Peaky Blinders Series 7: Absolutely Everything We Know So Far

It’s the revival we didn’t see coming: more than three years after the Peaky Blinders TV series wrapped up for good, a reboot is on the way after all, with the BBC revealing it had commissioned not one but two new series of the hit drama back in October 2025. Since then, a sequel film has landed on Netflix – but what can we expect from Peaky Blinders season 7? With new castings announced, here’s the latest on the reboot, which we’re told will be set post-WWII.

(L to R) Packy Lee as Johnny Dogs, Natasha O’Keeffe as Lizzie Shelby, Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby and Paul Anderson as Arthur Shelby (C) Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd. – Photographer: Robert Viglasky

Peaky Blinders Season 7: Plot, Cast, Release Date

‘I’m not allowed to announce it, but I’m just saying that the world of Peaky will continue,’ series creator Steven Knight told BBC Breakfast back in February 2025. Knight’s vague teasing gave nothing away – and with Netflix’s The Immortal Man sequel film in the works, most fans predicted that the Peaky Blinders story would live on via the big screen alone.

That is until October 2025, when the BBC officially confirmed it had teamed up with Netflix to bring not just one but two more series of Peaky Blinders to the small screen. ‘This game-changing show made a huge impact when it first came to our screens 12 years ago and it is one of the BBC’s most-loved dramas,’ Lindsay Salt, the BBC’s director of drama, said by way of explanation at the time. Meanwhile Knight (who was been pretty loose-lipped about the whole deal) added he was ‘thrilled’ to finally be (officially) announcing the continuation of his best-loved Shelby universe.

And ‘universe’ is the operative word here: from season 7 onwards, Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) will not be the protagonist of Peaky Blinders. Instead, the Brummy gangster is handing over to a new generation two decades after the events of season 6, and Hollywood actor Murphy will not star. That said, there’s a stellar new cast on the cards – more on that below.

Tommy Shelby (CILLIAN MURPHY). © Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd./Robert Viglasky/BBC

What Will Happen?

Peaky Blinders will once again take us back to Birmingham, but not as we know it. Season 6 wrapped up in 1934, but season 7 will open in 1953 in a Birmingham flattened by the WWII Blitz. (In between, the film was set in 1940, during WWII.)

Brummy locals are brimming with hope, building a better future out of concrete and steal; this is ‘the story of a city rising from the ashes of the Birmingham blitz,’ Knight teases. But with this mass reconstruction project comes new competition – and a new generation of Shelbys is right at the heart of it.

Knight previously said he’d like to create a new branch of Peaky Blinders focused on a new generation, and now we know his dream is finally coming to fruition. If you enjoyed meeting Tommy’s chaotic eldest son Duke (Barry Keoghan) in The Immortal Man, you’re in luck: Duke is back at the fore in season 7. But flashing forwards a decade, Duke has a new face – that of Billy Elliot star Jamie Bell. We’re told the character is ‘older, wiser, more ambitious, and most certainly more ambitious’. And he’s joined by a cast of new faces to boot…

(Netflix/Robert Viglasky © 2025)

The Cast

Jamie Bell will lead Peaky Blinders from season 7 onwards, starring as Tommy Shelby’s eldest illegitimate son, Erasmus ‘Duke’ Shelby. Best known for his BAFTA-winning performance in Billy Elliot (2000), more recently you’ll recognise Bell from his performances in the likes of Rocketman (2019) and All of Us Strangers (2023). Having rarely starred in TV series across his decades-long career, the news of Bell’s role in Peaky Blinders comes on the heels of his starring role in Half Man, the second series penned by Baby Reindeer‘s Richard Gadd, set to launch at the end of April 2026.

Bell will be joined by Stranger Things‘ Charlie Heaton, the British actor and musician who has more recently starred in Industry series 4. No Time To Die and The Day of the Jackal star Lashana Lynch is also set to star, as will Jessica Brown Findlay and stage star Lucy Karczewski in her TV debut. But no news just yet on the roles they will play.

With Peaky Blinders season 7 flashing forward two decades, it looks like The Immortal Man marks the final appearance of Cillian Murphy’s iconic Tommy Shelby. That said, some rumours are still swirling that Murphy’s character will indeed have a role to play in the new season, although as more of a ‘father figure’ to younger gang members. Perhaps a bit like former matriarch Polly Gray (played by the late Helen McCrory), who served a similar role from seasons 1 through 5.

Peaky Blinders Season 6 (c) BBC/Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd./Robert Viglasky

Why Was Season 7 Of Peaky Blinders Originally Scrapped?

A seventh season of Peaky Blinders was originally planned by Knight, but the series creator explained that it was cancelled during production of season 6 – largely as a result of delays to filming from the Coronavirus pandemic.

‘The original intention was to do seven series, but COVID has stolen a year from us,’ he told BBC News in 2021, saying that the cancellation morphed into an opportunity for a feature film. ‘We felt what would be a great idea is to, almost in place of that seventh series, is to go onto the big screen.’

He also mentioned that the death of actress Helen McCrory, who played Polly Gray in the series, encouraged the team to speed along plans for a feature film. ‘We just felt, with the loss of Helen [McCrory], that it all seemed to be pointing towards doing what I’m calling “the end of the beginning”.

‘Let’s end the beginning, then let’s do the film. And then let’s see where we go in terms of spin-offs,’ he teased. And now we know what that spin-off idea will entail (at least the first spin-off): a sequel made up of at least two seasons.

Cillian Murphy as Tommy in Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man. (Courtesy of Netflix © 2026)

What Is It Based On?

While much of the stories, characters and narrative details we see play out on screen have been embellished and dramatised for viewers, there is some truth to Peaky Blinders.

There was indeed a real life Peaky Blinders gang who were based in Birmingham, UK. The group, which was made up of young criminals from lower and working class backgrounds (just like the Shelbys), were known to have engaged in several forms of crime – including robbery, violence, racketeering, illegal bookmaking and control of gambling. (Sounds familiar.) They also typically wore tailored jackets, buttoned waistcoats, leather boots and flat caps. (Very familiar.)

But this is where the similarities end. The group worked the streets of Birmingham long before the events of Peaky Blinders; dates suggest sometime between the 1880s and 1920s, while the show starts in the 1920s. There was no Tommy Shelby, nor any Shelby family that held monopoly over criminal movements in the area.

Although it’s interesting to note that, while the Peaky Blinders gang had dissolved by the 1920s (thanks to a scuffle with the Birmingham Boys, another gang led by Billy Kimber – who also featured in the TV show), the name ‘Peaky Blinders’ soon became a slang term to refer to any street gang in Birmingham.

Rather than cast a negative light on the industrial city, Mayor of the West Midlands Richard Parker instead praises the ‘worldwide phenomenon’ for boosting Birmingham’s ‘tourism and global reach’. On season 7, Parker added: ‘We’re proud to be working with the team bringing the production back to the Shelbys’ home of Birmingham and job opportunities will follow for local people to become part of this story. It’s this sort of backing from some of the biggest names in entertainment that will turn the West Midlands into the creative capital of the UK.’

Cillian Murphy as Tommy in Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man. (Netflix/Robert Viglasky © 2025)

Release Date

Peaky Blinders season 7 is set to be filmed at Digbeth Loc. Studios in Birmingham, but it is yet to get underway despite rumours it would kick off in summer 2025. Thus we don’t think we will see Peaky Blinders season 7 until 2027 at the earliest.

The series will be made up of six episodes, and we’re told the same is true of season 8.

All six seasons of Peaky Blinders are available to stream on BBC iPlayer and Netflix in the UK, and Netflix across the globe.

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