Lupin Part 4 Lands October 23: Assane Is in Prison — and a Copycat Is Stealing in His Name

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2026

The gentleman thief is coming back — reluctantly, which is exactly how he would want it. Lupin Part 4 arrives on Netflix on Friday, October 23, with all eight episodes released at once, SpikeToday and Wikipedia's series guide both confirm. It has been three years since Part 3 concluded in October 2023, and five years since a five-episode French crime series, launched with almost no global fanfare in January 2021, became the most-watched non-English series on Netflix at the time. Previously first reported the October 23 date in our announcement coverage; with five days to go, the full shape of the new part is now clear — and it is the boldest reset the series has attempted.

Where Part 3 left Assane

A quick refresher, because three years is a long time between heists. Across its first three parts — five episodes in January 2021, five more that June, and seven in October 2023 — Lupin told the story of Assane Diop, the son of a Senegalese immigrant framed by the wealthy Pellegrini family for the theft of a diamond necklace. Inspired by the Arsène Lupin books his father gave him — Maurice Leblanc's gentleman thief, in print since 1905 — Assane spent the series clearing his father's name with disguises, cons and spectacular thefts of his own. Part 3 revolved around the theft of the priceless Black Pearl and Assane's attempts to mend his relationships with his wife Claire and their son Raoul. It ended, per SpikeToday's recap, with Assane giving himself up to the police to protect them. The thief who could escape anything chose, finally, not to run.

Four years later: the copycat problem

Part 4 honors that choice — and then weaponizes it. Netflix's official synopsis, quoted by Tell-Tale TV and Entertainment Now, opens four years after the end of Part 3: “Assane is still in prison. For him, Lupin is no more: he wants to serve out his sentence and keep the promise he made to his son to go and meet their family in Senegal. But his plans are turned upside down by a mysterious announcement signed by Lupin: multiple museums are to be hit with simultaneous heists! In spite of heightened security, the thefts go off as planned. Assane proclaims his innocence, but everything points to his guilt. A camera even shows him in one of the museums during a robbery in which Captain Belkacem is seriously injured. To prove his innocence and unmask the copycat, Assane must escape and don the Lupin costume once more!”

It is an elegant trap, and a very Leblanc one: the books themselves pitted Lupin against impostors and doubles long before franchise television discovered the pleasures of a hero fighting his own legend. The premise also solves the show's oldest problem. Assane's war with the Pellegrinis is finished; what remains is the myth he built, now loose in the world without him. A copycat does not just frame Assane for crimes — he threatens the one thing Assane was trying to give his son: an ending.

This time, Omar Sy runs the show

The most consequential change is behind the camera. RocketNews reports that Sy stars as Assane and serves as both actor and showrunner alongside director Louis Leterrier, with production through Sy's company Carrousel Studios in collaboration with Gaumont. CineCorner, reporting on Sy's interview with Variety, explains what changed: on the first three parts Sy was an “artistic producer” — in every conversation, but without the final word — and a bigger say was his condition for coming back. “There were quite a few moments in previous seasons when I felt frustrated because things I wanted didn't necessarily end up on screen,” Sy told Variety.

What he did with the authority sounds deliberately larger in scale. Per the same Variety reporting, Part 4 moves a little further away from Leblanc's books, into a stylised, almost sci-fi prison, new technology and a villain who traps Assane with gadgets — with Netflix's budget increased to match. Asked whether Lupin versus Lupin feels like a Marvel film, Sy pointed out that Leblanc had Lupin face another Lupin, and Sherlock Holmes, generations earlier: “I think it's Marvel that copied Maurice Leblanc!” He and Leterrier, he said, have conceived Assane as a superhero from the beginning — the coat worn like a cape, the silhouette posed on Paris rooftops.

The returning company

The ensemble around Sy is substantially intact. RocketNews lists Ludivine Sagnier, Antoine Gouy, Soufiane Guerrab and Shirine Boutella returning — Claire, Benjamin, Detective Guédira and Captain Belkacem, whose injury in the copycat robbery is the new part's emotional tripwire. Raoul, played in the first three parts by Etan Simon, is now played by Théo Christine, per Wikipedia's cast listing, and Laïka Blanc-Francard joins as a newcomer. The series remains the creation of George Kay and François Uzan, produced by Gaumont Television with Carrousel Studios.

Why this return matters

It is worth remembering how improbable Lupin's success was. The first part was watched by 76 million households in its first month, Wikipedia records, becoming the most-watched non-English series on Netflix at the time; Entertainment Now puts the franchise's viewership in excess of 100 million as the new trailer arrived. The series won the Critics' Choice Award for Best Foreign Language Series and was nominated at the International Emmys and the Golden Globes. RocketNews adds the industrial footnote: the first three parts contributed more than €90 million to the French economy. Lupin is not just Netflix's flagship French series — it is the proof of concept for the streamer's entire international strategy, the show that demonstrated a subtitled heist drama could lead a global platform.

That is also why the three-year gap cuts both ways. Part 4 cannot simply repeat the Pellegrini formula, and on the evidence of the synopsis and Sy's own comments, it does not intend to: new showrunner energy, a four-year time jump, a grown-up Raoul, a villain wearing the hero's own name. All eight episodes land at once on Friday, October 23 — Netflix originals typically go live at midnight Pacific — in the middle of a stacked month for the streamer that also includes The Diplomat's fourth season. Whether the copycat mystery earns its place beside the original run is the question of next weekend. The gentleman thief has escaped worse traps than high expectations. More television coverage is in Previously's newsroom and the browse guide.