The best AMC show you’re not watching just dropped a new season on Netflix today

Here’s one that’s slipped through most people’s radar, which absolutely shouldn’t have: Dark Winds, AMC’s sharp, slow-burn crime series, has just dropped its fourth season on Netflix (as of today, if you’re keeping track). If you’ve missed it so far—well, so have most awards panels and general viewers, despite the fact it’s quietly managed spotless scores on Rotten Tomatoes ever since its debut. It might just be the channel’s most criminally overlooked show of the past several years.

Just the Basics: What You’re Getting Into

For anyone unfamiliar: Dark Winds is an atmospheric psychological thriller set in the 1970s, based on Tony Hillerman’s Leaphorn & Chee novels. The whole thing centres on Joe Leaphorn, Jim Chee, and Bernadette Manuelito—three Navajo Tribal Police officers stuck handling a string of increasingly violent and bizarre cases out on the reservation. Don’t expect cliches, though: It’s all handled with a fair bit of care and grit, far from your typical procedural fodder.

The series is the brainchild of creator Graham Roland (yes, that’s the same one who did Jack Ryan), but oddly enough has Robert Redford and George R.R. Martin attached as executive producers. Bit of an odd couple, granted. The show first aired in June 2022, and given it’s been quietly racking up series renewals, season five is already locked in for 2027.

Cast and Characters—An Unlikely Ensemble

• Zach McClarnon (Longmire) leads as Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn
• Kiowa Gordon (The Twilight Saga) as Deputy Jim Chee
• Jessica Matten (Frontier) plays Sergeant Bernadette Manuelito
• For season four: Franka Potente (Run Lola Run) arrives as Irene Vaggan
• Isabel DeRoy-Olson (Fancy Dance) is Billie Tsosie
• Chaske Spencer (The Twilight Saga) returns as Sonny
• Luke Barnett (The Crossing Over Express) brings in FBI Special Agent Toby Shaw
• Titus Welliver (Bosch) shows up as Dominic McNair
• A. Martinez (Longmire) is back as Acting Chief Gordo Sena of the Scarborough Police Department

Season 4: Off the Reservation

This year’s batch of eight hour-long episodes puts our trio on the hunt for a missing Navajo girl—a search that punts them straight out of their desert comfort zone and into proper gritty Los Angeles, 1970s style.

They’re up against the clock, tracking an obsessive murderer tied to organised crime. No easy resolutions or tidy endings are promised here; that’s sort of the show’s thing.

'Consisting of eight hour-long episodes, Season 4 focuses on the search for a missing Navajo girl, which takes Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelito from the safety of the Navajo Nation to the gritty terrain of 1970s Los Angeles in a race against the clock to save her from an obsessive killer with ties to organized crime.'

If you actually enjoy a bit of tough, character-driven detective work, with extra ‘seventies’ atmosphere thrown in, you’ll probably want to stop overlooking this one.