Entertainment

'Modern Day Peaky Blinders' Series Succeeds Where Guy Ritchie Is Failing

Nairavoice · Nov 9, 2026 · 4 min read

While one show has been touted as the modern-day answer to Peaky Blinders, ironically, it is this BBC hit’s very differences from the Netflix show that make it such a fitting replacement. Peaky Blinders is not an easy show to replace. Taking place in the aftermath of World War 1 as the devastated city of Birmingham rebuilds itself, Peaky Blinders follows Cillian Murphy’s iconic Tommy Shelby as he turns the titular street gang into a force to be reckoned with.

Thanks to the unstoppable Tommy, the six seasons of Peaky Blinders see the eponymous crew of misfit crooks turn into not just a dangerous criminal empire, but also an unexpected force for good at times. Whether they are dismantling Oswald Mosley’s Legion of Fascists from the inside or pitting the British upper class and police against each other, the gang are often more sympathetic than the lawmakers of the Netflix show. They are also consistently, undeniably, cool.

Compared to the suburban schmoes of The Sopranos or even the older, more sedate gangland power brokers of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, the antiheroes of Peaky Blinders have slow-mo sequences, a bawdy hyper-modern soundtrack, and endless sharp dialogue to ensure viewers find them charismatic. Guy Ritchie’s gangster shows The Gentlemen and MobLand both borrowed this approach in different ways, but, ironically, it is the BBC’s markedly murkier This City Is Ours that has instead emerged as the ideal Peaky Blinders substitute.

This City Is Ours Makes Its Gangsters Less Cool Than In Similar Streaming Shows

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In Guy Ritchie’s Netflix show, The Gentlemen, the writer/ director takes the dark humor of his earlier mob movies Snatch, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, RocknRolla, and, of course, The Gentlemen, to its logical extreme. The result is a slick, stylized gangster show full of outlandish characters, cartoonish violence, and constant shocking plot twists. This makes for fun viewing, but could hardly be called grounded or realistic.

While Ritchie’s MobLand is much grittier and less bombastic, the Paramount+ show still shares its super-slick slo-mo camerawork and brooding, sharp-dressed protagonists with Peaky Blinders and Gangs of London. The criminals of MobLand might be unstable, but they are also rich, flashy, and well-dressed, particularly Tom Hardy’s unflappable fixer Harry DaSouza. In contrast, the BBC’s This City Is Ours stars some criminals who feel much more human.

They’re very fallible and distinctly unglamorous, more akin to characters from The Sopranos or even a piece of British kitchen-sink realism than Ritchie’s stylized antiheroes. The main characters of This City Is Ours struggle with their expensive fertility journeys, panic about how to dispose of bodies, and generally operate with the messy humanity missing from implacable gangsters seen in MobLand and Peaky Blinders.

Uncool Gangsters Make This City Is Ours The Perfect Peaky Blinders Replacement

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It’s ironic, since the gangsters of Peaky Blinders were undeniably romanticized and glamorized, but the humanity of the main characters of This City Is Ours actually makes the show a better replacement for Netflix’s six-season epic. Like the heroes of Boardwalk Empire and The Godfather movies, there was some historical distance between the period setting of Peaky Blinders and the show’s release.

In contrast, This City Is Ours feels much more real and true to life than MobLand or The Gentlemen, which in turn, makes its heroes much more relatable and human. This then makes viewers root for them, just like the slickness of the protagonists of Peaky Blinders made them appealing. While not quite as gritty as Ireland’s underrated Love/Hate, the unpredictable storylines of This City Is Ours operate in the same recognizably human atmosphere.

Like The Wire and Love/Hate before it, This City Is Ours has been accused of making its criminal antiheroes too sympathetic, but this critique should really be viewed as a recommendation for the show. Like Peaky Blinders, and unlike so many modern mob series, This City Is Ours manages to make characters breaking the law feel unexpectedly relatable.