Hulu's murder-mystery comedy Only Murders in the Building has become a staple of early fall TV. Since its debut in 2021, the N.Y.C.-set series has followed its true-crime podcasters Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short), and Mabel (Selena Gomez) as they investigate a series of murders in their pre-war apartment The Arconia (and never consider relocating). On August 27, 2024, OMITB returned for a star-studded fourth season that went bicoastal, as the trio juggled a close friend's murder with pre-production for a Hollywood movie based on their hit podcast.
Now that OMITB season 4 ended with a bombshell finale, Hulu has dropped the first concrete hints of Charles, Mabel, and Oliver's next investigation. Below, we keep track of everything we know about Only Murders in the Building season 5 so far.
Has 'Only Murders in the Building' been renewed for season 5?
Yes! In what's becoming a yearly tradition, Variety reported the news of season 5's renewal on September 4, 2024, soon after the season 4 premiere. According to the outlet, season 5 will also receive a full 10-episode run, the same amount of episodes as seasons 1-4.
The good news also came ahead of the 2024 Emmys, where OMITB had 21 Emmy nominations for its third season—including Gomez's first-ever Emmy acting nomination—marking the most for the series to date.
When will 'Only Murders in the Building' season 5 come out?
In an era of TV series taking two- or even three-year hiatuses between seasons, Only Murders in the Building has stuck to a yearly release schedule since its 2021 series premiere. Based on previous seasons, viewers can expect OMITB season 5 to land on Hulu in August 2025.
Who will be in the cast of 'Only Murders in the Building' season 5?
Spoilers for the Only Murders in the Building season 4 finale ahead. Now that we know who made it out of OMITB season 4 alive—as well as next season's murder victim—we can confirm that all of the series' central cast will return. That includes the main trio Steven Martin (Charles Haden-Savage), Martin Short (Oliver Putnam), Selena Gomez (Mabel Mora), Michael Cyril Creighton (Howard Morris), Jackie Hoffman (Uma Heller), and Da'Vine Joy Randolph (Detective Williams). We're also keeping all our fingers and toes crossed that Meryl Streep will return to reprise her role of Loretta Durkin-Putnam. Since her character is filming in New Zealand, the OMITB team is likely keeping her storyline open depending on Streep's upcoming schedule.
Meanwhile, season 5 set up two characters to become some of the main focus in the upcoming murder mystery. After he was found dead in the Arconia's courtyard fountain, Lester the doorman (played since season 1 by Teddy Coluca) is guaranteed to return via extensive flashbacks. Meanwhile, Deadline reports that Téa Leoni has officially joined OMITB season 5 as "Sofia Caccimelio, wife of Nicky 'The Neck' Caccimelio, a missing person with ties to the Caputo crime family mentioned previously in episode 9 this season."
OMITB co-creator John Hoffman told the outlet, "I think she’s the great tease at the end of the finale and a little bit of an intriguing bump forward. She’s an extension of the little news report in episode 9 that Mabel makes note of at the hospital. [Sofia] is the wife of the Dry Cleaning King of Brooklyn, and maybe a couple of dry cleaning outlets in Manhattan, as well, we may come to know. But beyond that, it’s a world opened up potentially that we haven’t talked about too much yet in New York, so she holds a lot of intrigue."
News on the rest of the season 5 cast will likely come out over the next few months, as the series fills out its latest ensemble.
What will 'Only Murders in the Building' season 5 be about?
The final moments of season 4 tease that season 5 will likely be about Lester's mysterious death, how Nicky "The Neck" Caccimelio disappeared, the dealings of the Caputo crime family, and how all three of those things tie together and connect to the Arconia. (Seriously, how has no one moved out of that building yet?) Speaking with Deadline, Hoffman teased that the overall conspiracy also possibly has ties to the main trio—specifically Oliver's shadier business dealings in the past.
When asked if the Caccimelios are connected to earlier OMITB seasons, Hoffman told the outlet, "I think there are references to what Oliver said when he dealt with financing for his shows; so, yeah, there may be some crossover that way. Potentially, some danger could be involved in helping. There are some moves that might come in season 5 that change the whole equation."
"We [in the season 5 writers room] were talking earlier today about what’s New York right now," he said of next season's possible themes. "So there is a classic version of that, and then what does it look like today? That’s intriguing to me."
Hoffman also implied going beyond Manhattan in season 5 while speaking to TVLine following the season 4 finale. "There are a lot of areas that we’ve been talking about [in the writers’ room]… looking at the life of someone who was a doorman in a pre-war apartment building in New York City at this moment, and all that it encompasses," he explained. "Who is this person? And what stuff might have been going on in his life? What sort of factions [of New York City] has he touched? That feels really intriguing to me as far as where we’re going."
