Happy Face is an American crime drama television series. It was adapted from the 2018 podcast Happy Face by Melissa Moore, and her 2009 autobiography Shattered Silence, co-written with M. Bridget Cook. The series stars Annaleigh Ashford, James Wolk, Tamera Tomakili, Khiyla Aynne, Benjamin Mackey, and Dennis Quaid.
The series premiered on Paramount+ on March 20, 2025. In July 2025, the series was canceled after one season.
In September 2020, it was reported that Jennifer Cacicio, Robert and Michelle King were developing for CBS All Access a series based on Melissa Moore's true-crime podcast Happy Face, and her autobiography Shattered Silence, co-written with M. Bridget Cook. Moore is the daughter of Keith Hunter Jesperson, the Happy Face killer.
In October 2021, Paramount+ greenlit the series written by Jennifer Cacicio and produced by CBS Studios in association with King Size Productions, iHeartPodcasts and Semi-Formal Productions. Michael Showalter also served as an executive producer and directed the first episode.
In February 2024, Dennis Quaid signed on to play the Happy Face killer and Annaleigh Ashford to play his daughter Melissa Moore. The following month, James Wolk and Tamera Tomakili were cast to play Melissa's husband and Ivy, respectively. David Harewood signed on to play Dr. Greg, star of the fictional daytime health and talk show The Dr. Greg Show.
Principal photography took place in Vancouver between March 19 and June 19, 2024. Some scenes were shot in May at New Westminster City Hall, in place of Texas.
On July 21, 2025, the series was canceled after one season.
The first two episodes of Happy Face premiered on March 20, 2025, on Paramount+ with the remaining episodes of the eight-episode season released weekly.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 57% of 23 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Annaleigh Ashford and Dennis Quaid have a memorable dynamic in Happy Face, but tonal uncertainty keeps this true crime thriller from measuring up to the high bar set by creators Michelle and Robert King's previous work." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the series a score of 55 out of 100, based on 13 reviews, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.