Netflix Has Another True Crime Hit on Its Hands

Netflix is continuing to cement its place as a go-to source for true crime, and its latest docuseries is proving that fact. Making its way to the streaming library on Wednesday, Aug. 4, Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami, a new six-part series documenting the rise and fall of Miami drug kingpins Sal Magluta and Willy Falcon, quickly made its way onto the Netflix streaming charts, pushing other popular titles like Manifest to the wayside.

Directed by Billy Corben, who previously directed three Cocaine Cowboys features, The Kings of Miami explores the life and crime of Magluta and Falcon, who were eventually indicted in one of the largest drug cases in United States history after they were accused of illegally smuggling 75 tons of cocaine into the U.S. in the 1980s. The pair — high school friends and Cuban exiles — built a reputed $2 billion empire that made Willy and Sal, aka “Los Muchachos,” two of Miami’s biggest celebrities and managed to outrun and outmaneuver prosecution for decades before ultimately being caught. As it “paints a vivid portrait of the last of Miami’s ‘cocaine cowboys,’” the series features interviews with those closest to Magluta and Falcon, their defense team, and the Feds tasked with taking them down.

Upon its Netflix debut, the show shot to the No. 5 spot on the overall chart, though as of this posting, it has since fallen to No. 6. It currently ranks behind Hit & Run, All American, Netflix’s new musical animated movie Vivo, Outer Banks, and the third and final installment of The Kissing Booth franchise, which stole the No. 1 placeholder. While it has slipped ever so slightly in the overall chart, its ranking among other series on the platform has remained the same. Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami premiered at and still holds the No. 4 ranking on the TV series charts, beating out Hit & Run, All American, and Outer Banks, which holds the top spot. Those rankings are well worth it, at least according to Decider‘s review of the series.

“We often complain that docuseries take six hours to tell three hours of story, which leads to a lot of filler. Here, it feels like there’s about eight to ten hours of story, squeezed into six 45-50 minute episodes…There is a tone of admiration and amazement to all of the interviews, which matches the upbeat soundtrack. Corben doesn’t position this as some dark, scary, noirish true crime series, and that is refreshing,” the outlet wrote before declaring that Cocaine Cowboys is worthy of a “stream it” tag. “While we really disliked the pacing of the first episode of Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings Of Miami, the story of Willy Falcon and Sal Magluta is just getting started. It’ll be interesting to see how the two of them consistently beat prison time and how they finally were able to be put away.”

At this time, Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami does not have a critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, though its audience score on the site sits at 62% fresh. A Decider Twitter poll asking Netflix subscribers whether the show was worthy of a stream or a skip found 46.7% of respondents encouraging others to press play, with just 11.6% saying others should skip it. Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami is available for streaming on Netflix.