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East of Eden on Netflix: Cast, Episodes, Reviews and How It Compares to the Book

By Ivy Marlowe, Film & Series Critic·October 5, 2026·5 min read

Most people who know East of Eden know it through James Dean, and the 1955 film only covers the last stretch of John Steinbeck's novel. Netflix's version goes back to the beginning and puts Cathy Ames at the centre, with Florence Pugh in the role. It topped Netflix's worldwide daily chart within days of release, according to FlixPatrol.

The adaptation is also a family story. It was written by Zoe Kazan, whose grandfather Elia Kazan directed the 1955 film, which makes this as close as a remake gets to an inheritance.

East of Eden | Official Teaser | Netflix

East of Eden cast and characters

Pugh plays Cathy Ames, Christopher Abbott and Mike Faist play the brothers Adam and Charles Trask, and Hoon Lee plays Lee, the Trask family's cook and the novel's moral centre. Ciarán Hinds is Samuel Hamilton. Joseph Zada and Joe Anders play Cathy's sons, Caleb and Aron, in the later episodes, with Martha Plimpton as Faye and Tracy Letts as the brothers' father, Cyrus Trask.

What East of Eden is about

The series runs from the late 19th century to the First World War. It starts in Connecticut with the Trask brothers, Adam the gentle one and Charles the jealous one, and with Cathy, a young woman whose charm hides something closer to an absence of conscience. When Adam marries her and takes her west to California's Salinas Valley, the story becomes about what she leaves behind: Adam, and the twin sons who grow up wondering who their mother really was.

Underneath is Steinbeck's retelling of Cain and Abel: brothers competing for a father's love, and the question of whether people are born good or bad or get to choose. The final episode takes its title, "Timshel", from the Hebrew word at the heart of the novel, which Steinbeck reads as "thou mayest": the idea that evil is something you can overcome rather than something you're doomed to.

East of Eden episode guide

Episodes run between 51 and 68 minutes, so the full series comes to roughly seven hours. Garth Davis directed the first four episodes and Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre the last three, and the titles trace the book's shape, from the brothers and Cathy through to the final "Timshel".

How it differs from the book and the 1955 film

Elia Kazan's 1955 film, the one that made James Dean a star, adapts only the final part of the novel: Cal and Aron as young men competing for their father's approval. Cathy appears, but as a mother already in the shadows. Netflix's series covers the whole sweep of the book, and that's the biggest difference. You meet Cathy before anyone else does, and you watch what she does rather than hear about it.

It also tells more of the story from her side than Steinbeck did. In the novel, Cathy is close to a force of nature, more monster than person. Zoe Kazan's version keeps her terrifying but gives her more interior life, and expands Lee in the same way. Rotten Tomatoes' critics' consensus singles out exactly that: the "expanded character work from Pugh and Lee" as what earns the series its place.

Kazan has said there was only ever one choice for the role: "I didn't have another person that I thought would be just as good. She is the exact right person to play Cathy." Pugh, who has been attached since the project was announced in 2022, is also an executive producer.

East of Eden reviews

Reviews are strongly positive, and Pugh is the reason given most often. TheWrap's headline called her astounding as "Steinbeck's wickedest villain", NME called her "consistently stupendous", and several critics wrote that it's hard to look away from her whenever she's on screen. Hoon Lee gets nearly as much praise, for turning Lee from a wise supporting figure into a character with weight of his own.

Behind the scenes

Netflix announced the series in June 2022 with Pugh already attached. Filming began in October 2024 in New Zealand, around Auckland, Dunedin and Oamaru, standing in for both Connecticut and California, and wrapped in March 2025. Mike Faist was originally contracted for three episodes as Charles Trask; Netflix reportedly liked his early footage so much that it commissioned an extra episode to give him more of the story. The cinematography is by Stuart Dryburgh and Sam Chiplin, and the score by Laura Karpman.

Our verdict

A film has to pick one part of East of Eden, because there's too much book for two hours, which is why the 1955 version is really about the sons. Television has tried the full story before, in a 1981 miniseries, but Kazan's series comes with a modern sensibility about Cathy. It gives the novel's most frightening character the space to be a person as well as a threat.

Seven hours of slow, serious period drama is a real commitment, and the series asks for patience in its first half. But the reviews, the critics' consensus and the casting all point the same way. This is a serious, full-length reading of the whole book, anchored by what critics are calling one of the strongest performances of Pugh's career.

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