Amongst a TV universe swamped with teen dramas that romanticize about adolescence, Netflix’s 2025 limited series, “Adolescence,” breaks all the rules. Created by Stephen Graham, writer/creator Jack Thorne, and directed by Philip Barantini, the British four-part miniseries is gritty, hard-hitting in its depiction of adolescent pressures in this day and age of social media.
The show’s edgy in-the-moment style, multi-faceted characters, and unafraid topics all add up to make “Adolescence” one of the most intriguing programmes of the year.
This is the story of 13-year-old Jamie Miller, accused of murdering his classmate Katie Leonard. A very impressive detail is that the show is shot in real time without any cuts, with every episode being shot in one uninterrupted take.
The audience is drawn in straight away to the chaos and tension unfolding without cutting, without distance, without relief from emotional fallout. It’s risky storytelling—but one that ultimately delivers.
What sets “Adolescence” apart from other crime dramas is that it avoids sensationalism. What is not done is to monsterize Jamie, or reduce him to an angsty teenager. Instead, the show delves into the multifaceted web of influences—digital, familial, social, and cultural—that constructed him.
It’s an uncomfortable inquiry of how a vulnerable adolescent can be subtly radicalized by toxic online communities, how peer pressure and social media can distort one’s sense of self, and how masculinity, unchecked, can become poisonous.
Owen Cooper delivers a performance of a lifetime as Jamie, his vulnerability tempered with seething anger. This is matched by Stephen Graham’s heart-searing performance as Jamie’s father, acted with spine-splitting honesty—a man torn to try to make sense of tragedy he is unable to rationalize.
Their chemistry is fraught, tender, and shatteringly authentic. They are both emblematic of destruction brought about by generational barriers, as also of hurt from being unable to protect those we care about the most.
Producers don’t pull their punches when it comes to content. “Adolescence” covers topics such as online grooming, misogyny, bullying, and how under-funded provision of mental health can have an impact.
It is a bleak mirror to society, asking how much we really know about the world that our children are being raised in. And whether we are doing all that we can to get them ready to face it.
Critically, the programme has received nearly universal acclaim with a 99% Rotten Tomatoes rating and Metacritic rating of 91. It’s been widely acclaimed by many for being uncompromising in how they present their narrative, their innovative use of camera work, as well as being brave with their subject matter.
It’s currently being used in schools in the UK as an educational tool. Interestingly enough, though, some teenagers have also criticised the programme as more adult-oriented than teenager-oriented—critiquing that it presents as more of an advice to parents and teachers, as opposed to a truthful representation of their lives.
It’s not a book about this kid who did this horrific thing. It’s something about how quickly we ignore the danger signs, how quickly kids slip through the cracks, and how poorly we need to rethink the worlds we build—for both online and offline—for the next generation.
In an era where teen dramas are so likely to default to formulaic trope and glossy looks, “Adolescence” takes the route of uneasiness, honesty, and uncomfortable questions.
It does not supply us with neat answers or court-of-law mystery plot twists. What it does offer, however, is something much richer: insight. It compels us to think more rigorously about the systems we use to raise our children—and how those systems are failing.
Teenagers are not fun to watch. But they are compulsory viewing. It’s a wake-up call amped to steroid levels in miniseries form, and once you have its hook in you, it will not let you go.
Parents, teachers, anyone who’s ever asked themselves how to grow up in times of screens, loneliness, and angst, will watch this.