Carlos (Season 1)

Carlos (2010) is a French-German political drama you can watch online on iFILM — directed by Olivier Assayas, it runs five and a half hours across three parts and covers two decades in the life of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the Venezuelan operative known to the world as Carlos the Jackal. Edgar Ramírez plays him from young ideologue to ageing mercenary.

The late 1960s: Ramírez signs on with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and finds he has a particular talent for the work. Assayas tracks the route — London, Paris, Vienna, the Middle East, Sudan. The 1975 OPEC headquarters siege runs for close to an hour of screen time and barely breathes. Along the way the committed leftist becomes something harder to name: a man who believes he's shaping history while history quietly reroutes around him.

Shown at Cannes in 2010, the series earned Ramírez the César for Best Actor. Assayas refuses easy judgment — the film neither glorifies nor simplifies, and Ramírez never plays the character as symbol. Five hours later you understand how someone gets there, which is not the same as understanding them. Stream Carlos online on iFILM.