Sky’s new legal drama War is slick, vicious and enormously entertaining. With Sienna Miller and Dominic West at the centre of a spectacularly nasty divorce battle, this eight-part series turns London’s legal elite into a playground for betrayal, ambition and revenge.
There is a moment early in War when you realise this is not going to be the sort of legal drama where everyone sits politely around a mahogany table discussing precedent.
Thank goodness.
Sky’s new original drama is much more interested in what happens when enormous wealth, wounded pride and extremely expensive lawyers collide.
Created by George Kay, the writer and creator behind Lupin, Hijack and The Long Shadow, War begins with what looks like a straightforward — if spectacularly wealthy — divorce.
It very quickly becomes anything but.
Verdict: ★★★★☆
Must-watch? Absolutely.
What is War about?
The eight-part drama stars Sienna Miller as international film star Carla Duval and Dominic West as tech entrepreneur Morgan Henderson, an estranged couple whose divorce becomes a huge public and legal battle.
Morgan is represented by Cathcarts & Sons, an old-school, establishment law firm. Carla turns to the more unconventional Taylor & Byrne.
What follows is less a battle to reach a sensible settlement and more a war of attrition.
And that’s rather the point.
The two firms don’t simply want to win. They want to destroy the opposition.
As the case escalates, lawyers begin deploying increasingly ruthless tactics while the personal lives of the people involved become tangled up with the professional battle.
At the centre of it all is young lawyer Jonathan “Johnny” Warren, played by Alien: Romulus star Archie Renaux, who finds himself pulled into a world where loyalty is negotiable and ambition comes at a price.
Sienna Miller and Dominic West are perfectly cast
The biggest reason War works is the pairing of Miller and West.
Both Carla and Morgan are difficult people. Neither is an obvious hero and neither behaves particularly well once the marriage begins to disintegrate.
But that’s precisely what makes them watchable.
Miller gives Carla a mixture of vulnerability, calculation and fury. She’s a famous actress who knows exactly how much public image matters — and how devastating it can be when someone else starts controlling the narrative.
West, meanwhile, is clearly having fun with Morgan.
His character has enormous wealth and the confidence that comes with it, but West gives him enough charm to stop him becoming a simple caricature of a billionaire villain.
There is also a convincing sense that these two people once genuinely loved each other.
That’s important.
Without it, the divorce would simply be a succession of increasingly outrageous legal manoeuvres. With it, there is an emotional story underneath the fireworks.
The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan similarly praised the central pairing while describing the show as a hugely entertaining piece of heightened television, while The Independent highlighted the chemistry between Miller and West as one of the drama’s major strengths.
The supporting cast is superb
One of the smartest things War does is refuse to make the divorce solely about the divorcing couple.
The lawyers gradually become just as important.
Phoebe Fox plays Serena Byrne and James McArdle plays Nicholas Taylor, the partners behind Taylor & Byrne.
Opposing them are Nina Sosanya as Beatrice “Queen Bea” Ubosi and Pip Torrens as St John Smallwood at Cathcarts & Sons.
And they are terrific.
Sosanya gives Bea a formidable intelligence and authority, while Torrens appears to be having an especially enjoyable time as the poisonous St John.
Then there is Celia Imrie, who brings her own deliciously sharp energy to the ensemble.
The cast is considerably larger, too, with Sky’s official line-up including Nick Mohammed, Emma Laird, Aran Murphy, Archie Panjabi, Adrian Scarborough, Shaheen Jafargholi, Akiya Henry, Honor Swinton Byrne, Miles Jupp, Kartanya Maynard, Alexandra Mardell, Dylan Edwards, Mark Quartley and Steve Furst.
It is an unusually deep cast for a new drama, and the show makes good use of it.
War is legal drama turned up to 11
If you’re looking for courtroom realism, War may occasionally ask you to suspend your disbelief.
If you’re looking for fun, however, it is difficult to resist.
This is legal drama as entertainment rather than a dry procedural.
George Kay clearly understands how to build a cliffhanger and keep characters moving between different layers of a story. His previous work on Lupin and Hijack is useful preparation: this is television that knows the value of a secret, a betrayal and a well-timed reveal.
