''Transatlantic'' is a

historical drama A historical drama (also period drama, period piece or just period) is a dramatic work set in the past, usually used in the context of film and television, which presents history, historical events and characters with varying degrees of fiction s ...

miniseries In the United States, a miniseries or mini-series is a television show or series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. Many miniseries can also be referred to, and shown, as a television film. " Limited series" is ...

created by

Anna Winger Anna Winger (née LeVine; born 1970) is an American writer, producer, screenwriter, and photographer who lives in Berlin, Germany. She is co-creator of the television dramas ''Deutschland 83,'' '' Deutschland 86,'' '' Deutschland 89,'' and ''Unor ...

and Daniel Hendler, based on the 2019 novel ''The Flight Portfolio'' by Julie Orringer. The novel explores the historic

Emergency Rescue Committee Varian Mackey Fry (October 15, 1907 – September 13, 1967) was an American journalist. Fry ran a rescue network in Vichy France from August 1940 to September 1941 that helped 2,000 anti-Nazi and Jewish refugees, mostly artists and intellec ...

that operated in

Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...

, Spain, and Portugal in 1940 after the fall of France. The series includes or refers to well-known artists or scholars of the time who were saved by the Committee or interacted with it. The series closed the 2023

Series Mania Series Mania () is an international festival dedicated to television series, held annually in Lille, France. It is the largest TV series event in Europe and an important premiere platform. ''Series Mania'' comprises an institute of the same name ...

festival in March, ahead of its

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

premiere on 7 April 2023.

Cast and characters

Main

Gillian Jacobs Gillian MacLaren Jacobs (; born October 19, 1982) is an American actress. She is known for playing Britta Perry in the NBC sitcom ''Community'' (2009–2015), Mickey Dobbs in the Netflix romantic comedy series '' Love'' (2016–2018), and Mar ...

Mary Jayne Gold Mary Jayne Gold (August 12, 1909 – October 5, 1997) was an American heiress who played an important role helping European Jews and intellectuals escape from Nazi-occupied France in 1940–41, during World War II. Many had fled there in ...

* Lucas Englander as

Albert Hirschman Albert may refer to: Companies * Albert Computers, Inc., a computer manufacturer in the 1980s * Albert Czech Republic, a supermarket chain in the Czech Republic * Albert Heijn, a supermarket chain in the Netherlands * Albert Market, a street mar ...

Cory Michael Smith Cory Michael Smith is an American actor and producer. He appeared in 2013 in '' Breakfast at Tiffany's'' on Broadway, which starred Emilia Clarke. He has appeared in several of Todd Haynes's films, including '' Carol'' (2015), '' Wonderstruck'' ...

Varian Fry Varian Mackey Fry (October 15, 1907 – September 13, 1967) was an American journalist. Fry ran a rescue network in Vichy France from August 1940 to September 1941 that helped 2,000 anti-Nazi and Jewish refugees, mostly artists and intellec ...

* Ralph Amoussou as Paul Kandjo * Deleila Piasko as Lisa Fittko *

Amit Rahav Amit Rahav (Hebrew: עמית רהב; born 9 August 1995) is an Israeli actor. A graduate of Yoram Loewenstein Performing Arts Studio in Tel Aviv, he began his career on the Israeli stage. He landed his first TV role in ''Mishpacha Sholetet'' (20 ...

as Thomas Lovegrove *

Grégory Montel Grégory Montel (born 20 September 1976) is a French actor. Early life From Digne-les-Bains, in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. Career In 2013, his role in ' as Michel Delpech earned him a Cesar Award long-list nomination for Most Promising Actor. ...

as Philippe Frot *

Corey Stoll Corey Daniel Stoll (born March 14, 1976) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Congressman Peter Russo on the Netflix political thriller series ''House of Cards'' (2013–2016), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination in ...

as Graham Patterson

Recurring

Moritz Bleibtreu Moritz Johann Bleibtreu ( is a German film actor, voice actor, and film director. He has been a successful actor in many movies such as ''Run Lola Run, Das Experiment, The Baader Meinhof Complex'', and Atomised (film), ''Elementary Particles''. ...

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( ; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Jewish mysticism, Western M ...

Alexander Fehling Alexander Fehling is a German film and stage actor. He is best known for portraying Master Sgt. Wilhelm in the 2009 Quentin Tarantino World War II film '' Inglourious Basterds'', and as Jonas Hollander season 5 in the Showtime original series ' ...

Max Ernst Max Ernst (; 2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German-born painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and surrealism in Europe. He had no formal artistic trai ...

Louis-Do de Lencquesaing Louis-Do de Lencquesaing (born 25 December 1963) is a French actor and film director. He has a daughter with cinematographer Caroline Champetier, the actress Alice de Lencquesaing. Filmography As an actor *''Les dernières heures du milléna ...

André Breton André Robert Breton (; ; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') ...

* Hande Kodja as

Jacqueline Lamba Jacqueline Lamba (17 November 1910 – 20 July 1993) was a French painter and surrealist artist. She was married to the surrealist André Breton. Biography Lamba was born in the Paris suburb of Saint-Mandé, on 17 November 1910 (contrary to at ...

