Dark Hearts

The French Special Forces are deployed in Iraq, on the eve of the battle of Mosul, in October 2016. The members of this commando have the mission of finding and exfiltrating the daughter and the grandson of an important French Emir of Daesh who captured and who will cooperate with them only on this condition.

Dark Hearts (2023-2025) is a French war thriller series created by Ziad Doueiri, Duong Dang-Thai and Corinne Garfin for France 2 and Prime Video. Set in Iraq in October 2016, on the eve of the battle of Mosul, it follows a French Special Forces commando led by Martin (Nicolas Duvauchelle), with Adèle (Marie Dompnier) and Rimbaud (Tewfik Jallab) among its principal members. Their mission is to find and extract the daughter and grandson of a captured Daesh emir, a prisoner who will cooperate only on that condition. The engine of each episode is the tension between a tightly planned operation and the chaos of a city about to erupt, with the team pressing forward while loyalties, risks and moral compromises pile up. The series unfolds as a two-season serialized story across twelve episodes of roughly fifty-three minutes, giving each season a clear arc of infiltration and exfiltration. Its look is grounded and gritty, with a tone that is tense, sober and emotionally weighty, closer to the military realism of Zero Dark Thirty and Generation Kill than to pure action spectacle. Fans of prestige war drama and hostage thrillers will find resonance here.

Audience reception is positive, with viewers rating both seasons highly for its tense military action and moral stakes.

• Zero Dark Thirtyshared special forces action, military thriller tension, and a hostage extraction mission in a war zone
• Generation Killshared prestige war drama tone with serialized military operations and moral compromise
• Tehranshared Middle Eastern war-zone setting, geopolitical stakes, and a serialized espionage-adjacent thriller structure

Created by

Ziad Doueiri, Duong Dang-Thai, Corinne Garfin

Release Date

2023-02-03

Episode runtime

53 min

Rating

7.7 / 10 (68)

What is Dark Hearts about?

French special forces race into Iraq on the eve of the battle of Mosul to extract a jihadist emir's daughter and grandson, a mission that depends on his cooperation.

What is Dark Hearts like to watch?

Ember's analysis rates the pacing of Dark Hearts as brisk, its intensity as strong and its storytelling as layered.

Is Dark Hearts violent?

Yes. Ember rates the violence in Dark Hearts as brutal.

What did critics think of Dark Hearts?

Audience reception is positive, with viewers rating both seasons highly for its tense military action and moral stakes.

Which shows are like Dark Hearts?

Shows with a similar feel include Zero Dark Thirty, Generation Kill, and Tehran.

How long is Dark Hearts?

Dark Hearts: 2 seasons, 12 episodes.

Is Dark Hearts still running?

No, Dark Hearts has ended.

Where can I watch Dark Hearts?

In United States, Dark Hearts streams on France Channel Amazon Channel.