Under the Banner of Heaven is an American true crime drama television miniseries created by Dustin Lance Black, based on the 2003 non-fiction book by Jon Krakauer about the case of brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty who killed their sister-in-law and her young daughter in 1984. The series premiered on April 28, 2022, on FX on Hulu. Andrew Garfield and Gil Birmingham star as two detectives investigating a brutal murder and its connections to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the LDS Church or informally as Mormons.
The series earned positive reviews, particularly for the performances of Garfield and Wyatt Russell. However, it also reignited controversy about depictions of the LDS faith, and while the victims' relatives and police involved in the case acknowledged that it was not meant to be a documentary series, they did note areas where the fictionalized series deviated from the specific facts.
The faith of police detective Jeb Pyre is shaken when investigating the murder of a Latter-day Saint mother and her baby daughter that seems to involve the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).
Initially intended to be adapted as a film beginning in 2011, it was announced in June 2021 that it would now be developed as a miniseries, with Dustin Lance Black retained as screenwriter and David Mackenzie serving as director. Andrew Garfield and Daisy Edgar-Jones were cast to star. The cast was rounded out in August, with Sam Worthington, Wyatt Russell, Denise Gough, Rory Culkin, and Gil Birmingham among the new additions.
Lindsay Hansen Park (of the Sunstone Education Foundation) and Troy Williams (of Equality Utah) worked as cultural and historical consultants. Lindsay Hansen Park says that when the show's creator employed her, he said her job was to "keep us honest."
Filming in Calgary began in August 2021 and was completed in December 2021.
The series premiered on April 28, 2022, on FX on Hulu. It is also set to premiere on Disney+ (Star) in international markets and Star+ In Latin America soon after. The series made its linear television premiere on the FX channel on March 7, 2023.
In November 2023, Disney Entertainment reached a deal with ITV to distribute Under the Banner of Heaven on ITVX in the United Kingdom, where it was released on February 26, 2024.
Whip Media, which tracks viewership data for the more than 21 million worldwide users of its TV Time app, calculated that Under the Banner of Heaven was the most anticipated new televisions series of April 2022. According to market research company Parrot Analytics, which looks at consumer engagement in consumer research, streaming, downloads, and on social media, Under the Banner of Heaven experienced a 98% increase in demand following the debut of its third episode, securing the fifth spot on the charts from the week ending April 30 to the week ending May 6. The streaming aggregator Reelgood, which monitors real-time data from 5 million users in the U.S. for original and acquired streaming programs and movies across subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) and ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) services, reported that Under the Banner of Heaven was the seventh most-streamed program across all platforms during the week of May 4 and moved to the eighth position during the week of May 11, 2022. It later reached the fifth spot for the week of May 14 before settling at the ninth position during the week of May 21. Parrot Analytics reported that for the week ending June 3, Under the Banner of Heaven experienced a 9% increase in demand, reaching 19.4 times the average series demand in the U.S. following its finale on June 2, 2022.
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an 87% approval rating with an average rating of 7.50/10, based on 52 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "While Under the Banner of Heaven gets bogged down by an overabundance of backstory, its procedural through-line is enriched by thoughtfully grappling with personal faith." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 71 out of 100 based on 25 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Historian Patrick Q. Mason, in a review of the show, pointed out that it is the most recent entry in a long history of American media portrayals of Mormons as inherently violent. McKay Coppins, a Mormon journalist, stated in an article in The Atlantic that the series demonizes Mormons and misrepresents the faith. He said that "no one involved in the show felt compelled to check the customary boxes Hollywood creators have been trained to check in this era of inclusiveness and representation. Black did not hire any practicing Mormons to write or consult on the show." Lindsay Hansen Park later disputed Coppins's assertion, saying numerous Latter-day Saints were consulted for the series, some of whom were identified on a Facebook page while others preferred anonymity: "We had bishops, we had Relief Society Presidents, we had a good number of faithful people that we consulted."
Randy Johnson, the American Fork chief of police in charge of the 1984 murder investigation said, "I find the book to be substantially more accurate than the miniseries. ... I cannot recognize any actual person that I knew or came to know, accurately depicted in the series. The series does not reflect the actual investigation that I oversaw. Nor does it reflect the attitudes, behaviors and conduct of me or any of my officers. It is clearly a work of fiction as indicated by the disclaimer.â Sharon Wright Weeks, Brenda's sister, said she felt no ill-will towards Edgar-Jones but also added: "I do not recognize her [Brenda] at all in any of the show."