A true-crime podcast obsession pulls three very different residents of the same Upper West Side building into an actual homicide investigation, kicking off Steve Martin and Martin Short's mystery-comedy alongside Selena Gomez.
What is Only Murders in the Building about?
Charles, Oliver and Mabel share almost nothing beyond an apartment address and a habit of listening to the same amateur-detective podcast, until a neighbor's sudden death gives the trio something to actually investigate. Convinced the official story is missing something, they start recording their own show as they dig through the building's tenants, secrets and shared history, turning gossip, doorman chatter and old grudges into evidence. What begins as a shared hobby becomes an uneasy partnership between a washed-up actor, a broke theater director and a guarded younger woman who each have their own reasons for wanting answers, and for staying close to the case.
About the cast
Steve Martin and Martin Short lean into decades of comic chemistry as Charles and Oliver, playing off each other with the timing of longtime collaborators, while Selena Gomez gives Mabel a wary, closed-off edge that keeps the trio from ever feeling too cozy. Aaron Dominguez and Amy Ryan round out the building's tenants with performances that keep the comedy grounded in something that still feels like real suspicion and real loss.
Context & significance
Set almost entirely inside one fictional Manhattan building, the series treats the setting itself as a character, using shared hallways, elevators and a communal wariness between neighbors to build both jokes and dread. It arrived as part of a wave of prestige mystery-comedies built around podcast culture, using the format of an amateur true-crime show as its own storytelling device rather than just a plot detail.
Watching Only Murders in the Building on Ktime
Only Murders in the Building is available on K-Time with a free account login, and both Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles are included, so the show's fast, overlapping dialogue and running jokes come through clearly for Farsi-speaking viewers alongside the English original.