Michael Caine hunting a killer in foggy Victorian London? The streets have never looked more dangerous.
5.294 minSeason 1 • Episode 2
LatestIn the autumn of 1888 London's huge metropolis was gripped by fear. On the teeming streets of Whitechapel women were being torn to pieces by a killer who vanished in the shadows time after time. So terrible was the savagery, that the world remembers it still.
Jack the Ripper is a 1988 two-part television film/miniseries portraying a fictionalized account of the hunt for Jack the Ripper, the unidentified serial killer responsible for the Whitechapel murders of 1888. The series coincided with the 100th anniversary of the murders.
Acting
Caine's weary, opium-addled Abberline is career-best stuff.
Production
BBC budgets stretched to recreate 1888 Whitechapel in grimy detail.
Writing
Derek Marlowe's conspiracy-laden script still sparks debate.
Michael Caine
Inspector Frederick Abberline
Jane Seymour
Emma
Lewis Collins
Sergeant George Godley
Armand Assante
Richard Mansfield
Lysette Anthony
Mary Jane Kelly
Michael Gothard
George Lusk
T. P. McKenna
O'Connor
Richard Morant
Dr. Acland
Christopher Fulford
Beggar
Harry Andrews
Coroner Wynne Baxter
Peter Armitage
Sergeant Kerby
Hugh Fraser
Sir Charles Warren
Roger Ashton-Griffiths
Rodman
Desmond Askew
CopyBoy
Ray McAnally
Sir William Gull
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Released exactly 100 years after the actual Whitechapel murders began in August 1888.
This miniseries popularized the 'royal conspiracy' theory that would dominate Ripper discourse for decades—Freddie Mercury even watched it twice.
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