The Amsterdam Empire: Netflix’s Newest Series Proves the Dutch Have Been Running the World All Along

There is a new show on Netflix called The Amsterdam Empire, and it is so brilliantly Dutch that halfway through the first episode you start checking your passport to make sure you have not accidentally joined it.

When I first saw the title, I expected something involving clogs, cheese, and a few people on bicycles politely arguing about tulips. But no. This is not a quaint travel documentary. It is a razor-sharp, slow-burn drama about power, money, and the sort of people who could buy your entire town while pretending they are just there for the coffee.

The series opens with that familiar Amsterdam calm, canals glistening, trams humming, and a city that looks like it has been painted by someone with an unhealthy obsession with symmetry. But under that polite surface something darker stirs. There is a family empire, old money and older secrets, that has been quietly pulling the strings of global trade for decades. It is Succession with bicycles, Peaky Blinders with better lighting, and a touch of Narcos if Narcos had been filmed in a place where people recycle properly.

The main character, the patriarch of the so-called Amsterdam Empire, is a man you cannot help but admire and despise at the same time. He is charming, terrifying, and always five moves ahead. One moment he is discussing art, the next he is laundering enough cash to buy half of Rotterdam. His children, of course, are the usual mix of ambition, resentment, and cocaine, the sort of people who would smile at you while arranging your financial ruin in the background.

What makes it brilliant is how unapologetically Dutch it is. No one is trying to be American. They do not overdo the drama. They just get on with it, methodically, stylishly, and with that infuriating calm confidence that makes you want to throw a bicycle into the canal.

Every shot looks like a postcard. Every line of dialogue feels like a veiled threat delivered over a cappuccino. And every time you think the story is about to go off the rails, it does not, because the Dutch built the rails themselves, measured them twice, and invoiced you for the timber.

And yes, there are drugs. Of course there are drugs. This is Amsterdam. But even the criminal operations are efficient. No chaos, no nonsense, just spreadsheets and silent partnerships that make the Mafia look like amateurs.

By the end of the first season, you realise what The Amsterdam Empire is really about. It is not crime or corruption. It is control. The Dutch version of control, subtle, polite, and utterly inescapable.

So if you are looking for a show with grit, brains, and an aesthetic that makes you want to move to the Netherlands immediately, until you see the rent prices, this is it. The Amsterdam Empire does not shout. It simply takes over your screen, quietly, efficiently, and with a glass of Heineken in hand.

The British tried to rule the seas. The Americans tried to rule Hollywood. But the Dutch, they have just ruled Netflix.