A man in glasses recruits eight robbers, each with nothing to lose. They take 67 hostages inside the Royal Mint of Spain and stay for 11 days to print €984 million while elite police forces wait outside.
That is the setup for Money Heist, the Spanish heist crime drama created by Álex Pina. It first ran on Antena 3 as 15 episodes, from 2 May 2017 to 23 November 2017. Netflix acquired global streaming rights in late 2017, re-cut the series into 22 shorter episodes, and later ordered more. The final part arrived on 3 December 2021.
Trailer, via Netflix.
The Professor Recruits Eight
Álvaro Morte plays the Professor, the mysterious man who recruits eight people who choose city names as aliases for anonymity. Úrsula Corberó is Tokyo, the narrator. Itziar Ituño is Raquel Murillo. Pedro Alonso is Berlín. Miguel Herrán is Río. Esther Acebo is Estocolmo. Jaime Lorente is Denver. Najwa Nimri is Alicia Sierra. Enrique Arce is Arturo Román. Rodrigo de la Serna is Palermo. Darko Perić is Helsinki. Hovik Keuchkerian is Bogotá.
The plan is to enter the Royal Mint of Spain, take 67 people hostage, and stay inside for 11 days to print €984 million. The story is told in a real-time-like fashion, with flashbacks, time-jumps and hidden character motivations. Tokyo narrates, and she is not reliable.
A Villain Who Is Not Quite a Villain
The Professor was designed as a charismatic yet shy villain who could convince the robbers to follow him and make the audience sympathetic to their resistance against the powerful banks. Morte described the character as “a tremendous box of surprises” that “end up shaping this character because he never ceases to generate uncertainty,” making it unclear for the audience if the character is good or bad.
That uncertainty is the engine of Money Heist. The show does not ask you to choose a side. It asks you to sit inside the Mint with people who have nothing left, and to watch what they do when the police close in.
Casting took place in late February 2016 and ran more than two months. The characters were not fully fleshed out at the start. They took shape based on the actors’ performances. Casting directors Eva Leira and Yolanda Serrano wanted actors who could play empathetic robbers with believable love and family connections. The producers originally wanted a 50-year-old Harvard professor type, with the looks of Spanish actor José Coronado. The role was proposed to Javier Gutiérrez, but he was already committed to the film Campeones. Leira and Serrano pushed for Morte, whom they knew from the soap opera El secreto de Puente Viejo. His prime-time television experience was limited. He got the part anyway.
From Antena 3 to Netflix
Money Heist was initially intended as a two-part limited series. Netflix acquired global streaming rights in late 2017. Its first re-cut part arrived on 20 December 2017. A second part followed on 6 April 2018. That April, Netflix renewed the series for 16 new episodes with a significantly increased budget. Part 3, with eight episodes, was released on 19 July 2019. Part 4, also with eight episodes, was released on 3 April 2020. A documentary, Money Heist: The Phenomenon, premiered the same day. In July 2020, Netflix renewed the show for a fifth and final part, released in two five-episode volumes on 3 September and 3 December 2021.
The second heist moves to the Bank of Spain. The group is forced out of hiding, adds members, and aims to escape with gold and rescue an old friend. The same mechanics return: hostages, police, a clock.
What the Show Gets Right
The unreliable narrator is the smartest thing here. Tokyo tells the story, and she gets things wrong. She skips. She withholds. The show uses flashbacks and time-jumps not as decoration but as a way to keep the audience off balance. You cannot trust the account you are watching, and that makes every episode feel unstable in the right way.
The ensemble is deep. Morte’s Professor is the calm center. Ituño’s Murillo gives the police side a face, and Nimri’s Alicia Sierra does the same in the later parts.
The real-time-like structure is a gamble. Eleven days inside the Mint is a long time, and the show commits to it.
The Score
Money Heist holds a 10.0/10 critical score and a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, according to the published figure cited via Wikipedia. That is the number the record gives. Whether it holds up is another question, and this paper’s answer is that it does not quite. A perfect score flattens a show whose best material is uneven — the first heist is tighter than what follows, and the later parts lean hard on the same mechanics.
What the score does capture is ambition. The show takes a simple premise — rob a mint, print money, get out — and turns it into a study of people who have nothing to lose. It is not a subtle show. It is not trying to be.
The parts that matter most are the ones that slow down. The Professor’s five months of seclusion. The 67 hostages. The 11 days. The €984 million. The show gives you the numbers and then asks what they cost. That is the part worth watching.
KEY FACTS
– Score: 10.0/10 (Rotten Tomatoes 100%, via Wikipedia)
– Created by: Álex Pina
– Network: Netflix, Antena 3
– Seasons: 3; Episodes: 41
– First aired: 2 May 2017; Last aired: 3 December 2021
– Original Antena 3 run: 15 episodes, 2 May 2017 – 23 November 2017
– Netflix Part 1: 20 December 2017; Part 2: 6 April 2018
– Part 3: 19 July 2019; Part 4: 3 April 2020
– Final part: 3 September and 3 December 2021
– Heist target: €984 million, 67 hostages, 11 days
– Genres: Crime, Drama
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