Black Mirror

The "black mirror" of the title is the one you'll find on every wall, on every desk, in the palm of every hand: the cold, shiny screen of a TV, a monitor, a smartphone.

The series was created by Brooker, who was previously known as a comedy writer. He wrote video game reviews for PC Zone in the late 1990s and began writing television reviews for The Guardian and working in television in the 2000s. Brooker had completed production of Dead Set (2008), a zombie-based drama series, and while working on Newswipe (2009–2010) and other programmes, decided to make an anthology drama series. It was modelled in the style of The Twilight Zone (1959–1964), Tales of the Unexpected (1979–1988) and Hammer House of Horror (1980). The title was inspired by the Arcade Fire song of the same name, with Brooker using it to refer to the empty screen of an electronic device once it is turned off.

Brooker recognised that Rod Serling had based The Twilight Zone on contemporary issues, often controversial ones such as racism, but placed them in fictional settings to get around television censors at the time. Brooker realised he could comment similarly on modern issues, specifically focusing on technology, a topic he explored in producing the series How TV Ruined Your Life (2011). He aimed to explore "the way we might be living in 10 minutes' time".

Brooker wanted to keep the anthology approach, using new stories, settings, characters, and actors for each episode, as he felt this was a key element of enjoying series like The Twilight Zone. This approach would allow Black Mirror to contrast with current dramas and serials that had a standard recurring cast. According to Brooker, the production team considered giving the series a linking theme or presenter, but ultimately decided not to.

Most episodes are credited solely to Brooker. Many originate with him talking to the executive producer Annabel Jones or others about a "what-if idea", and considering if it could be the consequence of some new technology. Brooker said that like his previous comedy writing, the premise is a "worst case scenario compounded"; the ideas often make him laugh. Episodes generally have only one aspect at a time that requires suspension of disbelief, and characters' actions are designed to feel authentic even if their predicaments are unusual. …

The series was originally commissioned by Channel 4 in the United Kingdom and premiered in December 2011. A second series ran during February 2013. In September 2015, Netflix purchased the programme, commissioning a series of 12 episodes later divided into two series of six episodes. The first six episodes were released simultaneously on Netflix worldwide as the overall third series on 21 October 2016. The fourth series of six episodes was released on 29 December 2017.

A fifth series consisting of three episodes was released on 5 June 2019. The first four series, and the special "White Christmas", have been released on DVD. A sixth series was commissioned in 2022 and was released on 15 June 2023. A seventh series was announced in November 2023, and was released on 10 April 2025.

The series's inception was in 2010. Brooker and Jones had begun to work together on Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, a television review programme which aired from 2006 to 2008. The first pitch for Black Mirror, to the head of comedy at Channel 4, was for eight half-hour episodes by different authors. Technology was a lesser focus, and the worlds were larger and more detailed, which Jones said was not possible to execute properly in the short runtime. The series was then commissioned for three hour-long episodes. The first script was "Fifteen Million Merits". The second was "Inbound", an episode that was never produced: it was a science fiction adaptation of what was revealed at the end to be a true story about a boy in the Iraq War. Concepts from it were later repurposed for "Men Against Fire". The following script pitched became "The National Anthem", the first episode to air. The third episode is "The Entire History of You".

The programme was produced by Brooker's production company Zeppotron, for the Dutch media company Endemol. Joel Collins served as production designer, with his company Painting Practice working on visual effects. In the early stages of Black Mirror, Jones was keen to avoid casting comedy actors, as Brooker was previously a comedy writer, and they wanted to distance the series from the genre. The production occurred concurrent to that of A Touch of Cloth, a satirical police procedural series that Brooker wrote for.

The series aired weekly beginning on 4 December 2011. …

At some periods of time, Black Mirror has been one of the most-watched programmes worldwide. According to Víctor Cerdán Martínez of Vivat Academia in 2018, Black Mirror was one of China's five most-watched Western television series. In 2023, Netflix reported that viewing of the sixth series totalled 60 million hours in the week of its release. Nielsen Media Research reported it as the most-viewed programme on streaming platforms in the United States that week.

According to U.S. streaming data from PlumResearch published by Media Play News, season six of Black Mirror generated 5.7 million unique viewers and 11.1 million hours watched on Netflix during the week of June 26 to July 2, 2023.

Black Mirror has been met with critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes, the seven series received ratings of 98%, 87%, 86%, 85%, 66%, 78%, and 89%. "White Christmas" received an 89% rating and Bandersnatch received a 73% rating. Metacritic, assigning scores from series three onwards, gave ratings of 82, 72, 66, 68 and 74. Bandersnatch holds a 61 rating on Metacritic.

