Overview: A crime historian uncovers the real Peaky Blinders, their origins, their crimes, and the truth behind the hit TV phenomenon.

DVD Verdict: This documentary explores the real Peaky Blinders who emerged from 19th-century Birmingham’s poverty and violence, and how their story inspired the global TV phenomenon, guided by crime historian Carl Chinn.

Given the global reach of the Peaky Blinders, the recently released Netflix-backed movie threatened to be as momentous as a new Downton or Bridgerton, only with razor blades concealed about its person. Released a few weeks before via a pay-per-view platform, this hour-long meat-and-potatoes primer, fashioned by Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s dad, Robin Bextor, provides a lot of talking heads, drone shots and fair-use clips you would normally encounter on free-to-air Channel 5 in the UK.

Uppermost in the edit is a recognition that Steven Knight’s creation was one of those peak TV shows that blurred the televisual and cinematic. Heaven’s Gate, The Godfather and Rio Bravo provide contextualizing material; critic Michael Hogan positions the show as Knight’s Once Upon a Time in the West Midlands.

The talk is widescreen, at least, even if the delivery format remains small screen. Bextor’s most illuminating inquiries come early on, addressing how Knight expanded on stories bequeathed by his parents, which inspired first a concerted attempt to recreate Birmingham’s working-class past and thereafter a modern pop-cultural phenomenon.

Production designer Grant Montgomery recalls recycling sets in the show’s formative BBC days; Hogan hails the show’s “rebel music” – the anvil-smashing rock and pop – that helped to catch ears as well as eyes. Peaky Blinders was a popular sensation before it developed into a network-hopping brand, a subculture endorsed and sustained by the undercut sported by Cillian Murphy becoming visible everywhere from Balsall Heath to Buenos Aires.

Just as Knight’s show is emblematic of an unusually confident moment in British TV, this patchwork tribute indirectly reflects today’s mend-and-make-do arts coverage. (In previous eras, Knight’s cultural triumph would surely have merited the full Yentob treatment).

Bextor covers a fair bit of turf, taking irrepressible Brum historian Carl Chinn’s walking tour and paying a cautionary visit to the West Midlands Police Museum. Perfunctorily packaged though it all is, there’s even a lesson for the industry to heed; as Knight puts it, “If you don’t tell the stories of 70% of the population, you’re missing at least 70% of the country.” [M.M.]

Bonus Feature:
Extended interview with Carl Chinn author of The Real Peaky Blinders

Peaky Blinders: The Real Story (2026) | Official Trailer

Official Purchase Link

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