“Maigret,” premiering Sunday on PBS, is the fourth British collection (plus one failed pilot) to be titled “Maigret,” after its important character, Georges Simenon’s Paris-based police detective. As I’ve written right here earlier than, he’s my favourite fictional detective, each as a result of the tales serve my Francophilia — they supply a digital map of the town and past — and for his ordinariness as a middle-aged, middle-class, fortunately married man, who’s considerate, type, uncomfortable across the wealthy and sympathetic to the poor, together with many who is likely to be counted among the many legal class. You wouldn’t name him melancholy, precisely, however he feels the load of the job, of his tough superiors, of the depraved world. He’s an trustworthy policeman who describes himself as a “functionnaire,” a civil servant, and whose perception in justice would possibly typically lead him to letting a malefactor escape. And he likes his meals, and he likes his drink.
That the brand new collection, starring Benjamin Wainwright (“Belgravia: The Next Chapter”), is ready within the current day is just not uncommon. With 75 novels and 28 tales revealed between 1931 and 1972, it’s inconceivable to find the character in any particular time anyway; most adaptions are set within the time wherein they’re filmed, however even the interval variations don’t essentially replicate the 12 months of publication.
Nor does the truth that “Maigret” 2025 swerves from the unique texts distinguish it from movies and collection which have preceded it — most of them, clearly, made in France, the place Maigret has many occasions appeared on the massive display screen, notably portrayed by French movie icon Jean Gabin and lately by Gérard Depardieu in a well-regarded 2022 movie, additionally referred to as “Maigret,” in addition to two long-running tv collection. The latter, one other “Maigret,” which ran from 1991 to 2005, starred Bruno Cremer, extensively thought to be the perfect — or among the many greatest, to not begin any arguments — of the display screen Maigrets. Maigret collection have additionally appeared in Russia, Italy and Japan; America, to the extent we’ve been , has imported English-language variations from the U.Ok., which is as soon as once more the case.
What’s totally different this time is that Maigret himself has been given a makeover, made youthful, buffer, sexier, barely extra of an motion hero, with the beard typically assigned to the trendy police detective. In case you come to the collection with a love for Simenon’s character — envisioned by the writer as “a large powerfully built gentleman [with] a pipe, a bowler hat, a thick overcoat” and roughly faithfully represented in earlier movies and collection — you’ll must overlook this transformation, or else look away. The query of whether or not Wainwright’s Maigret is, you recognize, actually Maigret, is one absolutely to be debated among the many followers.
In the meantime, there are different Maigrets ready for you by means of comparability, formally or unofficially streaming. What follows is a brief information (principally) to the English-language “Maigrets”; every has it charms and most are really useful.
A brand new “Maigret” has arrived on PBS, starring Andrea Lucas (Kerrie Hayes), from left, Karim Lapointe (Reda Elazouar), Jules Maigret (Benjamin Wainwright), Joseph Torrence (Blake Harrison) and Berthe Janvier (Shaniqua Okwok).
(Csaba Aknay / Playground Leisure; Masterpiece)
Pierre Renoir, ‘Night at the Crossroads’ (1932)
The primary display screen Maigret, included right here for historic curiosity and since a subtitled model is out there on YouTube. Directed by Jean Renoir the 12 months after the novel was revealed — Simenon, quick out of the gate, revealed 10 Maigret novels that 12 months — and starring his brother Pierre as Maigret, the movie is moody, foggy, darkish and sluggish and has the benefit of truly representing its interval. Pierre Renoir’s Maigret is stoical and environment friendly, and won’t be vamped by Winna Winifried’s peculiar femme fatale, as laborious as she tries.
Charles Laughton, ‘The Man on the Eiffel Tower’ (1950)
From the novel “La Tête d’un homme (A Man’s Head),” additionally from 1931, the primary English-language adaptation lists “the city of Paris,” on whose streets it was filmed, among the many solid within the opening credit. (It’s a visit in time and area.) Laughton performs Maigret with dry humor, although he’s able to being roused when exasperated or indignant, as he typically can be right here. Co-producer and co-star Franchot Tone chews the gorgeous surroundings (in coloration) in a battle of wits Maigret and also you each know he’s sure to lose. Directed by Burgess Meredith, who additionally performs a homicide suspect, it provides an exhilarating chase up the precise Eiffel Tower, no particular results required. (Laughton isn’t doing the chasing.) Darkish movie noir compositions alternate with vivid sunny road scenes. Stream on Tubi.
