Lupin Review

George Kay and François Uzan made Lupin for Netflix with Gaumont, and their best decision was not to cast Omar Sy as Arsène Lupin. He plays Assane Diop, whose Senegalese father was framed by a wealthy employer for stealing a necklace that once belonged to Marie Antoinette, and died in prison. Twenty-five years on, Assane uses Maurice Leblanc's stories as a manual, and Louis Leterrier's pilot sends him to work as a cleaner at the Louvre, where the necklace is about to be sold.

That is the show's sharpest idea: the rich never look properly at a Black man in a cleaner's uniform, and Assane turns their blindness into a disguise. Alan Sepinwall wrote that Sy is so magnetic that questioning the plot logic feels beside the point, which is the compliment and the complaint. Nearly every episode runs the same trick: a scheme seems to fail, then a flashback shows how it worked.

Ludivine Sagnier and Antoine Gouy give the estranged wife and best friend more life than the script does, and Soufiane Guerrab's Leblanc-reading detective is a fine running joke. Part 3, built around a black pearl and Assane's mother, has lower stakes. With a fourth part due in October 2026, it remains handsome, quick and clever, and not much more.