True Detective


True Detective is an American anthology crime drama television series created by Nic Pizzolatto for the premium cable network HBO. The series premiered on January 12, 2014, and each season of the series is structured as a self-contained narrative, employing new cast ensembles, and following various sets of characters and settings.
The first season, starring Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Monaghan, Michael Potts, and Tory Kittles, aired in 2014. It takes place in Louisiana and follows a pair of Louisiana State Police detectives, and their pursuit of a serial killer with occult links over a 17-year period.
The second season, starring Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, Taylor Kitsch, Kelly Reilly, and Vince Vaughn, aired in 2015. It is set in California, and focuses on three detectives from three cooperating police jurisdictions and a criminal-turned-businessman as they investigate a series of crimes they believe are linked to the murder of a corrupt politician.
The third season, starring Mahershala Ali, Carmen Ejogo, Stephen Dorff, Scoot McNairy, and Ray Fisher, aired in 2019. It takes place in the Ozarks over three time periods as a pair of Arkansas State Police detectives investigate a macabre crime involving two missing children.
The fourth season, titled True Detective: Night Country and starring Jodie Foster and Kali Reis, aired in 2024. It takes place in Alaska and follows the investigation into the sudden disappearance of a team of eight men from a research station. Issa López serves as writer and director, marking Pizzolatto's first time as neither writer nor showrunner.
The first season received widespread acclaim and earned high ratings for HBO. It received numerous awards, chiefly for its acting, cinematography, writing, and direction. Reception to the second season was more divided, although the show maintained high viewership. The third season received positive reviews, but saw a drop in viewership. Night Country is the most watched of True Detective's four seasons, and received widespread critical acclaim. It earned the highest number of Emmy Award nominations for the series.
A fifth season, with López returning as showrunner, is in development. Casting and filming will commence in 2025 with a scheduled air date in 2027. In August 2025, it was reported that Nicolas Cage was in talks to star in Season 5.

Production

Development

Before developing True Detective, Nic Pizzolatto taught at the University of Chicago, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and DePauw University. His first significant published work was a short story collection released as Between Here and the Yellow Sea in 2006. After publishing the novel Galveston in 2010, Pizzolatto began concentrating on television writing.
Pizzolatto originally conceived True Detective as the narrative successor to Galveston, but once the project matured, he believed the story's shift in perspective and time made it more suitable for television. The author pitched an adaptation of Galveston to entice studio executives, and drafted six screenplays from May to July 2010, including an early 90-page draft of the True Detective pilot script. A second script was written shortly after Pizzolatto's departure from The Killing, thanks to the support of Anonymous Content. By April 2012, HBO commissioned True Detective for an eight episode season. Pizzolatto worked alone creating the definitive project script, which exceeded 500 pages. As an anthology series, each True Detective season follows a self-contained story, distinguished by distinct sets of characters, settings, and events with shared continuity.
When preparing season 4, subtitled Night Country, director and writer Issa López chose to create a "dark mirror" of the first season: "Where True Detective is male and it's sweaty, Night Country is cold and it's dark and it's female."
In February 2024, following the fourth-season finale, HBO renewed the series for a fifth season with López returning as showrunner. The fifth season, set in the Jamaica Bay area of New York City, is scheduled to begin filming in 2025 with a scheduled release in 2027.

Filming

for True Detective season one took place in Louisiana, partly because the shoot qualified for the state's tax incentive program that subsidized the cost of production. Production lasted 100 consecutive days, and each episode was shot on 35mm film. The crew filmed exterior shots of various constructed sets, including a remote sugarcane field outside of Erath, in addition to real life locations such as Fort Macomb, a nineteenth-century fort located outside of New Orleans.
California was selected as the setting for True Detective sophomore season. Producers were urged to avoid filming in Los Angeles and, instead, focus on the more obscure regions of the state to "capture a certain psycho-sphere ambiance". Production began in November 2014.
The third season was filmed at various locations throughout Northwest Arkansas, including Fayetteville, Bentonville, Lincoln, Rogers and Springdale. Filming began in February 2018 and was wrapped in August of the same year.

