‘Industry’ Season 4 Review: The HBO Cult Sensation Returns With Its Best and Most Brash Season Yet

Ever since Industry premiered with very little hype on HBO back in 2020, it’s earned a reputation for being crazy sexy and hella smart — but unlike other HBO Sunday night sensations, it has also proven itself to be too cool to really catch on with general, mainstream audiences. Industry has also largely flown under the radar during awards seasons, but it also possesses a rabid fanbase of media junkies and culture critics who will sing the show’s praises to anyone who will listen.

Industry Season 4 — which hits HBO this Sunday, January 11 — is yet another spectacularly bold, absolutely brilliant, and shamelessly brash season of television, but it’s also darker, grander, and more culturally relevant than any season of the show before. With each new season, Industry creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay have expanded the canvas of their world and proven themselves to be sublime showrunners in the process. Industry Season 4 features stunning filmmaking, brilliant writing, and profound social commentary from the duo, as well as career-best turns from the star-studded ensemble cast. In market terms, you’re going to want to be bullish and buy big into Industry Season 4.

Industry Season 4 takes place about a year after the events of the third season (which finished airing in September 2024). Harper Stern (Myha’la) enjoys the trappings of working for Otto Mostyn (Roger Barclay), but chafes at her lack of power or independence. Yasmin Kara-Hanani (Marisa Abela) has settled into life as Lady Muck, but her husband, Sir Henry (Kit Harington), is noticeably absent from her fabulous social gatherings. Speaking of absences, Yasmin’s former fling Robert Spearing (Harry Lawtey) has joined fellow original cast member Gus Sackey (David Jonsson) in enjoying a quieter life off screen, aka exiting the series.

The first episode of Industry Season 4 almost serves as an entire reset for the series. The cold open follows financial journalist Jim Dycker (Charlie Heaton) as he literally stalks Tender employee Haley Clay (Kiernan Shipka) across a night of debauched London partying. Dycker is convinced that all is not well over at Tender, an online payment service poised to take on the banking industry at large. However, these instincts put him at odds with Tender’s ambitious co-founder Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella), who has cozied up to Yasmin in the hopes of making Sir Henry the public face of the company.

After Industry sets the scene and introduces its new players, it ramps up the drama in a big, beautifully baroque way. Industry Season 4 Episode 2 is an absolute barnburner, exquisitely written and directed by Mickey Down and Konrad Kay. What the showrunners accomplish feels downright Kubrickian at times, offering Kit Harington a chance to throw down a tour de force performance that better get Emmy voters’ attention. Similarly, Episode 5 gives Season 3 breakout character Sweetpea Golightly (Miriam Petche) the spotlight when she and new addition Kwabena Bannerman (Toheeb Jimoh) go abroad, proving that Industry‘s greatest strength is its ability to consistently break its own formula. (I yearn for an eventual Industry spin-off that’s just Sweetpea trotting the globe sniffing out white collar crimes!)

Industry‘s casting department has always had a knack of tapping new stars, but three of the strongest new additions in Season 4 are already famous for starring in massive mainstream hits. What’s rules, though, is how these familiar faces deftly manage to transcend their iconic roles. Kiernan Shipka manages to fully transcend her breakout role as Mad Men‘s Sally Draper, arriving fully-formed as the scintillatingly sexy and perpetually surprising Haley Clay. Toheeb Jimoh lends his new trader character some of his trademark sunny Ted Lasso charm, which Kwabena Bannerman sorely needs to deal with the ever frosty Harper. Finally, Charlie Heaton might have won the filmography lottery, getting to exit Stranger Things after five wildly successful seasons and immediately joining the grown up world of Industry.

Industry Season 4 also excels by recommitting to its core cast in freshly inspired ways. Harper Stern manages to coax Eric Tao (Ken Leung) out of retirement, giving her former mentor a second chance at actually mentoring her. Some of the most beautiful scenes all season are just two-handers between Myha’la and Leung, exploring the tiny cracks of vulnerability in Harper’s and Eric’s tough facades. Similarly, Marisa Abela gets to embark on yet another season of excavating Yasmin’s grotesque layers of trauma, this time tied to her own need for power to sustain any sense of self.

Industry Season 4 marks yet another triumph for showrunners Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, two creators who seem to addicted to topping themselves. Its star-studded cast, steamy sex scenes, and eerily prescient storylines ought to finally propel the HBO stunner into the the forefront of pop culture — and line their shelves with a slew of long overdue Emmys.

Industry Season 4 premieres Sunday, January 11 at 9 PM on HBO and HBO Max.