# Calls (2021)

> Strangers in the days before an apocalypse connect through a web of unsettling phone calls.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/99625

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 9
- Episode runtime: 17 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: science fiction, thriller
- Created by: Fede Álvarez
- Network: Apple TV
- Cast: Lily Collins, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Riley Keough, Ben Schwartz, Jennifer Tilly, Mark Duplass, Judy Greer, Pedro Pascal
- TMDB rating: 7.7/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9327706/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: mild
- Tone: eerie, claustrophobic, paranoid, unsettling, intimate

## What critics say

Viewers praise Calls as a bold, minimalist experiment that makes sound and audio-only storytelling unnervingly cinematic, though its audience rating is middling.

## Synopsis

Calls (2021) is an American science fiction thriller miniseries created by Fede Álvarez for Apple TV. Across nine brief episodes of roughly seventeen minutes each, the series follows a web of strangers whose private lives fall into disarray in the days leading up to an apocalyptic event. Rather than picture, the story unfolds entirely through phone calls, voicemails, and transmissions, with evolving waveforms and simple text identifiers filling a black screen. Voice performances include Lily Collins as Camila, Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Mark, Riley Keough as Rose, Pedro Pascal as Pedro, and Rosario Dawson as Dr. Katherine Beckett, each glimpsed through the calls they make and receive. The engine of the show is the slow reveal of how these scattered conversations connect, with each fragment adding unease and withholding context. Its tone is eerie, claustrophobic and paranoid, built on silence and the intimacy of a voice in the dark. Viewers who enjoy the audio-driven suspense of Searching, the speculative unease of Black Mirror, and the fractured apocalyptic mood of Y: The Last Man will find resonance here. The miniseries is rated TV-MA and runs as a single season with no sequel in the data provided.

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