# Savage River (2022)

> After fifteen years in prison, a woman returns to her rural Victorian hometown hoping to rebuild her life, only to find the secrets of her past waiting for her.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/129621

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 6
- Episode runtime: 57 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: crime, drama, mystery
- Created by: Belinda Bradley, Franz Docherty, Giula Sandler
- Network: ABC TV
- Cast: Katherine Langford, Virginia Gay, Mark Coles Smith, Robert Grubb, Daniel Henshall, Cooper van Grootel, Nadine Garner, Jacqueline McKenzie
- TMDB rating: 6.7/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9174116/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: mild
- Tone: brooding, tense, melancholic, unsettling

## Synopsis

Savage River (2022) is an Australian crime drama limited series created by Belinda Bradley, Franz Docherty and Giula Sandler and broadcast on ABC TV. Katherine Langford stars as Miki Anderson, a thirty-year-old who returns to her home town in rural Victoria after fifteen years in prison, determined to rebuild her life and work out who she has become outside. Her efforts to reconnect run into the community's long-held silences, as her homecoming stirs up old secrets that make her realize much of what she believed about her past was wrong. Virginia Gay plays Rachel Kennedy and Mark Coles Smith plays Joel Thorpe, with Robert Grubb as Sergeant Bill Kirby and Daniel Henshall as Kevin Pattison among the principal figures whose connections to the past tighten around her. Told across a single six-episode season of roughly fifty-seven minutes each, the series builds its tension through a single continuing story rather than a case of the week. Its register is brooding and unsettled, with a quiet, rain-washed sense of dread in the vein of Top of the Lake, Mystery Road and Broadchurch. Fans of rural Australian noir will find its patient, character-driven unease rewarding.

## Shows like Savage River

- [Playing Gracie Darling (2025)](https://ember.film/tv/178855)
- [The Kettering Incident (2016)](https://ember.film/tv/56600)
- [Return to Paradise (2024)](https://ember.film/tv/160794)
- [The Jetty (2024)](https://ember.film/tv/150781)
- [Blackshore (2024)](https://ember.film/tv/161310)
- [The Survivors (2025)](https://ember.film/tv/190482)
- [Glitch (2015)](https://ember.film/tv/56134)
- [Innocent (2018)](https://ember.film/tv/68099)
- [The Clearing (2023)](https://ember.film/tv/125403)
- [Back to Life (2019)](https://ember.film/tv/75133)

---

Site overview: https://ember.film/llms.txt
