# Dostoyevsky (2024)

> A haunted Italian policeman hunts a serial killer who leaves philosophical letters of despair beside his victims.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/117991

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 6
- Episode runtime: 50 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: crime, drama
- Created by: Fabio D'Innocenzo, Damiano D'Innocenzo
- Network: Sky Atlantic 
- Cast: Filippo Timi, Gabriel Montesi, Carlotta Gamba, Federico Vanni, Leonardo Lidi, Giuseppe Lo Console, Luca Lionello, Nicola Rignanese
- TMDB rating: 6.8/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12005620/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: slow
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: graphic
- Tone: bleak, brooding, philosophical, claustrophobic

## What critics say

Critics broadly admire the bleak, austere atmosphere and Filippo Timi's haunted lead performance, while finding the slow, philosophical approach demanding.

## Synopsis

Dostoyevsky is a six-episode Italian crime miniseries that follows Enzo Vitello, a policeman carrying a dark private past, as he hunts a serial killer who leaves a philosophical letter of despair beside every victim. Filippo Timi anchors the story with a restrained, haunted performance, while the investigation draws in family members and colleagues whose lives are shadowed by the same grief and unease. Each letter reads like a confession of worldview, and Vitello's reading of them as clues slowly becomes a mirror for his own buried darkness. The show moves at a slow, deliberate pace, favouring long silences, bleak conversations and the sense that every answer opens a worse question. Set in sparse, inhospitable Italian provinces, it carries a claustrophobic, austere atmosphere and a brooding, philosophical register. Its emotional weight comes less from shock than from dread, moral unease and the pull between justice and obsession. Viewers drawn to True Detective, Mindhunter or the slow-burn psychological crime drama will find much to sit with here, though the series asks for patience and a tolerance for bleakness throughout its run.

## Shows like Dostoyevsky

- [Black Butterflies (2022)](https://ember.film/tv/130601)
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- [Thou Shalt Not Kill (2015)](https://ember.film/tv/58389)
- [Dark Woods (2020)](https://ember.film/tv/94812)
- [Underneath (2020)](https://ember.film/tv/91768)
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- [The Red Door (2017)](https://ember.film/tv/61944)
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- [The Trial (2019)](https://ember.film/tv/81791)
- [The Hunter (2018)](https://ember.film/tv/67444)

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