Black Mirror season 6 is on the way — and it's bigger than ever

Jesse Plemmons in USS Callister on Black Mirror
Jesse Plemmons in the Black Mirror episode "USS Callister" (Image credit: Dom Slike / Alamy Stock Photo)

It’s been three years since Black Mirror season 5 debuted, but things are gearing up for Black Mirror season 6 on Netflix. In addition, the new season of the anthology series is supposed to be bigger than the most recent outing, both in terms of number of episodes and in scale, according to a report by Variety.

Per Variety, casting is underway for the new season of Black Mirror. While plotlines are being kept secret, the expectation is that there will be more episodes in season 6 than the three that made up Black Mirror season 5, though it is unclear just how many; the most in any given season was six in season 3 and 4. Variety also quotes a source saying the latest season is "even more cinematic in scope, with each instalment being treated as an individual film."

Black Mirror first debuted in 2011 on Channel 4 in the UK before the episodes made their way to the US. This was the set up for the first two seasons, then Netflix began premiering new episodes starting with season 3. The streaming service also released the standalone movie Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, which was a choose-your-own-adventure type story in 2018. Many Black Mirror episodes have become massive hits, like "San Junipero" starring Mackenzie Davis and Gugu Mbatha-Raw and "USS Callister," which featured Jesse Plemmons, Cristin Milioti, Jimmi Simpson and Michaela Cole and won four Emmy awards; "San Junipero" won two of its own.

The most recent season of Black Mirror featured Andrew Scott, Anthony Mackie, Miley Cyrus, Topher Grace and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.

After Black Mirror season 5 debuted on Netflix in 2019, it wasn’t clear if we’d be getting more Black Mirror episodes. In addition to confusion over the rights, creator Charlie Brooker told the UK’s Radio Times in 2020 that, "At the moment, I don’t know what stomach there would be for stories about societies falling apart…" mentioning that he was focusing on more comedic stories. Whether that will be evident in these new episodes or Black Mirror will stick to its more traditional darker tone is just something we’ll have to wait and see on.

There was no hints as to when we can expect new episodes of Black Mirror to arrive on Netflix, though safe to guess that the earliest is likely sometime in 2023. All five seasons of Black Mirror are available to stream on Netflix.

Michael Balderston

Michael Balderston is a DC-based entertainment and assistant managing editor for What to Watch, who has previously written about the TV and movies with TV Technology, Awards Circuit and regional publications. Spending most of his time watching new movies at the theater or classics on TCM, some of Michael's favorite movies include Casablanca, Moulin Rouge!, Silence of the Lambs, Children of Men, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Star Wars. On the TV side he enjoys Only Murders in the Building, Yellowstone, The Boys, Game of Thrones and is always up for a Seinfeld rerun. Follow on Letterboxd.