# MINDHUNTER (2017)

> An ambitious FBI agent and his colleagues interview imprisoned serial killers to invent the science of criminal profiling.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/59547

## Facts

- Seasons: 2
- Episodes: 19
- Episode runtime: 53 min
- Status: Canceled
- Genres: crime, drama
- Created by: Joe Penhall
- Network: Netflix
- Cast: Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, Hannah Gross, Anna Torv, Stacey Roca, Cotter Smith, Joe Tuttle, David H. Holmes
- TMDB rating: 8.6/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5290382/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: cerebral, bleak, unsettling, morbid, measured, tense

## What critics say

Acclaimed for its psychological interview-driven approach to profiling serial killers and its 1970s atmosphere, though later material was faulted as uneven.

## Synopsis

Mindhunter (2017-2019) is a US crime drama series created by Joe Penhall for Netflix. Jonathan Groff plays FBI agent Holden Ford, an ambitious trainer who, alongside veteran field agent Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) and psychologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), pushes the Bureau's Elite Serial Crime Unit to take the minds of murderers seriously. Ford's engine is the drive to turn gut instinct into a method: he travels to prisons to sit across from notorious serial killers and rapists, asking questions that expose how they think, while the unit wrestles with indifferent superiors and the cost of living with such material. Each season is built from interview sessions, case files and the slow assembly of a profile, giving the series the pace of a patient investigation rather than a weekly chase. Set in the 1970s United States, the show carries a muted, rain-grey period palette, unsettling psychological tension and a morbidly fascinated tone. Its two seasons form one continuing story told in a serialized, character-driven format. Fans of The Silence of the Lambs, True Detective and The Fall will find resonance in its cerebral dread and true crime texture.

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