HBO Max’s eight-episode limited series The Staircase (2022) dramatized the Michael Peterson murder trial, based on the acclaimed 2004 documentary of the same name. Colin Firth starred as Peterson, a novelist accused of murdering his wife Kathleen (Toni Collette) in their Durham, North Carolina home in 2001.
The series alternated between the night of Kathleen’s death (Michael’s claim: she fell down the stairs while drunk) and the subsequent trial, slowly revealing details that complicated Peterson’s innocence narrative: his bisexuality and secret affairs with men, a previous suspicious death (family friend Elizabeth Ratliff, also found at the bottom of stairs), and financial pressures.
Colin Firth’s performance captured Peterson’s arrogance and charm—a man convinced of his own intellectual superiority even while facing life in prison. Toni Collette’s Kathleen appeared in flashbacks and death scene reconstructions, her brief screen time conveying a woman trapped in a crumbling marriage.
The show-within-a-show framing depicted French documentarian Jean-Xavier de Lestrade (Vincent Vermignon) filming the original documentary, raising questions about observation ethics and how cameras change behavior. The Petersons performed for the documentary, aware they were crafting a narrative.
Sophie Turner played Margaret Ratliff, one of Peterson’s adopted daughters (Elizabeth Ratliff’s biological children), whose loyalty to Michael despite mounting evidence explored familial denial and trauma bonds.
The series finale left Peterson’s guilt ambiguous—he entered an Alford plea (maintaining innocence while acknowledging prosecutors had enough evidence to convict), released on time served. Did he murder Kathleen, or was it truly an accident? The show refused to answer definitively.
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