Nicolas Cage has been a lot of things on screen. A con man. A weatherman. A truffle hunter. A man who steals the Declaration of Independence. He has never carried a television series. Spider-Noir hands him that job and asks him to do it in a fedora, in 1930s New York, as an aging private eye who used to be the only superhero in the city.
The show works. Not because it reinvents anything, but because it knows what it is and lets Cage be the reason to watch. It scores 7.2 of 10.
Trailer, via Prime Video.
Ben Reilly Picks Up the Case
Spider-Noir comes from Oren Uziel, who developed it for MGM+ and Prime Video. Uziel and Steve Lightfoot run the show. Sony Pictures Television produces it with Amazon MGM Studios, and it sits in an alternate universe inside the Sony’s Spider-Man Universe franchise.
Ben Reilly is the man at the center. He is a private investigator in 1930s New York, and he is not doing well. The past he is trying to leave behind is the fact that he was the Spider — the city’s one and only superhero. An exceptional case pulls him back into the suit.
That is the whole engine, and it is enough. The show does not need a multiverse to justify itself. It needs a tired man and a reason to put the mask back on.
Cage Finally Gets the Lead
Cage voiced a version of Spider-Man Noir in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Lord and Miller said in May 2023 that there was potential for him to play the character in live action. By February 2024 he was in talks. By May he was confirmed, and the series was ordered and titled Noir.
It was retitled Spider-Noir that July. Filming ran in Los Angeles from August 2024 to March 2025.
Cage has spent decades as a supporting firework — brilliant for twenty minutes, then gone. Spider-Noir gives him eight episodes to build a person instead of a moment. The performance drew particular praise from critics, and it earns that. He plays Ben low and tired, not quippy. The voice is a rasp, not a joke.
The Supporting Cast Does Real Work
The show did not skimp around its star. The cast list is deep, and several of these roles matter more than the billing suggests.
- Lamorne Morris as Joe ‘Robbie’ Robertson
- Li Jun Li as Cat Hardy
- Karen Rodriguez as Janet Ruiz
- Abraham Popoola as Lonnie Lincoln / Tombstone
- Jack Huston as Flint Marko
- Brendan Gleeson as Finn ‘Silvermane’ Byrne
Gleeson as Silvermane is the standout of the group. He is a crime boss with weight, and the show treats him like one. Popoola’s Tombstone and Huston’s Marko give the season two different kinds of threat.
Morris is the one who keeps Ben human. Robbie is the grounding presence, and Morris plays him without sentiment.
The show also cast Lukas Haas, Cameron Britton, Cary Christopher, Michael Kostroff, Scott MacArthur, Joe Massingill, Whitney Rice and Amanda Schull in recurring roles. Andrew Lewis Caldwell came aboard in November. Amy Aquino and Andrew Robinson joined in February 2025. Kai Caster took a guest role the next month.
Eight Episodes, One Night
MGM+ released all eight episodes at once on May 25, 2026, in the United States, in color. Two days later, Prime Video put it out globally in both black-and-white and color.
| Date | Platform | Format | Episodes |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 25, 2026 | MGM+ (US) | Color | All 8 |
| May 27, 2026 | Prime Video (global) | Black-and-white and color | All 8 |
Both cuts exist, and the source lists them side by side. The black-and-white version is the one the show’s look invites, but the color release is the one MGM+ put out first. The choice to drop the whole season in one night fits the material — this is a case that unfolds, not a weekly appointment.
What Spider-Noir Gets Right
The show understands that a period detective story lives or dies on texture, and it has texture. The 1930s setting is not decoration. Ben’s age is not decoration either. He is a man whose best years are behind him, and the show lets that sit.
The mystery structure holds up across the season. The case that pulls Ben back in is the spine, and the show does not abandon it for spectacle.
The weakness is familiarity. Spider-Noir is a private-eye story with a superhero past bolted on, and both halves have been done before. The show rarely surprises. It executes.
Cage’s casting is the thing that lifts it. Without him, this is a competent genre exercise. With him, it is a reason to subscribe.
The Emmy Run and the Cancellation
The series received 11 Primetime Emmy Award nominations and won five. That is a strong haul for a first season on MGM+.
In September 2026, the series was cancelled.
That decision is the part worth watching. A show with 11 nominations and five wins, a movie star in his first lead television role, and a built-in franchise connection did not get a second season. The numbers that matter to a streamer are not awards. The source does not say what came after the cancellation, and this paper will not guess.
Our Verdict on Spider-Noir
Spider-Noir is a good show that arrived at the wrong moment, or the right one, depending on what you want from it. It is a self-contained eight-episode story with a beginning, a case and an ending. It does not need a second season to justify the first.
What it does need is an audience willing to sit with a slow, sad man in a hat. Cage gives that performance. The supporting cast gives him something to play against. The black-and-white cut gives the whole thing a look that most superhero television avoids.
The flaws are real. The plotting is conventional. The show leans on noir shorthand it does not always earn. But the central idea — a retired hero forced back into the work by a case he cannot walk away from — is executed with care.
Spider-Noir is not the best thing Cage has ever done. It is the most sustained. Eight episodes of a man deciding whether to be the person he was. That is worth the subscription, and it is worth the two days it takes to watch.
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