Series one garnered praise. David Sims of The A.V. Club gave the first episode—"The National Anthem"—an A rating, viewing each character decision and plot revelation as natural. Jim Goodwin of Bleeding Cool complimented the acting. Also, the episode received 145 complaints to the television regulatory body Ofcom, the eighth-largest figure for the year. Reviewing "Fifteen Million Merits", Ryan Lambie of Den of Geek extolled the romance between Bing and Abi, as well as the production quality, music and acting. Sam Richards of The Telegraph rated it four stars, praising the "acerbic humour". Critical reaction to "The Entire History of You" was more mixed. Sims believed that Liam's actions escalated too quickly, but found the central premise of memory recording plausible. Richards thought that the memory technology was not necessary to the story, but James Hibberd of Entertainment Weekly said that the episode's execution was "sophisticated and flawless".

The series two opener, "Be Right Back", received critical acclaim. Morgan Jeffery of Digital Spy rated it four stars, praising the characters and emotionality, but criticising the ending. Flickering Myth's Luke Owen lauded the acting of Hayley Atwell as Martha and Domhnall Gleeson as Ash, as well as the directing. …

Along with American Horror Story (2011–), Black Mirror has been credited with repopularising the anthology format, which was rarely used in the 1990s and 2000s. This success has been attributed to changing profit incentives from increased streaming television consumption. A 2019 reboot of The Twilight Zone, the primary show to inspire Black Mirror, can be seen as an example of this. It was described by the creator Jordan Peele as broader than Black Mirror in that its themes do not have to be technological, and Sophie Gilbert of The Atlantic suggested that it may have avoided darker themes or explorations into human nature to avoid overlap.

Other anthology series that were part of this phenomenon include Room 104 (2017–2020) and Solos (2021). Adam White of The Independent stated that Black Mirror and Brooker's other works spawned an era of horror and fantasy that explores modern technology. Science-fiction television that critics have compared to Black Mirror includes Humans (2015–2018) and Upload (2020–2025).

The anthology Electric Dreams (2017–2018) was widely compared to Black Mirror. Reviewers found Electric Dreams to be less violent and more understated than Black Mirror, but contain some similar plots. For instance, the episode "Real Life" is a story about virtual reality. The settings are further in the future and more allegorical. Another example is Inside No. 9 (2014–2024), a British anthology series that critics saw as more comedic than Black Mirror, and known for intricate plot twists. The creators Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton have a larger role in the show than Brooker does in Black Mirror, as they star in most episodes and direct some in addition to writing them.

The serialised British dystopia Years and Years (2019) follows a family from 2019 to 2034, and drew many comparisons to Black Mirror in themes and its near-future technology. The Verge's Liz Shannon Miller called it "Black Mirror, but with a full and beating heart". Simon Cellan Jones, who directed the first four of six episodes, saw it as less dystopian than Black Mirror, and with less emphasis on technology. The science fiction film Friend of the World (2020) was arranged like a Black Mirror episode. …

A number of Black Mirror tie-in products have been released.

Several sequel episodes or spin-offs have been suggested. In 2013, Robert Downey Jr. optioned the episode "The Entire History of You" to potentially be made into a film by Warner Bros. and his production company Team Downey; in 2018, the episode's writer Jesse Armstrong said that the project was in "development hell". In 2016, Brooker said that he had ideas for sequels to both "White Bear" and "Be Right Back" that were unlikely to be made. He said in 2017 that there were no plans for a sequel episode to "San Junipero". Brooker has suggested that some characters in "Hated in the Nation" could potentially recur, as could Colin Ritman (Will Poulter), a Bandersnatch character with awareness of alternate timelines and realities. Poulter did return in series 7 episode "Plaything." Additionally, the sixth-series episode "Demon 79" is introduced as a Red Mirror film; Brooker said that, if successful, there could be further episodes under this label.

A Nosedive board game based on the episode of the same name was produced by Asmodee. Released on 25 November 2018, the game requires between three and six players and is designed to last for roughly 45 minutes. The fictional game Nohzdyve, which is featured in Bandersnatch and named after the episode "Nosedive", was created by Netflix for a ZX Spectrum emulator and released on a Bandersnatch tie-in website.

Thronglets, the in-world video game from the series 7 episode "Plaything" was made into a real world mobile game by Night School Studio, a studio within Netflix Games. Sean Krankel, head of Night School, said that they wanted to do a project with Black Mirror, creating a game beyond the bounds of what would be shown in a typical episode. Development of the game started around the time that "Plaything" was still in pre-production, allowing the design of the game to influence some of the direction and art design of the episode itself. Conversely, Night School made sure to include elements in the game reflecting the final script, such that players would feel that their game "literally got lifted out of the episode". …