Best ‘Luther’ Idris Elba credits to watch on OTT: ‘The Wire,’ ‘Beasts of No Nation’ and more

Idris Elba is one of those actors who makes every room he walks into feel ten degrees more intense. From Baltimore drug dealer to tortured British informant to warlord, he has quietly built one of the most extraordinary careers in television and film, amassing some of the industry’s biggest wins and nominations along the way. Here are his best works currently streaming, which you can watch on OTT.

This is arguably the rawest and most devastating performance of Elba’s career – playing alongside first-time actor Abraham Attah, under the direction of Cary Fukunaga, the Commander, a charismatic and terrifying warlord in an unnamed West African nation, who takes in a young boy orphaned by civil war and turns him into a child soldier. It’s a brutal, all-too-human film that refuses to look away, and Elba has received recognition from some of the world’s most prestigious award bodies for a performance that’s as engaging as it is profoundly unsettling. It’s the kind of movie that stays with you long after it’s over, and it’s on Netflix.

John Luther is finally getting his own movie after five seasons of TV, and director Jamie Payne delivers the kind of dark, rain-soaked psychological thriller that made the series so addictive — with Cynthia Erivo and Andy Serkis alongside Elba raising the stakes considerably. He returns as the haunted detective, this time hunting down a terrifyingly sophisticated serial killer while managing his complicated relationship with the law and his own past. It’s a love letter to a great TV character, and it’s ready to watch on Netflix now.

Aaron Sorkin writes and directs the true story of high-stakes poker, the FBI, and a woman who outsmarts everyone — with Elba as Charlie Jaffe, a smart, principled criminal defense attorney who agrees to take her case, opposite Jessica Chastain and Kevin Costner. It’s a film that moves at the speed of thought, aided by snappy dialogue, and Elba sticks to his character in every scene opposite Chastain, which is no mean feat. A brilliant, smart thriller that deserves a lot of attention, and it’s available on Apple TV+.

Sam Nelson is a business negotiator – not a soldier, not a cop, just a guy who’s very good at reading people – and when the flight he’s on from Dubai to London is hijacked, creator George Kay and co-stars Archie Panjabi and Neil Maskell watch as Elba turns it into the most exciting seven hours of television in recent memory. Each episode covers approximately an hour of the journey, meaning the tension never completely disappears from the moment it begins, and with Season 2 just wrapping up, this is the perfect time to enjoy both series on Apple TV+, available as an add-on via Prime Video in India.

Elba plays Russell “Stringer” Bill, the cold, sharp-minded second-in-command of the Baltimore drug empire who reads economics textbooks and runs the criminal operations like a business, and in doing so, creator David Simon and co-stars Dominic West and Lance Reddick delivered one of the greatest casts television has ever seen. Widely voted as the greatest television series of the 21st century, it is an unflinching portrait of how institutions, crime, and poverty are intertwined in ways that no one wins. If you haven’t watched it before, clear your week, because it’s the kind of show that quietly changes how you see the world and it’s all waiting for JioHotstar.

Few TV characters have the kind of control over the audience like DCI John Luther – Neil Cross wrote the role, but Idris Elba, opposite Ruth Wilson and Dermot Crawley, makes him completely his own. A brilliant but emotionally volatile detective whose obsession with catching killers constantly pushes him to the edge of his morality, Luther is a dark crime thriller that relies entirely on Elba’s charisma, and the chemistry between him and iconic villain Alice Morgan is some of the best television ever made. He has bagged top acting honors for this role, and every season of it is streaming on JioHotstar.