| Zero Day | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Political thriller |
| Created by | |
| Showrunner | Eric Newman |
| Directed by | Lesli Linka Glatter |
| Starring | |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of episodes | 6 |
| Production | |
| Executive producers |
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| Running time | 43–58 minutes |
| Production companies |
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| Original release | |
| Network | Netflix |
| Release | February 20, 2025 |
Zero Day is an American political thriller television series created by Eric Newman, Noah Oppenheim, and Michael Schmidt for Netflix, directed by Lesli Linka Glatter, and starring Robert De Niro and Lizzy Caplan. It is described as a political conspiracy thriller centering on a devastating global cyberattack. [1] It premiered on February 20, 2025. [2]
Speaker of the House, Richard Dreyer and Monica Kidder, orchestrate a plot against the sitting government for their own vested interests. Kidder is a sociopath billionaire and CEO of the tech company, Panoply, whose apps are instrumental in spreading malware and causing a catastrophic cyberattack, called "Zero Day," that kills over 3,400 people. Federal agents eventually link Panoply to the attack through an employee and move to arrest Kidder, who is later found dead in her cell. George Mullen—a former president, is called in by President Evelyn Mitchell to lead a nonpartisan commission to investigate the nationwide computer outage.
| No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Episode 1 | Lesli Linka Glatter | Teleplay by : Noah Oppenheim & Eric Newman Story by : Noah Oppenheim & Eric Newman & Michael Schmidt | February 20, 2025 |
| 2 | Episode 2 | Lesli Linka Glatter | Noah Oppenheim & Eric Newman | February 20, 2025 |
| 3 | Episode 3 | Lesli Linka Glatter | Roberto Patino | February 20, 2025 |
| 4 | Episode 4 | Lesli Linka Glatter | Eli Attie | February 20, 2025 |
| 5 | Episode 5 | Lesli Linka Glatter | Dee Johnson | February 20, 2025 |
| 6 | Episode 6 | Lesli Linka Glatter | Noah Oppenheim & Eric Newman | February 20, 2025 |
It was reported in November 2022 that Eric Newman, Noah Oppenheim, and Michael Schmidt had conceived of the story, with Newman and Oppenheim writing the pilot script. With Robert De Niro attached to star, he would also serve as executive producer alongside Newman, Oppenheim, Jonathan Glickman of Panoramic Media, and Schmidt. [3] The project was confirmed as greenlit by Netflix on March 1, 2023. [4] Lesli Linka Glatter would direct. [5] The series was released on February 20, 2025. [2]
In April 2023, Lizzy Caplan, Jesse Plemons, Joan Allen, and Connie Britton were revealed to have joined the cast. [1] In December 2023, Bill Camp, Matthew Modine, Dan Stevens, McKinley Belcher III, Gaby Hoffmann, Mark Ivanir and Clark Gregg joined the cast. [6] In February 2024, Mozhan Navabi joined the cast. [7]
An application for filming a train crash was submitted in Westchester County, New York for July 2023. [8] [9] Filming had started in and around New York but production was suspended with crew and cast sent home in June 2023 due to the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike. [10] Production resumed by that December. [6]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 54% approval rating with an average rating of 5.9/10, based on 61 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Zero Day has plenty of gravitas thanks to its all-star cast led by Robert De Niro, but this high-concept series' plotting is a little too goofy for it to take itself so seriously." [11] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 51 out of 100 based on 35 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. [12]
Lucy Mangan of The Guardian described this portrayal of a "good man struggling to do the right thing in a world that offers corruption at worst, and only compromise at best." [13]
The Hollywood Reporter described the series in an unflattering review as "the New York Times Opinion section brought to life in its barely left-tilting centrism." [14]
"Tech oligarchs, the gerontocracy, podcasters spouting misinformation and the erosion of civil liberties all blur into a muddy soup that's adjacent to relevancy without ever achieving it", according to a review in Variety. [15]
