Legends, a new thriller coming to Netflix starring Tom Burke and Steve Coogan, is based on a real story most people have never even heard of.
It’s already been a huge year for Netflix. Stranger Things came to an end, Peaky Blinders returned with The Immortal Man, and more big releases are on the way, including Beef season 2 and Siobhan Finneran’s Unchosen.
There’s plenty more in development too, from The Gentlemen season 2 to a new Pride and Prejudice starring Emma Corrin.
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But Legends might be one of the most intriguing of the lot.
What is Legends about?
Legends is inspired by an “untold” true story from the 1990s.
“In the early 1990s, Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise was losing its battle with illegal drug smuggling across Britain’s borders,” the official logline reads.
“The solution was extraordinary. In a top-secret operation, a small team of Customs employees were sent undercover. Their task – to infiltrate Britain’s most dangerous drug gangs.
“But these were not trained spies. They were normal men and women, plucked from ordinary lives around the UK, put through a basic training regime and tasked with building new identities in the criminal underworld. These identities were called Legends.”
When is Legends out?
Legends premieres on May 7, 2026 on Netflix.
It’s a global release, so it’ll drop everywhere at the same time.
Who’s in the Legends cast?
Steve Coogan leads the series as Don, the man running the operation.
“Don is someone who has been there, seen that, got the T-shirt, and all that — but he’s also someone who has made mistakes, which the audience gets a sense of,” he told Netflix.
“In some ways, his role is like parenting because [there’s] a duty of care that has to be coupled with the fact that they have a job to do. He’s not there just to look after their welfare. He’s there to get them to do their job effectively.”
Tom Burke (Strike, Furiosa) co-stars as Guy, one of the recruits pulled into the operation.
“His draw to the recruitment poster asking ‘Could you offer more?’ feels quite universal,” Burke said.
“There’s a feeling that he’s never quite done what he needed to do; a side of him that he’s pushed down, or which has been pushed down by his environment.”
Who else is in the cast?
Charlotte Ritchie plays Sophie, Guy’s wife and a fellow customs agent.
Hayley Squires (The Night Manager) is also part of the team, alongside a wider cast that includes:
- Aml Ameen (Kidulthood)
- Jasmine Blackborow (The Gentlemen)
- Douglas Hodge (The Night Manager)
- Tom Hughes (Victoria)
- Johnny Harris (A Gentleman in Moscow)
- Gerald Kyd (The Assassin)
Who’s writing Legends?
Legends comes from Neil Forsyth, the writer behind The Gold and Guilt.
For him, the appeal was simple: almost nobody knows this story.
“I’ve written shows in the past that are about well-known events. You then tell the story behind it that isn’t so well known,” he said.
“This is unique, in that the work of the Legends is barely known at all. There was this core team of people that did all of this, and they did it almost without any public recognition.”
How many episodes are there?
There are six episodes in total, all dropping at once.
So if you want to avoid spoilers, you’ll probably want to binge it quickly.
Read more: The best Netflix series you should watch
Legends premieres on Netflix on May 7.
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