The Sinner poster

The Sinner

★ 7.8 153K votes 2017–2021 4 seasons · 32 episodes Ended USA Network
AnthologyA new story or cast with every episode or season.This show: 8/10Detective mysteryCrime-solving from the investigator's side of the table.This show: 8/10TenseSustained suspense and pressure from start to finish.This show: 8/10Dark toneShadowy mood and subject matter, a shade short of outright bleak.This show: 8/10UnsettlingA creeping sense of unease and wrongness that gets under your skin.This show: 7/10Character studyInterior life matters more than plot.This show: 7/10Secrets & liesHidden truths straining every relationship.This show: 7/10
Rate this series
Starring
Bill PullmanJessica HechtDohn NorwoodAdam LeFevreJessica BielChristopher Abbott
Written by
Derek Simonds
Starring
Bill PullmanJessica HechtDohn NorwoodAdam LeFevreJessica BielChristopher Abbott
Written by
Derek Simonds
Ratings per Episode
246810
Votes per Episode
01k3k4k5k

The Sinner Episode Ratings Heatmap

AvgE1E2E3E4E5E6E7E8
S18.18.07.97.98.07.97.78.68.4
S27.67.87.77.67.57.37.67.77.4
S36.67.37.17.06.66.46.36.35.7
S47.57.77.47.47.47.17.57.87.7

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About

"Crime solved fast, motive unraveled slowly"

Each season opens with a shocking, seemingly inexplicable crime committed by an ordinary person, then follows a weary, doggedly empathetic detective as he digs into the psychology behind it. The whodunit is answered almost immediately; the show's real question is why. It's slow-burn, moody, and heavy on flashbacks and buried trauma rather than procedural twists. Bill Pullman anchors it as a quietly haunted investigator. Some seasons land harder than others, but the format lets it reinvent itself with new casts and mysteries each time.

Watch it for

the way it inverts the mystery genre by answering who before why.

Maybe skip if

you want fast-paced procedural twists rather than slow psychological unraveling.

Written by our AI editor to help you decide, spoiler-free by design.

All Seasons

Season 12017
8.128K85h 37m
A young mother, overcome by an inexplicable fit of rage, commits a startling act of violence and to her horror has no idea why. An investigator finds himself obsessed with uncovering the woman's buried motive. Together they travel a harrowing journey into the depths of her psyche and the violent secrets hidden in her past.
Season 22018
7.617K85h 48m
Detective Harry Ambrose returns to his hometown in rural New York to assess an unsettling and heart wrenching crime: parents murdered by their eleven-year-old son, with no apparent motive. As Ambrose realizes there’s nothing ordinary about the boy or where he came from, the investigation pulls him into the hidden darkness of his hometown.
Season 32020
6.618K86h 4m
When Detective Harry Ambrose begins a routine investigation of a tragic car accident on the outskirts of Dorchester, in upstate New York, he uncovers a hidden crime that pulls him into the most dangerous and disturbing case of his career.
Season 42021
7.511K86h 21m
Still reeling from the trauma of a previous case a year ago, the now-retired Harry Ambrose travels to Hanover Island in northern Maine for a recuperative getaway with his partner Sonya, but when an unexpected tragedy occurs involving Percy Muldoon, the daughter of a prominent island family, Ambrose is recruited to help the investigation, only to be thrown into a mystery of mounting paranoia that will turn this sleepy tourist island, and Ambrose’s life, upside down.

Full Cast & Crew

Cast

Bill Pullman Harry Ambrose
Jessica Hecht Sonya Barzel
Dohn Norwood Dan Leroy
Adam LeFevre Police Chief
Jessica Biel Cora Tannetti
Christopher Abbott Mason Tannetti
Carrie Coon Vera Walker
Frances Fisher Meg Muldoon
Natalie Paul Heather Novack
Alice Kremelberg Percy Muldoon

Crew

Derek Simonds

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