Just over ten years on from its debut, Matthew McConaughey has shared his thoughts on True Detective, and why he thinks his season is still the best. The actor was recently asked if he watched the latest season of the show – True Detective: North Country – which starred Jodie Foster and Kali Reis.
“I watched, I saw it. Yeah, there’s a lot about it that I appreciated,” McConaughey told Variety about the 2014 show. “My favorite season – and I feel like I can say this objectively – is Season 1.”
The actor added: “I happen to be in that one, so I thought that was incredible, incredible television and a great series. I watched it weekly, like everyone else, on Sunday night, and that was an event for me. And I got to sit back and enjoy that. I loved the water cooler talk on Monday morning. Even though I made it, I sort of forgot what was going to happen next. It was one of the great events in TV.”
The original series starred McConaughey as Detective Rustin “Rust” Cohle alongside Woody Harrelson as Detective Martin “Marty” Hart. The series was told across two time periods: when the pair are young detectives brought in to investigate the death of Dora Lange in 1995 and then 17 years later when links to a series of other missing-person cases bring it into the spotlight.
It was widely acclaimed when it first aired and still holds an impressive 92% critics and 91% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. This is the highest of all seasons of the show, closely followed by True Detective season 4, which also hit over the 90% mark.
For more, check out our guides to all the new TV shows arriving in 2025 and the best HBO shows.
