Tommy Shelby has spent six years in self-imposed exile when we catch up with him in Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, and honestly? He looks terrible. The Netflix film, which drops March 6, finds the former gangster living alone in a crumbling mansion, smoking opium, writing his memoirs, and generally being the most depressing retired criminal in Birmingham. The year is 1940, World War II is raging, and Tommy has declared his own internal war more pressing than Hitler’s. “I have a war of my own inside my head,” he tells his sister Ada, which is either profound or just what you say when you don’t want to deal with actual Nazis.
If you’re planning to watch The Immortal Man but haven’t kept up with the series since it ended in 2022, here’s what you need to know. The six-season show followed Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) and his family as they rose from Birmingham street gang to legitimate business empire, leaving bodies and betrayals in their wake. By the series finale, Tommy had seemingly achieved everything he wanted—power, respectability, a way out of the criminal life. He rode off into the sunset with his horse, presumably to live peacefully. That obviously didn’t happen.
The film introduces a major complication: Duke Shelby, Tommy’s illegitimate son, played by Barry Keoghan with the kind of unhinged energy that makes you nervous whenever he’s on screen. Duke has reformed the Peaky Blinders gang in his father’s absence, behaving like it’s 1919 all over again. He’s more ruthless than Tommy ever was, which is saying something for a man who once solved problems with razor blades and whiskey. Ada, now an MP because of course she is, warns Tommy that Duke will end up “hung by the law or lynched by the people.” Tommy’s response is to keep typing, because apparently his memoir is more important than preventing his son’s imminent death.
The sneak peek introduces Duke properly, and Keoghan makes an immediate impression. He has the Shelby intensity but none of the control—where Tommy was always calculating, Duke is impulsive. Where Tommy sought respectability, Duke embraces chaos. Their uneasy relationship forms the film’s spine, and Keoghan matches Murphy beat for beat in their scenes together.
Tim Roth plays Beckett, Treasurer of the British Union of Fascists, who recruits Duke for a scheme involving £350 million in fake bank notes and high treason. The plan will tank the British economy and hand the country to the Nazis, but Duke gets a 20% cut so he’s listening. The catch: he has to kill his aunt Ada first. This is the kind of family drama that makes the Shelbys seem almost functional by comparison.
Rebecca Ferguson plays Kaulo, a Romany woman with psychic powers who finally convinces Tommy to leave his opium den and rejoin society. She’s the twin sister of Duke’s late mother, which means she’s connected to this mess by blood and prophecy. Her presence brings the supernatural elements that always lurked at the edges of the series front and center.
The film works as both continuation and entry point. Newcomers won’t be overwhelmed by backstory; the essential information is woven naturally into the narrative. Returning characters like Ada and the ghost of Arthur (dead by apparent suicide, haunting Tommy’s conscience) serve the new story rather than simply fan-servicing old fans.
Murphy, now an Oscar winner for Oppenheimer, brings unexpected emotional depth to Tommy after 13 years and 36 episodes. The memoir framing device is slightly ridiculous—Tommy typing on a canal barge while being shot at is peak Peaky Blinders absurdity—but it allows Murphy to voice the character’s interiority in ways the series rarely could. His reunion with Duke, preceded by a brawl in pig shit that ruins his tailoring, is exquisite. The cap still fits, and Murphy wears it with the weight of a man who has destroyed worlds and regrets most of them.
The wartime setting adds visual richness without overwhelming the personal story. Director Tom Harper and writer Steven Knight have crafted a film that honors the series’ legacy while pushing Tommy into new territory. The question isn’t whether he’ll survive—it’s whether he’ll want to.
Watch the Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man sneak peek now and stream the film on Netflix starting March 6, 2026. The cap still fits, and Tommy Shelby is back.
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