The Penguin is a 2024 crime drama limited series created by Lauren LeFranc for Max, serving as a direct spin-off of Matt Reeves's 2022 film The Batman. Set in Gotham City just days after the catastrophic flood that ended that film, the series tracks the rise of Oswald Cobblepot — the cunning, physically disfigured street criminal played by Colin Farrell — from a mid-level operative in the Falcone crime family to the most formidable power broker in the Gotham underworld as he exploits the vacuum created by the family's sudden collapse.

The series stars Colin Farrell in a physically transformative lead performance requiring daily hours of prosthetic makeup application, reprising a role that had been widely celebrated as the standout element of The Batman. Cristin Milioti co-stars as Sofia Falcone, the brilliant, dangerous, and long-underestimated daughter of the deceased crime boss Carmine Falcone, who returns from years of institutionalization to press her own claim to the Gotham criminal empire. Their adversarial power struggle drives the series' central conflict, set against a Gotham rendered as a grimly gorgeous neo-noir environment of perpetual rain, waterlogged streets, and rotting Gilded Age grandeur.

The Penguin was one of the most acclaimed superhero television productions of 2024, winning the Golden Globe for Best Television Limited Series and earning multiple Emmy nominations. LeFranc's screenplay was praised for treating its crime genre material with the moral seriousness of The Wire rather than the bombast of conventional superhero properties, and Farrell's commitment to the physical and psychological demands of the role was cited as one of the year's most extraordinary sustained performances. The series demonstrated that superhero storytelling could sustain the tonal register and character depth of prestige crime drama.