Jonas Nay Jonas Nay (, born 20 September 1990) is a German actor and musician known for starring as Martin Rauch in ''Deutschland 83'' and its sequels, ''Deutschland 86'' and '' Deutschland 89''. Early life Jonas Nay was born in Lübeck in 1990, days ...

Walter Mehring Walter Mehring (29 April 1896 – 3 October 1981) was a German author and one of the most prominent satirical authors in the Weimar Republic. He was banned during the Third Reich and fled the country. Early life Mehring was Jewish, the so ...

* Luke Thompson as Hiram "Harry" Bingham *

Jodhi May Jodhi May (born 8 May 1975) is an English actress. Starting her career as a child actress, she is the youngest recipient (age 12) of the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress, for '' A World Apart'' (1988). Her other credits include '' ...

Peggy Guggenheim Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim ( ; August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979) was an American art collector, bohemianism, bohemian, and socialite. Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who we ...

* Rafaela Nicolay as Margaux * Birane Ba as Jacques "Petit" Kandjo *

Henriette Confurius Henriette Confurius (born 5 February 1991) is a German actress known to international audiences for her role in the Netflix sci-fi television series '' Tribes of Europa''. Life and career Henriette Confurius' father is German-Dutch writer Ger ...

as Lena Fischmann *

Lolita Chammah Lolita Chammah (born 1 October 1983) is a French actress. Background Chammah is the daughter of Ronald Chammah (of Syrian Jewish origin), and Isabelle Huppert. She grew up in Paris and had her first roles during childhood. Lolita Chammah has ...

as Lorène Letoret * Yoli Fuller as Souleymane Toure * Nadiv Molcho as Bill Freier * Morgane Ferru as

Ursula Hirschmann Ursula Hirschmann (2 September 1913 – 8 January 1991) was a German anti-fascist activist and an advocate of European federalism. Life and career Hirschmann was born into a middle-class Jewish family to Carl Hirschmann and Hedwig Marcuse in ...

* Alexa Karolinski as

Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt (born Johanna Arendt; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a German and American historian and philosopher. She was one of the most influential political theory, political theorists of the twentieth century. Her work ...

Hanno Koffler Hanno Koffler (born March 25, 1980) is a German actor and musician. His most famous films include '' Summer Storm'', '' Krabat'' and ''Free Fall''. He also starred in the Oscar-nominated film, ''Never Look Away'' (2018), directed by Florian Henc ...

as Hans Fittko * Yulia Antoshchuk as Ukrainian Woman *

Ian Turiak Ian or Iain is a name of Scottish Gaelic origin, which is derived from the Hebrew given name (Yohanan, ') and corresponds to the English name John. The spelling Ian is an Anglicization of the Scottish Gaelic forename ''Iain''. This name is a popu ...

as Wealthy Businessman

Episodes

Production

Development

''Transatlantic'' was the first project announced in September 2021 under the creative partnership of

and

's Berlin-based production company Studio Airlift. The seven-part series is created by Winger and Daniel Hendler, and produced by Winger and Camille McCurry. Stéphanie Chuat, Véronique Reymond and Mia Meyer led the directing team. In a March 2023 interview with ''

Deadline Hollywood ''Deadline Hollywood'', commonly known as ''Deadline'' and also referred to as ''Deadline.com'', is an online news site founded as the news blog ''Deadline Hollywood Daily'' by Nikki Finke in 2006. It is updated several times a day, with en ...

'' ahead of ''Transatlantics Séries Mania screening, Winger said she took inspiration from the film ''

Casablanca Casablanca (, ) is the largest city in Morocco and the country's economic and business centre. Located on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Chaouia (Morocco), Chaouia plain in the central-western part of Morocco, the city has a populatio ...

'' (1942).

Casting

Casting was reportedly under way as of January 2022. The cast were announced in March 2022, with

, and

set to star alongside Lucas Englander, Ralph Amoussou, Deleila Piasko, and

, Luke Thompson,

, Rafaela Nicolay and

round out the cast.

Filming

Principal photography began on location in

, France in February 2022. Although the real Hôtel Splendide in Marseille is now used as administrative offices, producers were able to modify the environment and film on location at No. 31

Boulevard d'Athènes A boulevard is a type of broad avenue planted with rows of trees, or in parts of North America, any urban highway or wide road in a commercial district. In Europe, boulevards were originally circumferential roads following the line of former c ...

. The scenes depicting Villa Air-Bel were filmed at Château Mont Vallon outside the town of Vitrolles.

Reception

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which uses a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

, assigned the miniseries a score of 64 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". However, the series has been criticised for its historical inaccuracies.Price, Richard (4 June 2023)
"Resistance Is Futile"
''Labour Hub''. Retrieved 4 June 2023.

References

External links

* * {{Netflix original current series 2023 French television series debuts 2023 German television series debuts 2023 French television series endings 2023 German television series endings French English-language television shows Netflix television dramas French-language television shows German-language television shows Television series based on actual events Television series set in 1940 Television shows set in Marseille Works about refugees World War II television drama series German English-language television shows Multilingual television series 2023 LGBTQ-related television