David Tennant has played heroes, villains, and everything in between, but in Netflix’sInside Man, he steps into something far more unsettling — a role grounded in fear, logic, and collapse. It’s not the loudest thriller on the platform, but it’s built for binge culture.
The series, created by Steven Moffat, only runs four episodes. Yet within that short runtime,it distills moral chaos into something razor-sharp and unforgettable.Tennant plays a man of faith caught in a web of decisions he never thought he’d make, which is just one reason why it ranks as one ofNetflix’s best miniseries.
Considered amongTennant’s best roles outside of Doctor Who, his performance builds tension opposite Stanley Tucci’s philosophical killer, which critics raved about inInside Manreviews.
David Tennant Gives A Career-Best Performance In Netflix’s Inside Man
A Vicar’s Good Intentions Spiral Into A Moral Catastrophe
Tennant’s character is a small-town vicar — measured, principled, and familiar. That’s what makes the unraveling so effective. He’s not playing a villain. Rather,Tennant’s performance captures a man driven by mounting pressurerather than malicious intent.
There’s no dramatic shift in tone or sudden heel turn. Instead, Tennant tightens every scene with internal conflict. His face carries the burden of a man who still wants to believe he’s good, even as circumstances prove otherwise. The choices are wrong, but they’re disturbingly understandable.
What makes his performance so gripping is how it collides with Stanley Tucci’s character, Jefferson Grieff, one that rivals Tucci’s best roles across film and TV.
What makes his performance so gripping is howit collides with Stanley Tucci’s character, Jefferson Grieff, one that rivalsTucci’s best roles across film and TV. He plays a brilliant prisoner who solves crimes from death row. Tucci plays it with eerie calm, giving the show’s central mystery that philosophical counterpoint. Tennant, unraveling in real time, becomes the emotional anchor.
Tucci’s Grieff operates from a position of complete clarity. He’sa man who has already accepted the worst parts of himselfand now dissects morality with unnerving focus. Tennant’s vicar, meanwhile, is still pretending he has control. The scenes that connect them, often indirectly, create a tension between introspection and denial.
Inside Manhas a 67% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Grieff knows exactly what people are capable of. Tennant’s character is still finding out. That gap reveals something more complex than a binary of good and evil. It shows how self-awareness, or the lack of it, defines the boundaries of what someone can justify to themselves.
Why Inside Man Is An Underrated Thriller Masterpiece
A Four-Episode Morality Play That Never Wastes A Scene
Inside Man, one of thebest British shows on Netflix,doesn’t try to shock its audience with twists or gore. Instead, it leans into ethical discomfort.Its tension comes from choices made too quickly and consequences that don’t wait. Each episode builds toward inevitability, not surprise, which gives the narrative real weight.
This isn’t a thriller about uncovering the truth. It’s about living with it. And that focus gives the series an unusually tight sense of direction. Every scene feeds into a single question: How far would you go to protect someone you love?
The story forces its characters into scenarios where logic collides with instinct. When a child’s safety is involved, when a secret could destroy a life,the show doesn’t offer time to weigh pros and cons.
It drops its protagonist into a moment where the right answer feels unreachable, and the wrong one arrives first. That moral pressure is what drives the tension, not external villains or conspiracy plots. It’s the fear of what we’re capable of when protecting someone that outweighs our belief in what’s right.
Moffat’s script resists the urge to moralize. There are no heroes here — just people reacting to stress, shame, and survival.
Moffat’s script resists the urge to moralize. There are no heroes here — just people reacting to stress, shame, and survival. It’s a rarity for Netflix, a platform more known for genre spectacle than moral storytelling.Inside Manstrips that all away and dares you to watch someone break.
