Uploaded August 2018 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

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True Detective is an American anthology crime drama television series created and written by Nic Pizzolatto. The series broadcast by HBO in the United States
The first season starring Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Monaghan, Michael Potts, and Tory Kittles, takes place in Louisiana. The second season, starring Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, Taylor Kitsch, Kelly Reilly and Vince Vaughn is set in California The third season was greenlit with Mahershala Ali cast in the lead role
In 2012 two former homicide investigators with the Louisiana State Police's Criminal Investigations Division Rustin Rust Cohle (McConaughey) and Martin Marty Hart Harrelson are summoned for questioning by detectives Maynard Gilbough Potts and Thomas Papania (Kittles) about the Dora Lange murder investigation of 1995 they have not seen nor spoken to each other since an altercation concerning Martin's wife Maggie Hart (Monaghan) over a decade prior. With many of the old files destroyed in Hurricane Rita the two men are asked to recount the history of their working relationship personal lives and the Dora Lange murder investigation as well as a series of other related individual cases as new evidence suggests that the perpetrator remains at large.
California Highway Patrol officer and war veteran Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch) discovers the dead body of a local businessman who was involved in a major land deal. Given the ambiguous jurisdictional nature of the crime scene two other officers Vinci Police Department Detective Raymond Ray Velcoro Colin Farrell and Ventura County Sheriff's Office CID Antigone Ani Bezzerides Rachel McAdams are assigned to help Woodrugh investigate the murder. The crime soon involves Frank Semyon Vince Vaughn a career criminal who was involved in the land deal and whose life savings were stolen when the murder took place. Semyon has Detective Velcoro on his payroll due to him helping the volatile detective locate and execute the man who raped his wife years earlier. The three detectives plus Semyon quickly realize a larger conspiracy at play involving the victim's past as a police officer the corrupt city of Vinci and the power struggle going on between the mayor's son the Russian mafia and the Vinci Police Department who seek to silence the three detectives and their erstwhile mobster ally.
HBO officially greenlit a third season the story of which takes place in the Ozarks over three separate time periods. The first two episodes were directed by Jeremy Saulnier he had been expected to direct the third episode but had to exit the series due to scheduling conflicts. it was announced that Daniel Sackheim was added as director and that he and Pizzolatto would direct the remaining six episodes Pizzolatto is the sole writer with the exception of episode 4 which he co-wrote with David Milch. Mahershala Ali has been cast as the lead character playing Wayne Hays a state police detective from Northwest Arkansas Ray Fisher plays Wayne's son Freddy Burns Carmen Ejogo plays Amelia Reardon an Arkansas schoolteacher with a connection to two missing children in 1980 Stephen Dorff plays Roland West an Arkansas State Investigator whose career has been influenced by a baffling crime Scoot McNairy plays Tom a father who suffers a terrible loss that ties his fate to that of two state police detectives over 10 years and Mamie Gummer plays Lucy Purcell a mother of two children who finds herself involved in a crime
Led by Patrick Clair True Detective's title sequences were developed by a collaborative team consisting of three motion-design studios: Santa Monica-based Elastic Antibody and Breeder both based in Australia For the first season Clair and his team took a variety of photos of the Louisiana scenery which became the sequence's backbone They superimposed these images onto low poly meshes thanks to the use of various animation and special effects techniques. This was a meticulous process for production since they wanted to avoid creating a digitized look for the sequence Once its final cut took form the team polished it by employing optical glitching and motion distortion technique True Detective's season one opening theme is Far from Any Road an alternative country song originally composed by The Handsome Family for their 2003 album Singing Bones. The Sydney Morning Herald included season one's opening sequence in their list of the Ten of the Best title sequences on television.
Clair took a similar approach to creating the title sequence for True Detective's second season. Production used material from a number of photographers including aerial shots captured by David Maisel season two's title sequence incorporates deep vivid gold and red color thereby presenting that more complicated view of California Leonard Cohen's Nevermind is the season two opening theme which is a song off Cohen's 2014 album Popular Problems The theme song's lyrics change with every episode incorporating different verses from Cohen's song.