Peaky Blinders season 6: release date and everything we know

At long last, Peaky Blinders season 6 has arrived.

A pandemic-hampered production schedule has kept fans on tenterhooks for over two years, but new episodes officially landed in February 2022 on BBC iPlayer – with a supposedly "dark as f**k" script ready to tie up the many loose ends left by season 5's cliffhanger finale.

Peaky Blinders Season 6 will also be the final outing for showrunner Steven Knight's beloved BBC period drama on the small screen, although the story will continue through a feature-length movie "set and shot in Birmingham" intended to mark the Blinders' end.

In time for the show's TV finale, then, we've rounded up everything we know about Peaky Blinders season 6 below – from its confirmed Netflix release date and new cast members to confirmed story details. 

Naturally, proceed with caution if you want to avoid spoilers for seasons 1 to 5. You can still catch up on the Shelby gang's adventures via BBC iPlayer in the UK (or a BBC iPlayer VPN overseas) and Netflix internationally.

Release date: Peaky Blinders season 6 began streaming on BBC iPlayer in the UK on February 27, 2022. New episodes then hit Netflix internationally on June 10.

Cast: Most of the Shelby clan are returning to the fold, with the likes of Cillian Murphy, Paul Anderson and Sam Claflin all reprising their roles. Tom Hardy returns, too, while Stephen Graham has joined the cast. Scroll down for more on who's been added to the show for season 6. 

Story: We expect to see some familiar faces picking up the pieces left by Tommy's failed assassination attempt on Sir Oswald Mosely, while we'll also be seeing a lot more of Gina and her family. We also know the plot will be taking take place in the shadow of a "looming Second World War," with Cillian Murphy promising a "gothic" and "heavy" story. Despite the broad political context of season 6, though, Murphy has also revealed that "a lot of [the new season] is close to home."

What comes after season 6? "My plan from the beginning was to end Peaky with a movie... this is what's going to happen," Knight has said. What exactly comes after this final season of the show is a bit of a mystery, though, and Cillian Murphy has neither confirmed nor denied his interest in the project: just know that the Peaky Blinders story won't end here.

Peaky Blinders season 6 release date

Peaky Blinders season 6 began streaming in the UK on February 27, 2022, before hitting Netflix internationally on June 10, 2022.

Evidently, releasing Peaky Blinders season 6 in 2022 wasn't the original plan. As with most shows whose new series were expected to arrive between 2020 and 2021, the Covid-19 pandemic put a pin in filming of Peaky Blinders season 6, with director Anthony Byrne telling Digital Spy that the intention was to begin shooting in March 2020 and end in July after a 78-day run.

Naturally, that didn't happen, but relaxed restrictions on UK television and film production at the beginning of 2021 meant filming did eventually begin in January last year, before wrapping in May. 

“Peaky is back and with a bang,” Byrne said in 2021. “After the enforced production delay due to the Covid pandemic, we find the family in extreme jeopardy and the stakes have never been higher. We believe this will be the best series of all and are sure that our amazing fans will love it."

Peaky Blinders season 6 cast and story

Update: Since Peaky Blinders has only recently begun streaming internationally, we've opted to keep the below information written in the style of predictions. 

So, with Peaky Blinders season 6 just around the corner, what do we know in terms of its cast and story? 

Well, the first official trailer for new episodes (which you'll find below) confirms the re-appearance of several roles, as well the general direction audiences can expect season 6 to take.

Recovered from that explosive 90-second clip? Good, then you'll know that several familiar faces will be returning in season 6 to tie up the loose ends left by Tommy's failed assassination of Sir Oswald Mosely. 

Speaking of the slimy Blackshirts founder, Sam Claflin will be reprising his role, and we know the first episode of season 6 is called Black Day – which suggests we could get some much-needed answers early on in the new season. 

Obviously, Cillian Murphy is returning as Tommy, along with the other usual Shelby suspects, including Paul Anderson as Arthur Shelby. The psychological troubles Tommy experienced at the end of season 5 also triggered the ethereal apparitions of Tommy's dead wife, Grace Shelby, so we'll likely see Annabelle Wallis again, too. 

More of a surprise is the confirmation that Tom Hardy will be reappearing as Alfie Solomons, following his miraculous season 5 return after being shot in the head the season before that. The official Peaky Blinders Twitter account recently shared a teaser (with the caption "look who's back") showing Solomons meeting Tommy face-to-face for the first time, which you can watch below. 

We also know that Natasha O'Keeffe will be returning as Lizzie Stark, after the show confirmed as much on Twitter. Charlie Murphy, who played unionist leader Jessie Eden, won’t be re-appearing in season 6, though. “Yeah. I’m done now,” she told Digital Spy in March. “But it was a lot of fun."

But what of Michael's mysterious partner, Gina, played by The Queen's Gambit's Anya Taylor-Joy? Were the scheming couple behind the assassination's failure? Michael's bid to take charge of Shelby Company Ltd certainly raises our suspicions. 

Regardless, we do know we'll be seeing much more of Gina and her family in season 6 – director Anthony Byrne told GQ in August 2019 that, "Gina, and whoever her family are, will make themselves known." 

It's looking like the murky machinations of the interwar elite will become clearer in the next season, then, and when it comes to Gina, specifically, "there's a lot to be revealed about her next series. She's a player, she's a manipulator. She's part of a wider plan," Byrne said.

