About Only Murders in the Building
Only Murders in the Building is a comedy-mystery series created by Steve Martin and John Hoffman, premiering on Hulu in 2021. Set within the Arconia, a grand Upper West Side apartment building, the show follows three vastly different residents united by obsessive love of true crime podcasts. When a fellow tenant turns up dead, faded actor Charles-Haden Savage, broke Broadway director Oliver Putnam, and guarded artist Mabel Mora launch their own amateur podcast while investigating the murder.
The chemistry between the leads is the engine of the show's charm. Steve Martin's Charles is a study in genteel melancholy. Martin Short's Oliver is all theatrical bluster. Selena Gomez's Mabel is their vital counterweight — younger, cooler, more instinctively suspicious. Each season brings a fresh homicide, new suspects, and celebrity guest stars including Tina Fey, Meryl Streep, and Paul Rudd. The mysteries are constructed with genuine craft, layering red herrings that reward attentive viewers.
Beyond its comic pleasures, Only Murders engages thoughtfully with the true crime genre it satirizes, asking pointed questions about the public's appetite for narratives built around real suffering. The relationships carry genuine emotional weight, exploring how friendship forms across generational divides and how shared obsession becomes a vehicle for human connection.
The show has been embraced as one of the finest comedies of its era, earning multiple Emmy nominations. It strikes an unusually delicate tonal balance — funny, suspenseful, and moving in equal measure — and helped establish Hulu as a credible destination for prestige comedy.
