Prime Video's newest mega-show is here: Citadel is now available to stream, and the action-packed big-budget spy drama is a hit with fans, with a Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 83% (at the time of writing).
Coming from Joe and Anthony Russo, the brothers behind Marvel hits such as Avengers: Endgame and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Citadel focuses on an global spy agency as it battles its evil nemesis, Manticore.
If you're excited for the new show, we've got a guide on how to watch Citadel that you can use to stream the series, as well as a Citadel episode 1 recap for those of you who've already watched it.
Starring Bodyguard’s Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas as special agents Mason Kane and Nadia Sinh, plus Lesley Manville as the villain, The White Lotus star Leo Woodall and Stanley Tucci, Citadel is the Amazon streaming service's effort to make a massive new franchise, as it's been renewed for a second season and local language spin-offs have been announced for Spain, Mexico, India and Italy already.
Amazon Prime has reported: "All of the local series are meant to enhance the entire entertainment experience and will be available for the viewer to deep dive into an imagined layered world.”
"There are multiple characters and multiple storylines that all intertwine, and I personally play a character who is an amnesiac—eight years of his life, he’s basically become a new person,” Richard explains. “There's a journey of discovering who he was before the accident happened, and he no longer remembers anything. It's a clash between the life that he's been living for eight years, and the life that he used to live. You get to delve into exploring the psyche of dealing with the consequences of things that you're not aware that you've done."
Here’s everything you need to know about Citadel on Prime Video...
Citadel release date
Citadel is a six-part series that launched worldwide on Prime Video on Friday, April 28 2023. Its first two episodes were available to stream then, with the rest joining Prime Video weekly.
Is there a trailer for Citadel?
Yes there's a teaser trailer and official trailer released by Prime Video and the action looks intense. Take a look at Richard Madden and the rest in action in both trailers below...
Citadel plot
Citadel is a global spy agency but the six-part story starts by following Laszlo Milla (Roland Møller), the lead operative of Citadel’s rival intelligence agency Manticore after his release from Citadel’s detention facility. He’s seeking revenge on the man who caught him — special agent Mason Kane (Richard Madden) — and wants to bring down Citadel for good.
The story jumps forward eight years to show that Citadel has been destroyed by an organization called Manticore. One night, when Mason is tracked down by his former Citadel colleague, Bernard Orlick (Stanley Tucci), who desperately needs his help to prevent Manticore from establishing a new world order. Mason seeks out his former partner, Nadia Sinh (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) — they'd both had their memories wiped and have been living separate lives. Now the two spies embark on a mission that takes them around the world in an effort to stop Manticore, all while contending with a relationship built on secrets, lies, and a dangerous-yet-undying love.
Citadel cast — Richard Madden on playing special agent Mason Kane
Richard Madden plays Mason Kane, a special agent who works for Citadel intelligence agency.
"The joy of this is being able to play these two very different characters, but both in the same body," explains Richard. "And they are both the same man in lots of different ways, but in each version of them, you pull out different aspects of humanity and who we are as people. And one of them carries a lot of scars from the past and a lot of trauma. And the other one doesn’t carry any of that baggage. He just has a whole bunch of unknowns to him, so we end up having these two very different characters. And that’s kind of what was exciting to explore about them, is how much of your character traits are built into you, and how much is inherited through trauma and experience?
" Ithink oftentimes, we see shows that are 80% drama, 20% action, or vice versa. And this show aimed to be 100% of both. And I think that’s what we’ve managed to pull off, ‘cause, in the middle of these huge sequences with explosions and cars blowing up and all of that, I don’t want to spoil it for you, we have this really kind of intimate drama between these two characters and how they dance together. So, for me, that's what was so exciting about these huge action pieces was that they were infused with heart and drama, and storytelling. We get to see a lot about these characters and how they physically interact. Not just great action sequences, but there's drama at the heart of each one of them."
* After playing Robb Stark in Game of Thrones and Prince Kit in Cinderella, Richard Madden hit the big time in the BBC1 thriller Bodyguard, which also starred Keeley Hawes. He’s also appeared in Birdsong, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, The Take, Rocketman, 1917 and Eternals.
Priyanka Chopra Jonas on playing Citadel agent Nadia Sinh
Indian singer and actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas is Citadel agent Nadia Sinh.
Priyanka says: "Citadel is a secret spy organization that has been created by the governments of the world. After multiple wars and conflicts erupted around the world, where governments decided that they were going to share intelligence and that it's for the betterment of the world to be able to share intelligence rather than keep intelligence because of all kinds of terrorism and, you know, a conflict that arose. So it's for the good of the world. It's for the good of humanity. And it needed to be kept a secret from the general public because it was to protect them and to protect the identities of thousands of Citadel spies all over the world. So it's a really unique, interesting concept.
"Our characters have sides to them and their personalities. Nadia carries a lot of baggage. She has to navigate really thick waters, you know? She has to hold her head up high while her character’s changing, her life is changing all around her, but she has to stay centered because of the burdens that she carries. I think that that makes her very juicy as a character for me to play because every choice that is made by her is burdened and laden by so much pressure. And she thrives in it, so it was really wonderful."
