| Screenplay: | Leonardo Fasoli Mauricio Katz Stefano Sollima Max Hurwitz Maddalena Ravagli |
| Composer: | Mogwai |
| Country: | Italy |
| Num Episodes: | 8 |
| List Episodes: |
|
| Runtime: | 48–66 minutes |
ZeroZeroZero is an Italian crime drama television series created by Stefano Sollima, Leonardo Fasoli and Mauricio Katz for Sky Atlantic, Canal+ and Amazon Prime Video. It is based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Roberto Saviano,[1] [2] a study of the business around the drug cocaine, covering its movement across continents. The series stars Andrea Riseborough, Dane DeHaan and Gabriel Byrne as the American Lynwood family, controlling an international shipping company which acts as cocaine broker between Mexican and Italian organized crime.[3] The series derives its name from the whitest, finest-milled type of wheat flour (000), which is "the nickname among narcotraffickers for the purest cocaine on the market."[4]
The world premiere of ZeroZeroZero was on 5 September 2019 at the 76th Venice International Film Festival, where the first two episodes were screened out of competition.[5] The series premiered on television on 14 February 2020 on Sky Atlantic in Italy. The series received generally favorable reviews.
The series follows the troubled journey of a large shipment of cocaine from Monterrey, Mexico to Gioia Tauro, Italy. The sellers are Mexican drug lords Enrique and Jacinto Leyra, who are aided in their criminal activities by Manuel Quinteras and his group of corrupt soldiers; the buyer is Don Minu La Piana, a boss of the 'Ndrangheta, whose position is challenged by his ambitious grandson Stefano and the Curtiga family; the brokers in charge of the shipment are the Lynwoods, an American family from New Orleans owning a prestigious shipping company. The infighting within the 'Ndrangheta causes the shipment to be rerouted to Morocco, and the delay has dramatic consequences for all the interested parties.
The series was shot in Mexico, Italy, Senegal, Morocco and the United States.
The series premiered on 14 February 2020 on Sky Atlantic in Italy. It was released in its entirety on 6 March 2020 on Amazon Prime Video in the United States, Canada, Latin America and Spain.[6] ZeroZeroZero premiered on 9 March 2020 on Canal+ in France,[7] and on 26 March 2020 on Sky Atlantic in Germany and Austria.[8] It premiered on 14 May 2020 on SBS and SBS On Demand in Australia.[9] The series premiered on 4 February 2021 on Sky Atlantic in the United Kingdom and Ireland.[10]
HBO Europe has distributed the series in all its countries (Spain excluded) from 14 February 2020.[11] [12]
ZeroZeroZero has been well-received by critics. It has a 94% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 8/10, based on 34 reviews. The Critics Consensus states, "An addictive thriller whose greatest weakness is that it is at times too withholding, ZeroZeroZero will stick with you long after the credits roll.[13] It holds a 75/100 rating on Metacritic based on 10 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com praised ZeroZeroZero as "the kind of thriller that makes such a deep impression because it can think big and small at the same time, uniting three gripping individual stories into one massive saga."[14] Mike Hale of The New York Times characterized the show as a "three shows in one: an Italian mafia saga with rocky Calabrian hillsides and generational omertà; a Mexican narco thriller with lavish cartel violence; and, more improbably, an indie-movie-style American family drama and character study. The series toggles among the three stories, which are intimately connected but for the most part told separately, with occasional meetings that are invariably bad news for the characters involved." He compared the series unfavorably to the earlier Roberto Saviano-based series, Gomorrah, but praised the characterization and performances of Riseborough and DeHaan.[15] Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that ZeroZeroZero was "beautifully shot, but frustratingly limited on character," and adding that "genre familiarity may make ZeroZeroZero less fresh, but it remains quite watchable, if you can ignore its vaguely nihilistic streak, thanks to a good cast, confident direction and cinematography that's really quite stunning at times."[16]
See also: ZeroZeroZero (album). A soundtrack album by Scottish band Mogwai was released on 1 May 2020.[17]