Chernobyl, an award-winning five-part historical drama series, premiered on HBO in May 2019.
The series, co-produced by HBO and Sky UK, follows the 1986 nuclear plant disaster that started in one of the reactors at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power plant in the Ukrainian USSR.
The critically-acclaimed miniseries quickly became one of the most popular series on HBO after being released in 2019. On Rotten Tomatoes, the series earned an approval rating of 96 percent based on 92 critical reviews and an audience score of 98 percent.
Chernobyl won Best Television Limited Series at the 77th Golden Globe Awards, while actor Stellan Skarsgård (who played Boris Shcherbina) won Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role.
Chernobyl also received multiple nominations and awards at the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards.
The show won Outstanding Limited Series, Writing and Directing, while Jared Harris (who played Valery Legasov), Emily Watson (Ulana Khomyuk), and Skarsgård received nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor, Supporting Actress, and Supporting Actor, respectively.
Due to the show’s popularity and widespread critical acclaim, many TV fans have been wondering if the show is available on Netflix, while others have been asking whether Chernobyl will ever be added to the streaming platform.
Here is everything we know.
Is Chernobyl on Netflix?
Chernobyl is not currently available for streaming on Netflix.
Will Chernobyl ever be added to Netflix?
As far as we know, HBO is not planning to license Chernobyl to Netflix.
If you live in the U.S. you will currently need to subscribe to HBO, HBO Go, or HBO Now to watch Chernobyl. After July 31, you will need to subscribe to HBO Max instead of HBO Go to see the series.
You can also access the series through Google Play, Hulu, YouTube, Vudu, and Amazon.
Hulu and Amazon Prime Video subscribers can access the series by adding HBO for a seven-day free trial.
Chernobyl cast
The miniseries stars Jared Harris and Emily Watson as Soviet nuclear physicists Valery Legasov and Ulana Khomyuk, while Stellan Skarsgård plays Soviet Deputy Prime Minister Boris Shcherbina.
Jared Harris is known for his roles as Lane Pryce in Mad Men, Anderson Dawes in The Expanse, and Francis Crozier in The Terror. His movie credits include The Hodge in the Mortal Instrument: City of Bones, Carrigan Burke in Poltergeist, and Urbani in The Devil’s Violinist.
Emily Watson is known for her roles in The Boxer, Angela’s Ashes, Red Dragon, Miss Potter, Corpse Bride, and The Theory of Everything.
Chernobyl cast members also include Adam Nagaitis, who plays Pripyat firefighter Vasily Ignatenko, and Jessie Buckley, who was cast as Lyudmilla Ignatenko, Vasily’s wife.
Nagaitis’ previous credits include the role of Caulker’s Mate Cornelius Hickey on AMC’s The Terror.
Other cast members include Paul Ritter as Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant deputy chief engineer Anatoly Dyatlov, Adrian Rawlins as chief engineer Nikolai Fomin, and Ralph Ineson as chief supervisor Nikolai Tarakanov.
Ritter played Guy Haines in Quantum of Solace and Eldred Worple in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. He plays Martin Goodman on the British sitcom Friday Night Dinner and Randolph Miller in the British police procedural No Offence.
If Ralph Ineson, who plays cleanup supervisor Nikolai Tarakanov, looks familiar, it’s probably because you saw him playing Dagmer Cleftjaw in Game of Thrones or Amycus Carrow in the Harry Potter film series.
What is Chernobyl about?
Chernobyl, a five-episode series created and written by Craig Mazin (The Huntsman: Winter’s War) and directed by Johan Renck (Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead), tells the story of the 1986 nuclear accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant from the perspective of the people who were intimately involved in the disaster.
The disaster occurred on April 26, 1986, after a massive explosion ripped through one of the reactors at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
The explosion released radioactive material that spread from the vicinity of Chernobyl in Ukraine to Belarus, Russia, and across Europe.
The incident was later associated with a high incidence of thyroid cancer among the affected population.
Valery Legasov (played by Jared Harris), a top Soviet nuclear physicist, was one of the first response team members to grasp the scope of the disaster.
Nuclear physicist Ulana Khomyuk (played by Emily Watson) faced obstacles while investigating in an attempt to solve the mystery regarding what caused the disaster.
Shows similar to Chernobyl you can watch on Netflix
Although Chernobyl is not available for streaming on Netflix, a few Netflix shows similar to Chernobyl are currently available for viewing.
An episode of Netflix’s Dark Tourist, released in July 2018, follows New Zealand journalist David Farrier as he visits Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant area affected by the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011.
The catastrophe was triggered by an earthquake and a tsunami.
Chernobyl Diaries, a fictional 2012 horror film that tells the story of a group of youngsters who visit Ukraine’s Chernobyl area, is another option. The movie stars Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Dimitri Diatchenko, and Olivia Taylor Dudley.