Opening sequence

Led by creative director Patrick Clair, True Detectives title sequences were developed by a collaborative team consisting of three motion-design studios: Santa Monica-based Elastic, Antibody and Breeder, both based in Australia. For the first season, Clair and his team took a variety of photos of the Louisiana scenery, which became the sequence's backbone. They superimposed these images onto low poly meshes, thanks to the use of various animation and special effects techniques. This was a meticulous process for production, since they wanted to avoid creating a digitized look for the sequence. Once its final cut took form, the team polished it by employing optical glitching and motion distortion technique. True Detectives season one opening theme is "Far from Any Road", an alternative country song originally composed by The Handsome Family for their 2003 album Singing Bones. The Sydney Morning Herald included season one's opening sequence in their list of the "Ten of the Best" title sequences on television.
Clair took a similar approach to creating the title sequence for True Detectives second season. Production used material from a number of photographers, including aerial shots captured by David Maisel. However, unlike season one, season two's title sequence incorporates deep, vivid gold and red color, thereby presenting "that more complicated view of California". Leonard Cohen's "Nevermind" is the season two opening theme, which is a song from Cohen's 2014 album Popular Problems. The theme song's lyrics change with every episode, incorporating different verses from Cohen's song.
For the fourth season, Night Country, a new sequence was commissioned from London-based Peter Anderson Studios, set to Billie Eilish's song "Bury a Friend", a major influence on the show cited by showrunner Issa López. As the fourth season sought to distinguish itself visually from prior entries, Anderson chose not to use superimposed images. Instead, the company was flown out to Iceland to film the majority of the sequence "from scratch", using the same props and locations as the show itself. Although certain scenes involved CGI and underwater sequences were filmed in a tank, the majority of the sequence was real footage. This allowed Anderson to recreate the arc of the story in miniature, tantalizing the audience with the unfolding story: "he setting is the same.  But the story, packed inside a single minute, stands on its own."

Cast and crew

Season 1

The first actor to be cast for True Detective was Matthew McConaughey, who acted as Detective Rustin "Rust" Cohle. McConaughey came to Pizzolatto's attention for his performance in the 2011 thriller film The Lincoln Lawyer, and was contracted before the series was commissioned by HBO. He and Woody Harrelson were among a pool of candidates Pizzolatto had in mind for star billing. Although McConaughey was to play Detective Martin "Marty" Hart, he later convinced Pizzolatto to cast him as Cohle. Instead, Harrelson was assigned the role of Hart at McConaughey's request. Michelle Monaghan played the female lead Maggie Hart, while Michael Potts and Tory Kittles were given the roles of Detectives Maynard Gilbough and Thomas Papania, respectively. Major recurring roles in the first season include Kevin Dunn as Major Ken Quesada and Alexandra Daddario as Lisa Tragnetti. Daddario appeared in a four-episode arc as a court reporter having an extramarital affair with one of the main characters; her nude scene with Woody Harrelson attracted much attention.
Cary Joji Fukunaga was appointed as director of True Detective first season. He competed with Alejandro González Iñárritu for the position, but Iñárritu dropped out because of other film commitments. To prepare, Fukunaga conducted research with a real-life homicide detective of the Louisiana State Police's Criminal Investigations Division. The director brought on Adam Arkapaw as the project cinematographer, and hired Alex DiGerlando, who he worked with on Benh Zeitlin's Glory at Sea, as the production designer.

Season 2

In January 2014, Pizzolatto signed a two-year contract extension with HBO, effectively renewing the series for two additional seasons. Much like its predecessor, season 2 of True Detective consists of eight episodes, all written by Pizzolatto. However, the responsibility of directing was assigned to several people. Justin Lin directed the first two episodes. Fukunaga, who directed all of season one, did not return as director; he remains, however, an executive producer, as do McConaughey and Harrelson. Pizzolatto hired fellow novelist Scott Lasser to help develop and write stories for the second half of the season.
The season's first significant casting was Colin Farrell as Detective Raymond "Ray" Velcoro. Vince Vaughn, playing the role of criminal and entrepreneur Frank Semyon, was officially cast toward the end of the month. By November, True Detective principal cast expanded to include Rachel McAdams as Detective Antigone "Ani" Bezzerides, Taylor Kitsch as California Highway Patrol Officer Paul Woodrugh, and Kelly Reilly as Jordan Semyon, Frank's wife.