Rupert Davies, ‘Maigret’ (1960)
Fifty-two episodes throughout 4 seasons had been fabricated from this BBC collection, shot on video, as many British collection had been then, and so acted largely on soundstages, which fits a personality whose job consists largely of asking questions and listening to different individuals discuss; lengthy interrogations, typically lasting in a single day, with beer and sandwiches introduced up from a neighboring restaurant, are a specialty of the home. (What location filming there may be, is definitely Paris, within the coronary heart of the nouvelle obscure period.) Davies’ Maigret is energetic and energetic with out breaking a sweat, very a lot a person who makes issues occur. Davies additionally performed the detective in a 1965 theatrical manufacturing, “Maigret and the Lady,” by Philip Mackie. Stream on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
Richard Harris, ‘Maigret’ (1988)
This model is a curiosity, which provides us Maigret with out the Simenon. Harris is a rangy, bespectacled, Irish-y Maigret on this oddity, feature-length failed pilot, with an unique story by Arthur Weingarten, whose different credit embody “The Mod Squad,” “Ironside” and “T.J. Hooker,” a lot of which is ready on a cruise ship. (Actual Paris places are additionally featured.) Positioned firmly in its period, with a synthesized rating, it includes a Maigret in want of a haircut, sporting his sweater misbuttoned as he explains the case to the gathered suspects — some type of performing alternative, I assume — but in addition in a tuxedo consuming a cocktail with an umbrella caught in. (Not very a lot in character in both case.) The signature pipe may be very a lot a smoking presence, making Harris, on document as an enormous fan of the books, look slightly like Popeye. Stream on YouTube.
Michael Gambon, ‘Maigret’ (1992)
A interval piece set in post-World Warfare II Paris, this collection logged two seasons of six episodes every. That is the place I found the character, when it aired on PBS, earlier than I moved over to the books, and it stays my favourite interpretation. Gambon, who in an odd coincidence adopted Harris within the position of Albus Dumbledore within the “Harry Potter” movies is (not in contrast to Dumbledore, in spite of everything) soft-spoken however stern when essential. Along with his thinning hair and a mustache you’ll be able to overlook is there, he melts into his environment — that is the primary of those collection to substitute Budapest for Paris — changing into one sympathetically along with his metropolis and its residents. A scrappy Geoffrey Hutchings shines as Sgt. Inspector Lucas, Maigret’s proper hand. Stream on BritBox.
Rowan Atkinson, ‘Maigret’ (2016)
The person who was — is? — Mr. Bean performs it completely straight within the position — certainly, he’s essentially the most critical, saddest and presumably gentlest Maigret thus far; it’s as if he feels all that stops the world from breaking to items. Set within the mid-Fifties, barely after the Gambon “Maigret,” it contains 4 feature-length episodes, within the present method of British thriller variations, together with a “Night at the Crossroads” that differs enormously from the ebook and former movie. An typically compelling manufacturing, this collection, too, was shot, handsomely … in Budapest. Stream on BritBox.
Benjamin Wainwright, ‘Maigret’ (2025)
And so, again as soon as once more in Hungary, we come to this 12 months’s mannequin. Police headquarters have moved from the dusty previous warrens on the Quai des Orfèvres, as in the true world, a hop and a skip from Notre-Dame, to a gleaming new digs with loads of mild and all trendy conveniences out in Clichy. There are modifications that make good sense for a collection set in 2025, together with some gender and ethnic range injected into the “Faithful Four,” Maigret’s group of shut collaborators, and among the many characters they encounter. Madame Maigret (Stefanie Martini), all the time an clever and useful accomplice, will get a job as a medical skilled; Maigret, whom in olden days was introduced espresso and served dinner, brings dwelling takeout, cooks slightly, helps with the dishes. They usually’re attempting for a child.
The motion is of course adjusted for contemporary know-how — after all, one of many sights of the sooner and interval collection is that there’s none. Wainwright’s Maigret doesn’t smoke a pipe, however he carries one, inherited from his late father, who managed the property the place Maigret grew up, which is knitted into the collection as a protracted arc (three two-part episodes, incorporating a number of instances). Wainwright, appropriately low-key, is okay — the least attention-grabbing of those actors to my thoughts — however if you happen to’re in search of a brand new detective collection set in Budapest-as-Paris, that is properly made and sufficiently involving, with a wonderful supporting solid. I wish to suppose {that a} climate report on the radio is a nod to Simenon’s behavior of opening a narrative with an outline of the season and the local weather, however maybe that’s overthought. Watch on PBS and stream on PBS.org, the PBS app and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video channel.