* Priyanka Chopra Jonas previously played Pinky in The White Tiger. She’s also starred in Baywatch, Isn’t it Romantic?, Quantico, We Can Be Heroes and The Matrix Resurrections.
Stanley Tucci on playing Bernard Orlick
Stanley Tucci plays Bernard Orlick a former Citadel colleague who recruits the spies for a mission to stop Manticore.
"I liked Citadel because it was complicated. There was something very captivating and unusual. I liked the character because there was humor to him, but there was also a real depth to him, and you never knew where it was going to go. I didn’t want to do that thing where he’s just the nerdy guy, and it wasn’t written like that either. He’s slightly more deadly. He has experience in the field as well as calling the shots from the office or a remote location. So I thought that was really interesting because usually, there’s the guy that’s in the field, and then there’s the tech guy, and there’s the boss guy, and this was all kind of a jumble, and I like that."
Anthony Russo adds: "Stanley Tucci is just such a wonderful, inventive, playful, intelligent actor that he really pushes their buttons in fun ways, and he makes the most of the dramatic relationship these characters have."
* American star Stanley Tucci already has a number of hit movies and TV series under his belt, including two seasons of Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, The Hunger Games, The Lovely Bones, Captain America: The First Avenger, Julie & Julia, Big Night, Spotlight, Inside Man and The Witches. He’s also starred in The Devil Wears Prada, The Terminal, The Pelican Brief and Prizzi’s Honor.
Lesley Manville on playing Dahlia Archer
The villain of the series is Dahlia Archer, a powerful woman employed by some dark forces who stops at nothing to get what she wants. She's played by Lesley Manville who says: "I was very interested in Citadel because the project sounded very exciting. It’s a big epic thriller with so many elements to it. It’s a series I’ve not made a lot of in terms of style, so that was something new to me. And the character of Dahlia was just too good to resist. She’s the UK Ambassador to the United States, with this really dark side and facade of someone reliable and honorable. But she’s far from honorable, she’s self-serving, she’s manipulative, she’s really quite the bad person, and I thought this is going to be great to play.
"It’s not which is easiest or which is hardest. Every part I play is different, and that’s the kind of actress I am and will continue to be. I’m not an actress who only has one type of performance in her. I like to play different ends of the social scale, and I like to play characters that are really not like me and very different from each other. But there’s no harder or easier. They’re all a challenge. It’s as complicated to create a sweet and wholesome character like Mrs. Harris as it is to create a thoroughly evil character like Dahlia."
* Lesley Manville plays Princess Margaret in The Crown season 5 and has starred in dramas such as Magpie Murders and the movie Mrs Harris Goes to Paris.
Who else is starring in Citadel?
Ashleigh Cummings plays Abby Conroy, who meets Mason Kane after the fall of Citadel at a memory therapy treatment center. Abby and Mason quickly fall in love, get married, and have a daughter named Hendrix. The show will also star Timothy Busfield, Laëtitia Eïdo, Anders Silje and Chizoba Ikwueke.
With Citadel being a multi-national drama, the co-leads of the Indian-set action are Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Varun Dhawan. See Samantha's picture on her recent Instagram post where she says: "“The mission is on. We have started rolling for the Indian installment of Citadel.”
Citadel episode guide
Episode 1: The Human Enigma
Citadel, an independent global spy agency, is destroyed by operatives of Manticore, a powerful syndicate manipulating the world from the shadows. Elite Citadel agents Mason Kane and Nadia Sinh had their memories wiped as they narrowly escaped with their lives. Eight years later, Citadel’s sole surviving agent, Bernard Orlick, searches the globe for Mason and Nadia in the hopes that they can regain their memories and stop Manticore once and for all.
Episode 2: Spies Appear in the Night
After being found by Citadel’s sole surviving agent, Bernard Orlick, Mason travels to New York City to retrieve a highly valuable asset from Manticore’s deadly henchmen, the Silje brothers. Later, Mason goes to Europe to track down another member of Citadel’s Tier-One operatives.
Episode 3: Infinite Shadows
Nadia has regained her memories of being a Citadel spy and is on the run with Mason, traveling to rural Spain in an effort to hide from Manticore’s agents. Since Mason’s memory vial was destroyed during the Silje brother’s attack, Mason must rely on Nadia to fill him in on their past lives, but can he truly trust her?
Episodes 4 to 8
We will update as the series progresses.
Locations and behind the scenes on Citadel
Citadel was shot coast to coast in the US, from Oregon to Atlanta; with international locations including London; Morocco; and Valencia, Spain. Bourne Wood, which is a woodland area near Surrey, England and was first used in Ridley Scott’s Oscar-winning film, Gladiator, is used for an extensive action sequence in Citadel’s first season, standing-in for the lower mountain slopes of the Italian Alps.
All about the Russo brothers
With Citadel being a multi-national drama, the co-leads of the Indian-set action are Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Varun Dhawan. See Samantha's picture on her recent Instagram post where she says: "“The mission is on. We have started rolling for the Indian installment of Citadel.”
The show will also star Ashleigh Cummings, Timothy Busfield, Laëtitia Eïdo and Chizoba Ikwueke.
