# The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann (2019)

> A Netflix true crime docuseries that revisits the 2007 disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine McCann during a Portuguese family holiday.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/74381

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 8
- Episode runtime: 55 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: documentary, crime
- Created by: Chris Smith
- Network: Netflix
- Cast: Kate McCann, Gerry McCann, Anthony Summers, Jim Gamble, Kelvin MacKenzie, Alexander David, Fernando Lupach, Marisa Matos
- TMDB rating: 6.6/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9879074/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: dense
- Violence: none
- Tone: sober, unsettling, melancholic, tense, grief-stricken

## What critics say

Critics generally find the series a detailed, compelling examination of the case, while disputing its handling of the investigation and some of its theories.

## Synopsis

The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann (2019) is a British true crime documentary series created by Chris Smith for Netflix. Across eight episodes of roughly fifty-five minutes each, it revisits the case of three-year-old Madeleine McCann, who vanished during a family holiday at a Portuguese resort. Parents Kate McCann and Gerry McCann appear through archive footage, and the investigation is traced through interviews with figures including Anthony Summers, Jim Gamble, Kelvin MacKenzie, and Portuguese investigators such as Marisa Matos and Pedro Saavedra. The engine of the series is the slow reconstruction of a case that never closed: leads that rose and fell, competing theories, police files, and the relentless glare of tabloid coverage that shaped how the public understood the family. Each episode builds methodically, weighing evidence and testimony without offering a tidy verdict. The tone is sober, grief-soaked and uneasy, with an atmosphere of unanswered questions. It is a limited series with a single season, and it suits viewers who gravitate toward sober investigative documentaries in the vein of The Jinx and Making a Murderer, where the real stakes are human and the ending stays open.

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