Television Review

Manhunt (2024) • Apple TV+ — an overstretched historical miniseries

The aftermath of the first American presidential assassination and the fight to preserve and protect the ideals that were the foundation of Lincoln’s Reconstruction plans.

Manhunt, an eight-episode miniseries, is a work of historical fiction with good intentions. The 1865 assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was one of the greatest tragedies in American history. The hunt for his assassin, stage actor John Wilkes Booth, is a story worth telling. The series also sets out admirably to evoke feelings of outrage, inspiration, and hope that resonates with our own troubled times, as the shadow of the Civil War still hangs over America nearly 160 years later.

Were good intentions sufficient, praise would indeed be warranted. Historical films that succeed as cinema, even when they alter events to suit the demands of narrative filmmaking and audience expectations — in some cases, with outright fabrications — include such beloved classics as…