How do you build a thriller around a man whose actions become increasingly difficult to watch? That is the central challenge behind Gordon, Netflix’s new Argentine series, which premieres on November 18, 2026. Rodrigo de la Serna plays Aníbal Gordon, a real figure associated with some of Argentina’s darkest years. However, the story is not designed to turn him into a conventional antihero.
Instead, directors Pablo Trapero and Pablo Fendrik use a seven-episode psychological action thriller to explore how a criminal gained extraordinary power amid political violence. Set between 1970 and 1976, the production also marks Trapero’s return to Argentina after eight years working abroad.
Gordon turns a criminal’s rise to power into a disturbing thriller
One of the most revealing moments in the trailer involves an apparently ordinary conversation. Dora, a neighbor and the widow of a vice admiral, asks Gordon whether he served in the military. His answer is disarmingly simple: he is “a simple businessman.”
That response captures the contradiction at the center of the character. Behind an unremarkable public identity stands a man whose activities are inseparable from Argentina’s machinery of political repression. The series reinforces this contrast through another unsettling detail: Gordon constructs a secret passageway inside his new home.
For Trapero, the character offers a way to move through different environments and layers of Argentine society during a period of escalating violence. Rather than confining the narrative to one criminal operation, the filmmaker approaches Gordon as a connection between otherwise separate worlds.
In a November 9 interview with Variety, Trapero and de la Serna discussed the challenge of making viewers want to keep watching a villain who only grows more villainous. Their comments point to a series concerned with both historical power and the psychological discomfort of following someone who becomes progressively more monstrous.
Gordon brings Rodrigo de la Serna into his darkest role yet
Audiences who recognize Rodrigo de la Serna as Palermo from Money Heist will encounter a radically different character here. The Argentine actor describes Aníbal Gordon as the darkest role of his career, explaining that the performance required him to strip away any empathy for other people.
According to de la Serna, Gordon differs from the other characters because he lacks a political ideology. His priorities are money, personal advantage and the satisfaction of his own psychopathic impulses. The actor identified “an absolute lack of empathy” as the essential quality behind his interpretation.
That distinction is important to the series’ historical perspective. Gordon operated within organizations connected to political repression, yet the characterization described by de la Serna presents him primarily as a mercenary. His involvement is therefore portrayed through opportunism and personal cruelty rather than ideological conviction.
Trapero faced a related storytelling problem. How could he persuade viewers to continue following a protagonist who becomes more reprehensible with each episode? His answer involves changing the dramatic language of the series instead of relying on sympathy for its central figure.
The first episode adopts elements of a Western, while the second moves toward a secret agent thriller. By the final installment, the atmosphere approaches horror. This progression offers a way to sustain tension while allowing the character’s actions to become increasingly disturbing.
The real Aníbal Gordon reveals the history behind the series
Although the production uses thriller conventions, its central figure comes from a documented period of Argentine political violence. Understanding that background is essential because the events associated with Gordon extend far beyond ordinary organized crime.
According to the historical account discussed in the Variety interview, his trajectory included the following stages:
- Early criminal activity: Aníbal Gordon was involved in car theft during his youth.
- 1968: He joined military intelligence as a secret agent.
- Before the military dictatorship: He became a leader of the Triple A death squads, associated with political violence and repression.
- May to November 1976: He ran Automotores Orletti, one of the dictatorship’s most notorious clandestine detention and torture centers.
- Central historical question: His progression from car thief to a powerful figure within the apparatus of repression raises the question of how such authority became possible.
These details make the distinction between historical events and television dramatization especially important. Automotores Orletti was a place of detention and torture, not merely a threatening backdrop for a crime story. The suffering of victims must remain central to any understanding of that history.
For that reason, the most significant question raised by Gordon is not whether its protagonist can escape danger. It is how a man with his background could gain influence within institutions and organizations capable of committing severe abuses.
Trapero has also emphasized the importance of bringing this period to younger generations. His intention is to keep the consequences of violence in public memory, rather than allowing the passage of time to make them easier to overlook.
Pablo Trapero returns to Argentina with an ambitious seven-episode production
The project represents an important homecoming for Trapero. After eight years away from Argentina, during which he worked on international productions including ZeroZeroZero, the filmmaker returns to a setting connected to one of his best-known works, The Clan.
That earlier film earned him the Silver Lion for best director at the Venice Film Festival. Trapero now sees Gordon as a kind of creative revenge: an opportunity to revisit similar territory while having considerably more time to develop its characters, circumstances and consequences.
The production was filmed over seven months, with Pablo Fendrik sharing directing responsibilities. Trapero also co-wrote the screenplay with Marcos Osorio Vidal, drawing on the work of Marcelo Larraquy.
Here are the confirmed details of Gordon on Netflix:
- Title: Gordon.
- Streaming platform: Netflix.
- Premiere date: November 18, 2026.
- Number of episodes: Seven.
- Genre: Period psychological action thriller.
- Historical setting: Argentina between 1970 and 1976.
- Directors: Pablo Trapero and Pablo Fendrik.
- Writers: Pablo Trapero and Marcos Osorio Vidal.
- Source material: Based on the work of Marcelo Larraquy.
- Lead actor: Rodrigo de la Serna as Aníbal Gordon.
- Producers: Adrián Suar and Diego Andraznik.
- Production company: Preludio Producciones.
- Filming period: Seven months.
Spanish-language thrillers keep exploring very different kinds of darkness
The series also arrives as Spanish-language productions continue exploring suspense through different approaches. Netflix is preparing Proxies, Oriol Paulo’s upcoming mystery thriller, which builds its intrigue around a troubling confession. Gordon, by contrast, places its questions within a specific historical period and a real individual’s rise to power.
Meanwhile, Disney+ is developing a new Mexican adaptation of Blood Wedding from Manolo Caro. Although its literary origins and contemporary setting are very different, it offers another example of Spanish-language storytelling examining violence and human behavior through a distinct cultural perspective.
Gordon premieres on Netflix on November 18, 2026. Its most challenging promise is not simply to reconstruct the life of a notorious criminal. It is to examine the conditions that allowed him to acquire power, while confronting viewers with a history whose victims and consequences must never be reduced to entertainment.
Creator of the website, Pokemon trainer by nature. Trying to report on everything related to the world of video games, series and movies. Yu-Gi-Oh is my weakness, collecting cards since the dawn of time.
