FX's 3-Part Psychological Thriller Remake Is Way Better Than Its 59% RT Score

Published Oct 4, 2026, 3:41 PM EDT

Anthony Crislip has always loved movies and television, and has been published in outlets such as SlashFilm and Ultimate Classic Rock. While working as a film programmer or judge at a film festival, he has striven to develop interest in underseen films. He is a particular fan of digging deep into forgotten corners of film history.

In the world of classic films brought to life as television events, the field is littered with series that cannot quite escape the shadow of their originals. There are surprisingly entertaining reinventions, like 2026’s Cape Fear, but more often than not, they end up like 2020’s Black Narcissus. The 1947 film stands as one of the most beloved British projects of all time, as well as a high-water mark for the careers of its directors, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. The miniseries has not had the same luck, taking Rumer Godden’s original novel about nuns losing themselves in the Himalayas and adding a new dimension while losing the film’s haunting, nightmarish power. Its 59% Rotten Tomatoes score suggests that it had a hard time carving an identity for itself, even with strong performances.

Black Narcissus concerns an Anglican mission to establish a school in the Himalayas, with British nuns working as educators. Sister Clodagh (Gemma Arterton) is tasked with leading the unsuccessful school, which has been erected in a former harem, suggesting the pent-up sexuality that the series will make a meal of. Much like Deborah Kerr’s work in the original film, Arterton carries both the ambivalence of somebody not fully committed to the mission and the goodness of one who hopes to be. Another strength of the series is that it can view the original story of British colonization in India through a more modern lens. The film was certainly cynical in its outlook, but it was still rooted in paternalistic views.

FX's 'Black Narcissus' Remake Is Appropriately Nuanced

The additional space carved out in the Black Narcissus miniseries across three episodes means that it can create a more three-dimensional environment for the characters. Told as a letter from Sister Clodagh to pessimistic Mother Dorothea (Dame Diana Rigg in her final performance, adding to the Game of Thrones-style political intrigue), the series gives more room to the nuns’ complex sisterhood and fears of the unknown. While it doesn’t go full-on The Devils, it does provide some additional dramatic depth, digging into the political difficulties of running a school in a strange land and the clash between Western ideals and an older way of life. The series does create its own take on some of the movie’s most famous imagery, particularly the palace’s frightening location on the edge of a mountain.

Rumer Godden grew up in British India and drew on that experience for a number of novels, but Black Narcissus, with its fascinating repression and subtle psychological probing, was major. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger took their passion for theater, opera, and painting and created one of the most memorable climaxes in film history out of the book’s finale, as well as one of their best movies. More true to the book, the series emphasizes the ghosts of the mountain village and the discomfiting erotic art on the walls. Flashbacks recount the suicide decades earlier of Princess Srimati (Gianni Gonsalves), whose tragic passing has haunting resonance for the nuns. As they go stir-crazy in the former harem, with Sister Ruth (Aisling Franciosi) losing herself in lust for the agent Mr. Dean (Alessandro Nivola), the failure of the mission becomes more and more undeniable.

Repression Leads to Destruction in 'Black Narcissus'

While the 1947 film begins in a place of melodrama that never truly lets up, the series can be relatively breezy in the early stages. The palace’s political complexities gradually overtake any hope that the sisters can accomplish what they hoped for, especially as winter descends on the mountain, cutting short Sister Phillipa’s (Karen Bryson) attempt to start a garden. As in Showtime's Yellowjackets, the external pressures of the environment only exacerbate the women's internal tension and power struggles. Black Narcissus doesn’t descend into cannibalism, but it does continue to lay on the pain of its characters’ repression.

Each iteration of the Black Narcissus story ultimately becomes concerned with the failure of the Anglican church to sustain itself in India, but the show’s ability to create that environment over a longer period also lets the failure hit harder. Although the miniseries lacks the movie’s power and immediacy, its longer runtime lets it settle into the nooks and crannies of Godden’s novel that the film missed, adding more depth to the other nuns and characters like Dilip Rai (Chaneil Kular), the “Young General” who was played by The Thief of Baghdad star Sabu in the original film. As its own entity, the show lingers in the mysteries and tragedies of its source material in a beautiful way that continues to warrant a watch.

Black Narcissus