Animal Kingdom

When 17-year-old Joshua "J" Cody loses his mother to a heroin overdose, he moves into the household of his extended family in a Southern California beach town. The house is run by the iron-willed Janine "Smurf" Cody, who presides over a clan where loyalty and violence are normal currency. Baz acts as Smurf's lieutenant, managing the crew's illegal enterprises. The Cody brothers create constant pressure around J: Pope is the oldest and most volatile, Craig is the hardened middle son, and Deran is the wary, troubled youngest. The show tracks J as he learns the rules of the family, the criminal operations they run, and what it costs to survive in that world, without revealing major plot turns.

Animal Kingdom premiered in 2016, created by Jonathan Lisco, and adapts the 2010 Australian film Animal Kingdom by David Michod. The series expands the movie's premise into extended character arcs and serialized crime drama across multiple seasons.

Box office is not applicable to this television series. Success for Animal Kingdom was measured in cable ratings and streaming viewership, and steady audience interest helped it continue season to season and reach international viewers on various platforms.

The series left a mark on televised crime drama with its focus on family as the engine of criminal activity and its morally ambiguous matriarchal figure. It raised the profile of young lead Finn Cole and reinforced a trend of shows that emphasize internal family tension as much as heists and violent set pieces.

Critical reception tended to praise the cast and the show's dark, tense tone, reflected in a user vote average of 7.713/10 (491 votes). Reviewers and viewers often singled out the performances and the show's handling of themes like loyalty, power, survival, and the costs of growing up inside a criminal family.