May 26, 2026 — 11:48amSpider-Noir ★★★★Few actors are as divisive as Nicolas Cage. There are those who love his mannerist mumblings, twitching and unconventional line readings – why say the words when you could inexplicably SHOUT THEM – and there are those who find all of that unbearably irritating. Whatever side of the fence you land on, Spider-Noir will prove your point.Nicolas Cage as Ben Reilly/The SpiderAaron Epstein/PrimeAs Ben Reilly, aka The Spider, Cage employs all the tricks in his repertoire, and a few more to boot. Reilly is a private detective – a Dick, in noir-speak – in 1930s New York. Thanks to an incident in Germany during World War I, he’s also a superhero. For much of the series, though, he is far more gumshoe than web-spinner.The big gimmick of this enjoyable and inventive spin on the superhero genre is that you can watch it two ways: in colour or in black and white. It’s the exact same show, just parsed through different colour treatments (easy to do in the digital age). But while I love the idea of watching it in black and white (and have opted for that most of the time), the reality is some of the detail is lost because it’s been lit and shot for colour rather than the monochrome format.More broadly, I like the idea of taking Spidey to the world of Jimmy Cagney et al (we even catch Reilly watching the actor on a cinema screen, mouthing his dialogue). Spider-Man may not have come into being until 1962, but Batman was born in 1939, and the first screen adaptation (15 short films of around 20 minutes each) in 1943 was a black-and-white offering that couldn’t help carry some of the DNA of film noir.So, Spider-Noir feels right. But it also feels more like a hybrid of that early Batman and HBO’s 2020 series Perry Mason (starring Matthew Rhys) than it does a descendant of Marvel’s comic book Spider-Man Noir, who emerged in 2009 as an alternative universe version of Peter Parker. That said, the Spider-Verse allows for all sorts of cross-fertilisation – an idea at the very heart of the Spider-Man character – so who knows where this take from Sony Television and Amazon’s MGM Studios (rather than Disney’s Marvel) will ultimately end up.The plot has Reilly as a washed-up drunk tormented by his failure to save the woman he loved years ago. He’s retired The Spider in protest at his own failings, and that has created the space for gangster Silvio Manfredi, aka Silverman (Brendan Gleeson), to rise unopposed to the top.Silverman has the cops in the palm of his hand, nightclub singer Cat Hardy (Li Jun Li) under his thumb, and the mayor (Michael Kostroff) wrapped around his little finger. And when he enlists a handful of super mutants to his cause, he has the muscle he needs to run the city from top to bottom.What can a poor human-arachnid do but put the suit – heavy woollen mask, trilby, leather vest and trench coat – back on and fight the good fight, no matter the aches and pains the effort and the venom cause him.The sight of Cage struggling with the after-effects of his labours, with a hangover, with his nascent feelings for Cat, with the hallucinations wrought by a mad doctor determined to find the source of his powers is really something. To embrace or to run a mile from all that is yours to decide, but for me, it’s a lot of fun.Spider-Noir is streaming on Amazon Prime Video from May 27.Want more TV? We’ve got you.Newsletter: Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.Rivals: He should be a bad example, but TV’s biggest love rat is a hit with a surprising audience.Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed review: School mums, sex workers and Murray Bartlett: This funny whodunit has it all.The Boroughs review: Nobody puts nanna (and Geena Davis) in the corner in this retirement home adventure from the Stranger Things creators.Shark!: Olympian Ariarne Titmus is terrified of sharks. So why did she decide to swim with them for this new reality show?Shut Your Big Fat Mouth John Safran!: The serial provocateur mocks Nazis and offence, but what is his new documentary actually saying?From our partners