Money Heist

Álex Pina's Money Heist (La casa de papel) launched on Antena 3 in May 2017 as a small Spanish-language television production. After Netflix acquired the international rights and recut the original two seasons into a faster-paced version for global release in late 2017, the series became one of the most internationally exported pieces of non-English-language television of its decade. The show won the International Emmy for Best Drama Series in 2018 and was renewed by Netflix as a continuing original-production for three further seasons through 2021.

A mysterious criminal mastermind known only as the Professor (Álvaro Morte) recruits a team of specialist thieves, each given a code-name based on a world city (Tokyo (Úrsula Corberó), Berlin (Pedro Alonso), Moscow, Helsinki, and others) to carry out an audacious heist on the Royal Mint of Spain. The first two seasons follow the multi-day operation as the team holds dozens of hostages while attempting to print and extract €984 million in fresh banknotes. Itziar Ituño plays the Inspector Raquel Murillo, leading the police negotiation.

The series became culturally consequential well beyond its viewing figures. The Salvador Dalí masks worn by the heist team became a continuing protest-cultural reference (across global protests in Lebanon, Hong Kong, Catalonia, Iraq); the central song Bella Ciao (the Italian anti-fascist partisan anthem the team adopts) re-entered global popular culture; the show launched the Spanish-language streaming-prestige tradition that Elite, The Cable Girls, Cable Girls and broader Spanish productions extended.