Nicole Kidman’s New Crime Thriller ‘Scarpetta’ Tops Streaming Charts

Prime Video’s new crime thriller, Scarpetta, has quickly risen to the top of the streaming charts after all eight episodes of season one dropped on the platform on March 11, 2026. Based on Patricia Cornwell’s series of Scarpetta novels, Scarpetta follows the titular forensic pathologist as she solves crimes.

Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis signed on to develop Cornwell’s series back in 2023, and the series got a two-season order from Amazon. Scarpetta currently has a 71% on Rotten Tomatoes and seems to be dividing critics, but its position at the top of Prime’s streaming charts says that something about it is attracting viewers.

What Is Scarpetta About?

Scarpetta stars Nicole Kidman as Dr. Kay Scarpetta, the chief medical examiner of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Both Kay’s personal and professional lives are a mess at the start of the series, with her sister Dorothy (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her husband Pete (Bobby Cannavale) having to move into Kay’s house with her husband Benton (Simon Baker).

On the professional side of things, Kay discovers the fingerprints of a man thought to be innocent in a past case resurface in a new crime scene. This brings the past and the present crashing together, and Scarpetta bounces between the two time periods with younger actors playing the characters.

The modern timeline in Scarpetta calls into question whether Kay did everything by the book in her past, which may have come about as a result of witnessing her father’s brutal murder when she was a child. Shaped by death and grief, Kay may not always have a clear-eyed view of these extreme cases.

Why Scarpetta Is Already So Successful

Scarpetta is already #1 in the US on Prime Video, and it’s not hard to see why. Nicole Kidman once again proves that she is one of the most bankable stars working, and even if you think Kidman appears in a lot of similar roles, there’s no denying that there’s clearly a huge audience for these types of shows.

Add in Jamie Lee Curtis and Bobby Canavale, and you get an even bigger cross-section of viewers looking for something new. It can’t be overstated how popular Cornwall’s Scarpetta novel series is. With 29 books since 1990, and the latest coming in 2025, you can be sure there are generations of readers who have been waiting years for an adaptation.

Prime Video Has High Hopes For Scarpetta

Prime Video seems to have a lot of faith in Scarpetta, considering they ordered two seasons of the series right off the bat. The success of season one means that season 2 is going to have a ready and willing audience, and it’s a good bet that more seasons are going to be ordered soon.

Scarpetta has made the clever decision to adapt two books at a time in one season. The scenes with younger actors come from Postmortem, while the scenes of older actors adapt Autopsy. With so many books to adapt, Scarpetta could have a long life ahead of it, even adapting two at a time.