steal is your first binge watch of 2026. Created and written by Sotiris Nikias, this Prime Video high-finance heist thriller set in the heart of London’s City is like a mix of Wall Street and Heat. Or Industry meets Line Of Duty, for a more British comparison. Set around successful pension funds investment company Lochmill Capital, Zara (Game Of Thrones‘ Sophie Turner) works in the trade processing department alongside young colleague Luke (Archie Madekwe). Before long, she’ll be wishing she didn’t.
Things kick off with an armed gang, all wearing creepily effective prosthetic masks to cover their faces, storming the office. Picking out Zara and Luke, they force them to load six trades into the system and within minutes the thieves have made off with a staggering $4billion, transferred to an anonymous account in the British Virgin Islands. A theft of pension money that is liable to wreck the lives of thousands, it’s anything but a victimless crime. The cops – led by DCI Rhys (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) – are left to puzzle through the pieces.
“Find the thieves, find the money,” says Rhys’ colleague DI Ellie Lloyd (Ellie James), which makes Steal sound rather simple. It’s not. This six-episode mini-series is soon spiralling into much bigger terrain as crooked billionaires and MI5 get involved in the aftermath of the heist. It doesn’t take long for Rhys and Ellie to sniff out that this may have been an inside job, with Zara and Luke top of the suspects list. How involved are they? By the look of Luke’s panic-stricken face as he calls Zara from inside of his own wardrobe, worried that his apartment has been bugged, very.
Directed by Sam Miller (I May Destroy You) and Hettie Macdonald (Normal People), two filmmakers who know a thing or two about water-cooler shows, there’s a propulsive energy to Steal with cliff-hanger episodes that’ll keep you hooked.
Sophie Turner (Game Of Thrones, X-Men and soon to be Lara Croft in a new Tomb Raider reboot) gives us a hero you can root for in a world of over-privileged mess-ups. Madekwe, who was excellent as an arrogant British musician in LA in the recent Lurker, is enjoyable as the naive Luke. There’s also a lovely cameo from Peter Mullan as arrogant tycoon Sir Toby Gould, who is unwittingly embroiled in the robbery, and Andrew Howard – who played the thug who tortures John David Washington at the beginning of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet – is a muscular presence as one of the gang members, who themselves are in way over their heads.
The ever-brilliant Anna Maxwell Martin also grabs the scruff of the show when she appears as a venal MI5 spook. Slightly more strangely, The Inbetweeners’ Simon Bird pops up on TV screens as a political commentator of sorts, casting his eye over proceedings. It doesn’t quite work but it’s a rare misstep in a show that stokes tensions right into the very final episode. Yes, there are moments that ring far-fetched but for a tale that digs into wealth, greed and the one per cent, it’s right on the money.
‘Steal’ is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video now