Bill Pullman has a four-season Netflix police procedural that is best watched binged. Pullman is a ’90s legend, an actor who packed in some of his best roles on both TV and in movies in that one decade with his memorable performances in Independence Day, Sleepless in Seattle, and Lost Highway.

He’s an actor who hasn’t always received the critical acclaim one would expect from an actor who’s been a part of film history in such a major way. It may be because he’s a bit of a chameleon, and it can be hard to determine what he’s “best” at, and therefore, what it is he should be celebrated most for.

Pullman can be a hilarious rogue in Spaceballs, an inspiring leader in Independence Day, or a beleaguered father in the middle of a criminal conspiracy in Malice. He also has the presence to lead a police pseudo-anthology series as Harry Ambrose in Netflix’s four-season show, The Sinner.

The Sinner premiered in August 2017 with its first eight episodes and went on for three more seasons before ending in December 2021. The show is based on Petra Hammesfahr’s 1999 novel and follows police detective Harry Ambrose, who investigates a series of crimes that tend to involve unexpected culprits.

The only characters to return for a season or more are Harry, who stars in every season, and his love interest, Sonya Barzel (Jessica Hecht), who appears in seasons 3 and 4. Each season of the series builds upon the previous one, despite being an anthology, with Harry having to contend with the rigors and moral crises he faces within the job.

The Sinner Is A Bingeworthy Modern Classic On Netflix

The Sinner is an underrated USA Network original, now available to binge on Netflix. The series earned two Golden Globe nominations and an Emmy nomination in 2018, with a lot of praise going to Jessica Biel’s turn as Cora Tannetti, the murderer at the heart of season 1’s crime, whose obvious guilt hides some important backstory.

The series has a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, with each season having at least an 88%-plus score. That’s a particularly impressive feat in an anthology where storylines between the seasons are only thinly related. It’s a highly unpredictable show, and everyone who comes in gives a surprising performance.

Though The Sinner stars the same detective character, each season feels dramatically different, with novel mystery and storytelling styles, and different themes explored. It ends up making Harry feel like a more real character than he would otherwise, like he lives a life the audience only gets glimpses into.

Bill Pullman’s Harry Ambrose Fronts The Perfect Inverted Detective Story

Credit: MovieStillsDB

The inverted detective story is a form of crime storytelling where the crime is shown at the beginning of the show or the episode, and the rest of the story is about how the detective solves the mystery, with the drama coming from the tension created by the audience knowing more than the characters.

The first two seasons of The Sinner are versions of the inverted detective story, with Harry figuring out the complicated backstories of the people involved in the crimes, shedding new light on what they’ve done and forcing the characters and the audience to consider what they’ve seen in a new light.

Release Date

2017 – 2021-00-00

Network

USA Network

Showrunner

Derek Simonds

Directors

Brad Anderson, Antonio Campos, Cherien Dabis, Jody Lee Lipes, Tucker Gates, Andrew McCarthy, Batan Silva, Radium Cheung, Colin Bucksey, John David Coles, Haifaa al-Mansour, Monica Raymund

Writers

Derek Simonds, Nina Braddock, Jesse McKeown, Liz W. Garcia, Piero S. Iberti, Bradford Winters, Hannah Shakespeare, Tom Pabst

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  Bill Pullman

  Harry Ambrose

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  Jessica Biel

  Cora Tannetti