# The Night Of (2016)

> A Pakistani American college student wakes after a night out to find a woman dead and must navigate New York's criminal justice system to prove his innocence.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/58462

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 8
- Episode runtime: 60 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: crime, drama, mystery
- Created by: Richard Price, Steven Zaillian
- Network: HBO
- Cast: Riz Ahmed, John Turturro, Bill Camp, Payman Maadi, Jeannie Berlin, Poorna Jagannathan, Amara Karan, Carter Hudson
- TMDB rating: 8.4/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2401256/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: dense
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: sombre, tense, patient, bleak, melancholic

## What critics say

Critics broadly acclaim the miniseries as a gripping, realistic legal and prison drama with strong performances and sustained uncertainty, though some find its procedural details implausible and its pacing slow.

## Synopsis

The Night Of (2016) is an American prestige crime miniseries created by Richard Price and Steven Zaillian for HBO. Across eight hour-long episodes, college student Nasir Naz Khan (Riz Ahmed) wakes after a night of partying to discover a woman stabbed to death, and finds himself charged with her murder. The engine of the story is his struggle to be heard within a system that moves on its own momentum, as a seasoned defense attorney John Stone (John Turturro) takes up his case and a detective Dennis Box (Bill Camp) pursues the arrest. Each episode follows the grinding machinery of New York City jail life, bail hearings, and courtroom preparation, with Naz's family, including his father Salim (Payman Maadi), navigating their own strain. The tone is sombre, tense and patient, carried by uncertainty about what truly happened that night. Fans of The Wire, The Staircase and Serial will find resonance in its procedural realism and its portrait of institutional failure. Set in contemporary New York City, the series forms a standalone limited run with a grounded, unhurried atmosphere throughout.

## Shows like The Night Of

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- [The Staircase (2022)](https://ember.film/tv/101461)
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- [The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox (2025)](https://ember.film/tv/163887)
- [The Trial (2019)](https://ember.film/tv/81791)
- [Black Earth Rising (2018)](https://ember.film/tv/70261)
- [Seven Seconds (2018)](https://ember.film/tv/65511)

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