Black Mirror season 6: cast with Aaron Paul and trailer - how many episodes will there be?

It’s been four long years since new episodes of Black Mirror were released - but the wait is nearly over, with a brand new season coming to delight and disturb us all. Netflix has dropped a first look at the upcoming instalment of the cult favourite series from Charlie Brooker, promising quite the star studded lineup. 

Black Mirror originally started on Channel 4 back in 2011 before it moved over to Netflix a few years later, in 2016. Each episode of the series is completely standalone, telling their own stories with different casts. While they’re all individual, the episodes share a theme of exploring the near future and sci-fi technology. 

Previous stars who have appeared in episodes of Black Mirror include Rory Kinnear (Bank of Dave, The Diplomat), Daniel Kaluuya (Nope, Get Out), Bryce Dallas Howard (Jurassic World Dominion, Mandalorian), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (The Girl Before, Loki), Kelly Macdonald (Ten Percent, Line of Duty) and Will Poulter (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, Midsommar), to name just a few. 

This is everything you need to know. 

What do we know about the new season?

You can watch the new trailer released by Netflix right here. 

Speaking to Netflix’s Tudum, writer, creator and executive producer Charlie Brooker said that he even surprised himself with season six of the anthology series. 

He said: “I’ve always felt that Black Mirror should feature stories that are entirely distinct from one another, and keep surprising people - and myself - or else what’s the point? It should be a series that can’t be easily defined, and can keep reinventing itself.”

Brooker continued: “Partly as a challenge, and partly to keep things fresh for both me and the viewer, I began this season by deliberately upending some of my own core assumptions about what to expect. 

“Consequently, this time, alongside some of the more familiar Black Mirror tropes we’ve also got a few new elements, including some I’ve previously sworn blind the show would never do, to stretch the parameters of what ‘a Black Mirror episode’ even is. The stories are all still tonally Black Mirror through-and-through — but with some crazy swings and more variety than ever before.” 

Who is in the new season?

Season six boasts a star studded cast, including:

• Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad, Westworld)
• Anjana Vasan (We Are Lady Parts, Killing Eve)
• Annie Murphy (Kevin Can F**k Himself, Russian Doll)
• Auden Thornton (This is Us, Doubt)
• Ben Barnes (Shadow and Bone, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities)
• Clara Rugaard (The Rising, Still Star-Crossed)
• Daniel Portman (The Control Room, Game of Thrones)
• Danny Ramirez (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Top Gun: Maverick)
• David Shields (The Crown, Benediction)
• Himesh Patel (Station Eleven, The Amazing Maurice)
• John Hannah (The Last of Us, Trust Me)
• Josh Hartnett (The Fear Index, Paradise Lost)
• Kate Mara (A Teacher, Pose)
• Michael Cera (Life & Beth, Juno) 
• Monica Dolan (The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe, My Name is Leon) 
• Myha’la Herrold (Industry, Bodies, Bodies, Bodies) 
• Paapa Essiedu (The Lazarus Project, The Capture)
• Rob Delaney (We Are Not Alone, Catastrophe)
• Rory Culkin (Halston, Under the Banner of Heaven)
• Salma Hayek Pinault (Magic Mike’s Last Dance, Eternals)
• Samuel Blenkin (The Witcher: Blood Origin, Peaky Blinders)
• Zazie Beetz (Bullet Train, Atlanta)

How many episodes will there be?

We don’t know exactly how many episodes Black Mirror will have for us in season six - but it has been confirmed that there will be more episodes than the previous season, which only had three. 

When is season six out?

While Netflix hasn’t announced a specific date for when the new season of Black Mirror will be released, it has said that it will premiere “in June”, so fans don’t have to wait too long before they can binge the entire thing in one sitting. 

Brooker said: “I can’t wait for people to binge their way through it all and hope they enjoy it – especially the bits they shouldn’t.”