He also confirmed, on the BBC’s Obsessed With… Peaky Blinders podcast, that Stephen Graham will make an appearance in season 6 – though not as Al Capone, who he played in the similar-but-not-the-same Boardwalk Empire series. The Chicago mob boss was referenced at the end of Peaky Blinders' fifth season, so it makes sense that fans had drawn the false conclusion. 

In a particularly exciting rumor, Julia Roberts has also been tipped to join the show's cast – though it's unclear who she'd play. “I don’t know where that got out," Byrne told the BBC (via Esquire), "but, yeah, fingers crossed on that.” We haven't heard any more on that front, though, and since she doesn't appear in the first official trailer, we're not getting our hopes up. 

Based on the activity of the show's official Twitter account, other actors confirmed to be entering the fray for season 6 include Rebecca Keatley – who is set for a major change of scenery from her role as a CBeebies presenter – Australian actor James Frecheville and Brits Amber Anderson and Conrad Khan. 

The latter has earned major plaudits of late, including a nomination for BAFTA's Rising Star Award, and so proves another exciting addition to an already-stellar cast.

When it comes to Billy (Emmett J. Scanlan), who may or may not have been the person who betrayed Tommy and the gang at the end of season 5, Scanlan told Digital Spy that he hopes, if Billy was the rat, that he stands up to the Blinders in future. He also mentioned that the season 6 scripts are "so f**king strong." 

"It won't disappoint, I promise you," Scanlan added. "Steven [Knight] is a master."

We know we'll be finding out who the rat is, at least. In fact, the show's director, Anthony Byrne, told Digital Spy that those who paid “close attention” should already be able to see who back-stabbed Tommy. “You certainly find out," he added "but we cut stuff around that end section to make it more oblique." Exciting stuff.

After the sad passing of actress Helen McCrory, we also don't expect Aunt Polly to re-appear in season 6. In a recent Esquire profile, Cillian Murphy revealed that "if it wasn’t for Covid, there would be a whole other version of this show with Helen in it," presumably because filming on season 6 would otherwise have taken place while the actress was still able to participate. 

During a BFI Q&A prior to McCrory's death, showrunner Knight was asked if Aunt Polly would survive until the very end of the show, to which he simply replied: "Yes." McCrory herself had also previously expressed her desire to return for Peaky Blinders' final series, eager to "see it through to the end". 

It's unclear how the show will address the loss, though the aforementioned Esquire profile suggests the season 6 script "need[ed] to be revised and the character of Aunt Polly written out." Tributes were also paid to McCrory by the show's cast and crew on social media.

As for its setting, we know World War II will start to loom over the story in Peaky Blinders season 6. "Because of the nature of the decade, the 1930s, we know what happened at the end – that war began. There are rumblings and rumors of war and that's overshadowing the whole thing. It makes the stakes higher," Knight told the Press Association in 2020.

That timeframe would fit with the show's signature time jumps from season to season, with its debut outing set back in 1919 amid the lawless neighborhoods of post-war Birmingham.

In rare admissions about Peaky Blinders season 6, Cillian Murphy told Rolling Stone and Esquire that new episodes are "dark as f**k" and "going to be very intense," adding that "the word we keep using is 'gothic.' Yeah, it’s going to be heavy!" 

A "gothic" and "heavy" story set amid the growing threat of World War II? It sounds like audiences are in for a dramatic ride.

Incidentally, despite the broad political context of season 6, Murphy told Esquire that  "a lot of [the new season] is close to home; in fact, all of the things that really come up in [season] six are from close to home…” 

That suggests to us that issues surrounding Tommy's closest family will lie at the heart of season 6. Murphy also admitted that there's a “brilliant storyline with Tommy and Lizzy and the kids, that’s really, really strong; I think he’s always super-fragile around them: the idea of ‘If anything happened to the children…'” – which corroborates that prediction. 

Beyond those hazy details, though, we'll have to wait until new episodes are released to really know what Peaky Blinders season 6 has in store. 

What comes next for Peaky Blinders?

Five seasons in, and Peaky Blinders remains essential viewing. It's a rare thing for a UK-made show to develop the credibility of a bigger-budget US drama, and it's no wonder that more and more big names are showing up in every season. 

In the UK, viewing figures for new episodes have tripled since the show began – so don't be surprised if Peaky Blinders season 6 isn't the last we'll see of the Shelbys. 

We do know this new season will be the finale for the show in its original guise, but Knight has confirmed that "while the TV series will be coming to an end, the story will continue in another form.”

We also know Knight has long hoped to "end Peaky with a movie," something that is "going to happen," according to a recent Deadline report, so we'd anticipate seeing a feature-length Peaky Blinders adventure in the near future. 

Don't expect it to arrive any time soon, though. Speaking at the London Film Festival in October, Knight confirmed he plans to work on a Peaky Blinders movie "set in and shot in Birmingham" after season 6's release – meaning full-scale development on the project isn't likely to begin until later on in 2022. 

Murphy won't confirm or deny his involvement, either, telling Esquire in the aforementioned profile: "I’m open to ideas. I think [Knight] wants to, but I haven’t read anything.”

Let's just get Peaky Blinders season 6 out the way first, shall we?

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