Gareth Evans and Matt Flannery's Gangs of London arrives as a British action crime drama that premiered on Sky Atlantic in April 2020. The series opens with the assassination of Finn Wallace (Colm Meaney), who for twenty years ruled London's criminal underworld through the Wallace Organisation. His death sends shockwaves through the city's intersecting gangs — Albanian mafia, Kurdish PKK, Pakistani drug cartel, and others — while his son Sean (Joe Cole) struggles to maintain control with help from his mother Marian (Michelle Fairley) and Finn's right-hand man Ed Dumani (Lucian Msamati). Meanwhile, undercover officer Elliot Carter (Sope Dirisu) infiltrates the organisation, walking a tightening rope between duty and survival.
Wikipedia describes Gangs of London as a British action crime drama television series created by Gareth Evans and Matt Flannery, based on the video game of the same name by London Studio. The first series premiered 23 April 2020; a second series followed in 2022 with Corin Hardy as showrunner and AMC co-producing; a third premiered in March 2025, and a fourth was announced in August 2025. The series has drawn praise for its performances, kinetic action sequences, and willingness to depict London's multicultural criminal landscape, though its extreme violence has also drawn criticism.
Evans, known for The Raid films, brings his action choreography expertise to television with fight scenes that are brutal, inventive, and integrated into character arcs rather than spectacle for its own sake. The ensemble cast is deep — Joe Cole's Sean is a man trying to fill shoes he never wanted, Sope Dirisu's Elliot carries the moral weight of deception, and Lucian Msamati's Ed provides gravitas as the old guard. The writing doesn't romanticize the life; loyalty is transactional, betrayal is constant, and the body count is high.
For viewers who appreciate crime epics with international scope and visceral action, Gangs of London delivers a modern, London-specific take on the genre. It's not for the squeamish, but it rewards attention — the geopolitics of the underworld mirror the city above. Three series in (with a fourth coming), the story continues to expand without losing its core tension.