Netflix has played host to some generation-defining TV series down the years, but not many of them have ended up being carried over to the big screen. There’s one show on the streaming platform for which a transition to theaters has made perfect sense, however, given its cinematic visual style, broad-strokes approach to history, and epic narrative scope.

At long last, Steven Knight’s crime saga Peaky Blinders has returned with its first feature-length release, The Immortal Man, which has spent the past two weeks exclusively in UK theaters prior to its arrival on Netflix. Tommy Shelby and his family of gangsters in 1920s Birmingham has finally been given the big-screen outing it’s long been crying out for.

The best TV show in Steven Knight’s impressive career, Peaky Blinders is second only to The Sopranos in its comprehensive portrait of a crime family on the small screen. Yet, in both form and content, this sprawling drama about a semi-fictional street gang in interwar Birmingham has far more in common with the Godfather trilogy’s portrayal of the Corleone family.

As gripping as each season of Peaky Blinders is, there’s something about experiencing Tommy Shelby’s world on the big screen that makes it that little more vivid and even more intense. The Immortal Man serves as the perfect sendoff for this legendary TV character precisely because the cinema felt like his natural home all along.

Peaky Blinders Works Even Better As A Movie

Cast member Tim Roth has described the Peaky Blinders movie as an “old-school World War 2” film, which is wholly consistent with the overall aesthetic of the franchise. The entire series is cloaked in the smog of industrial Small Heath and simmering with the social unrest of Depression-era Britain.

Stylistically, the show clearly owes much of its cinematography and scene composition to New Hollywood movie masterpieces like The Godfather Part II and Once Upon a Time in America. In terms of costumes and set design, it builds on the blueprint laid by HBO’s period gangster series Boardwalk Empire, but manages to take things up a notch.

None of these elements, integral as they are to the success of Peaky Blinders, can be fully appreciated on the small screen. They are the language of cinema, and are felt far more viscerally because they’ve been made for the big screen.

Small Heath has never been more atmospheric than it is in The Immortal Man, while period London dazzles like few other versions of it previously rendered on the silver screen. Tommy Shelby is at his most brooding and introspective, but we see deeper into his soul because this singular, feature-length story insists that we do.

Ending Tommy Shelby’s Story As A Feature Film Justifies Missing Characters

It also feels as though the feature-film format is integral to The Immortal Man to ending Tommy Shelby’s character arc in the right way. As a single, 112-minute story, the movie can focus on Tommy’s confrontation with his son, Duke, without us ever getting the sense that there are characters missing from the plot.

The absence of Arthur Shelby from The Immortal Man could have been a major bone of contention for fans of the TV series. Instead, the film uses the memory of Arthur to haunt his brother, weaving this subplot into its central narrative.

If this storyline were in a season of the TV show, it would be far more drawn out. Arthur’s absence would have had to be resolved in blunter terms with action at the forefront of this plot development. For a work of cinema, though, the lingering ambiguity over the fate of Paul Anderson’s character is exactly what’s required.

More generally, the stripped-back cast of Peaky Blinders suits a feature film perfectly. There’s no Helen McCrory-shaped hole in the story as there was in season 6 of the TV series, and Rebecca Ferguson’s enigmatic counterpoint to Tommy Shelby gets the space she needs to steal almost every scene she’s in.

The Immortal Man Also Makes Sense As A Standalone Story

It’s interesting that The Immortal Man seems to be eliciting the most positive responses from those who are relatively unfamiliar with the Peaky Blinders TV show. Longtime fans are more split in their reactions to the movie, with some questioning controversial plot decisions in relation to certain characters, with Tommy Shelby’s ending proving to be the most polarizing.

The overwhelmingly positive reception Tommy Shelby’s Peaky Blinders return in The Immortal Man has had from newcomers to the franchise demonstrates how well the movie works on its own terms. Although most viewers will see it as a sequel to the TV series, it also works perfectly as a standalone release.

The Immortal Man is set some years after the events of the sixth and final season of Peaky Blinders, with Tommy Shelby seemingly a changed man. Meanwhile, it introduces Duke Shelby as the new leader of the franchise’s titular Birmingham gang, having been recast from the show, with Barry Keoghan taking on the role.

At no point does the movie’s plot rely on you knowing anything about the Peaky Blinders beforehand. On the other hand, very little exposition is required, and director Tom Harper leans into its atmospheric visuals and sublime period details to draw us into the world of the story.

What’s Next For The Peaky Blinders Franchise

Steven Knight has long since confirmed that Peaky Blinders has a future beyond this movie, and a spinoff series featuring The Immortal Man star Barry Keoghan has been mooted for some time. Things have developed a little further on this front in recent days, however.

Knight has now formally announced a two-season sequel series set in Birmingham during the 1950s, which will tell the story of a new Shelby family generation (via Tudum). Starting 34 years after the events of Peaky Blinders season 1, this new season has a lot to live up to as a historical crime drama.

It will depict a post-war Britain markedly different from the one in which Tommy Shelby built his criminal empire, although Steven Knight’s intimate personal knowledge of the Birmingham of this generation will certainly give the show an added sense of authenticity. What’s more, Knight has confirmed to SlashFilm that Duke Shelby will feature in this spinoff.

But The Immortal Man’s Barry Keoghan won’t be reprising the role of Duke, which will have to be recast for a second time. As yet, there’s no timeline for the production of Peaky Blinders’ first TV spinoff, although we’re unlikely to be waiting four years before its release, as was the case with the franchise’s new movie.