of Kingstown than The Gentlemen, for better or worse. MobLand takes its story and its characters very seriously and, while this does make the show more hard-hitting, the Paramount series can also occasionally feel too downbeat for its own good. While the series never hits the self-serious lows of Ritchie’s infamously pretentious Revolver, MobLand also rarely has the ease and swagger of his 2008 comeback, RockNRolla. In contrast, Hardy’s 2017 one-season wonder Taboo had this very same sense of panache in spades. Co-created by Hardy himself, Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, and Hardy’s father, the novelist Chips Hardy, Taboo was a historical crime thriller that saw Hardy’s crooked entrepreneur James Delaney return from Africa in 1814 to get involved with the emergent trade wars of the era. As British businesses turned to all manner of questionable tactics to quell the rise of their American competitors, Taboo season 1 took an unexpectedly sharp look at the emergence of contemporary international capital through the eyes of Hardy’s conman. MobLand Is Good, But Taboo Season 2 Is One Of TV's Most Anticipated Returns With an astounding supporting cast that included Jessie Buckley, Oona Chaplin, Jonathan Pryce, and Adolescence’s Stephen Graham, Taboo took the gritty crime thrills of Peaky Blinders and blended them with some surprisingly deft social and historical commentary. Knight’s show offered a harsh and necessary condemnation of the East India Trading Company, pulling no punches in its brutal but undeniably compelling story. Less jarringly heavy and dark than Knight’s misguided Dickens adaptations but with an even more incisive view of the era’s history than Peaky Blinders, Taboo is a rare crime drama that neither feels excessively glamorized nor needlessly bleak. Thus, Taboo season 2 will be a must-watch when the series finally returns in the coming months, almost ten years after its debut, and MobLand will need to watch out for the emergence of a superior Tom Hardy mob show. Release Date 2017 - 2017-00-00 Network BBC One Showrunner Steven Knight Directors Anders Engström Writers Ben Hervey Creator(s) Steven Knight, Chips Hardy, Tom Hardy