The Independent described the series as slick, stylish and nasty, while The Hollywood Reporter praised its addictive quality and the performances at its centre.
There are moments when the plotting becomes deliberately extravagant.
But War knows exactly what it is.
This is not a solemn examination of family law.
It is a glossy, darkly funny battle in which the legal profession becomes another weapon.
The money is almost a character
The most interesting thing underneath all the champagne, designer clothes and luxurious offices is the show’s fascination with money.
Morgan has so much of it that ordinary rules appear increasingly irrelevant.
That creates one of the drama’s recurring ideas: when somebody possesses extraordinary wealth, what does it do to their relationships with everyone around them?
The lawyers are hardly innocent bystanders either.
They are surrounded by enormous financial incentives, powerful clients and reputations that depend upon winning.
The result is a world in which trust becomes increasingly difficult to find.
That gives War more substance than its glossy surface initially suggests.
The Hollywood Reporter described the series as a portrait of the machinations inside two powerful London firms, while The Independent noted that the drama’s viciousness is tied to its examination of wealth, power and the legal battle surrounding the divorce.
Is War based on a true story?
No. War is a fictional drama.
However, the series draws on the real-world environment of high-profile divorce cases and the public scrutiny that can surround wealthy and famous couples.
The drama’s central divorce is fictional, involving Carla Duval and Morgan Henderson.
George Kay has spoken about the inspiration behind the idea, including the fascination of watching extremely wealthy people fight over enormous sums of money and the dramatic possibilities presented by high-profile divorce.
That gives the series a recognisable real-world flavour without making it a dramatisation of one particular couple.
Where was War filmed?
Despite its glamorous world of elite London lawyers, War was made predominantly in London.
Principal photography for the first series began in September 2025 and wrapped in February 2026, with OMA X Film Studios in Enfield serving as the principal studio base. Production also used locations around London, including Westminster, the Southbank and Canary Wharf.
The London setting matters.
The series needs to look expensive, but it also needs to feel unmistakably like the capital’s corporate and legal world.
The production achieves that through a mixture of constructed interiors and real London locations.
The result is a polished visual style that makes the rival firms feel like two competing kingdoms.
When was War filmed?
Filming on the first season took place from September 2025 to February 2026.
Sky announced the project in August 2025, with production already under way by the following month. By August 2026, Sky confirmed that the first series was complete and that production on series two was under way.
So, while viewers are only now meeting Morgan, Carla and their legal teams, the actors were working on the first series almost a year before its UK premiere.
How many episodes of War are there?
There are eight episodes in the first series.
Sky is releasing them weekly, beginning on October 2, 2026, on Sky and NOW in the UK.
There is also good news for anyone who becomes addicted to the legal carnage: War has already been given a two-series order.
And series two isn’t simply more of the same divorce.
The anthology format means the next season moves to a new headline-making legal battle, with Marisa Tomei, Kelly Macdonald and David Harewood announced for the next story, which will centre on a defamation case.
Why War is worth watching
There are plenty of serious legal dramas on television.
War isn’t really trying to compete with them on their own terms.
Instead, it takes the glossy excesses of the legal thriller, adds a pair of extremely charismatic leads, throws in an enormous divorce, gives everyone questionable morals and then keeps turning the temperature up.
It is nasty without being miserable, glamorous without being empty and ridiculous without losing control of its characters.
There are moments where the plotting stretches credibility.
But there’s also a reason those stretches work: George Kay understands that television drama doesn’t always need to behave itself.
Sometimes you want eight hours of expensive people making terrible decisions.
And War delivers exactly that.
The verdict: 4/5
★★★★☆
War is a must-watch for fans of Succession, The Good Wife, Industry and glossy legal thrillers with a darker edge.
Sienna Miller and Dominic West are the obvious selling point, but the supporting cast is arguably just as much fun. The writing is sharp, the production looks superb and the legal battle becomes increasingly addictive as the series progresses.
It may occasionally require viewers to leave their realism at the courtroom door.
But that’s a small price to pay for such entertaining television.
War is an eight-part Sky Original legal drama, available weekly on Sky and NOW from October 2, 2026. In the US, the series airs on HBO Max.
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