I would like to formally introduce myself as a self-certified period drama connoisseur, and I wear that title with absolutely zero shame. There is something about this genre that just gets me every single time – the towering sets, the candlelit rooms, the costumes that look like they took a small army six months to construct, the accents, the gasps of absolute scandal over things that are objectively very low stakes. As Taylor Swift once wisely said, if I’d been there, I’d hate it – and same, Taylor, same – and yet I would rewatch it a thousand times over. If you are looking for your next obsession, here are five period dramas that deserve a spot on your screen, starting right now.
1. Downton Abbey
If there is one show I will recommend to every person I ever meet for the rest of my life, no hesitation, it is Downton Abbey. Created by Julian Fellowes, it follows the aristocratic Crawley family and their extensive downstairs staff as they navigate life at their grand Yorkshire estate – filmed at the genuinely breathtaking Highclere Castle – from 1912 all the way through to 1926, covering everything from the sinking of the Titanic to the First World War to the arrival of the radio, and somehow making all of it feel deeply, intimately personal rather than like a history lesson.
What makes this show so special though is the ensemble, because every single character is so deeply loveable even though every single one of them is also visibly, unambiguously flawed and the writing never tries to hide that or make excuses for anyone, and yet you are always rooting for all of them simultaneously, which is genuinely a feat of television. The upstairs and the downstairs get equal love, equal story, equal heart, and the result is this warm, generous world that you genuinely never want to leave. The great Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess Violet is in a category entirely of her own – she won three Primetime Emmys for the role, which is very well deserved and honestly not enough. The love stories are some of the bests on television, the Christmas episodes are the most joyful things I have ever watched, and there is genuinely not a single miss across the entire run, which is saying everything. In total the show earned 15 Emmy wins from 69 nominations, three Golden Globes, and a BAFTA Special Award in 2015, and it has since spawned three films with the full cast returning every time, which tells you everything about how much love there is for this world. An all-time great, full stop.
2. The Great
Now this one is a very different kind of period drama, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment. The Great, available on Disney+ Hotstar, is a satirical dark comedy that follows Catherine as she arrives in Russia to marry Emperor Peter III and then slowly, deliciously, and with an enormous amount of chaos, decides she is going to overthrow him and run the country herself — which, as history tells us, she eventually does, becoming Catherine the Great. The show actually labels itself as “an occasionally true story,” and that asterisk does a lot of heavy lifting, because the language is deliberately anachronistic, the humor is razor sharp, and the whole thing takes enormous creative liberties but none of that makes it any less compelling, because the writing is so clever and the performances are so extraordinary that you are simply along for the ride.
Elle Fanning as Catherine is a revelation – idealistic and sharp and romantic and deeply ambitious all at once, wanting to bring art and science and philosophy and actual conversation to a court that finds ideas vaguely threatening. Nicholas Hoult as Peter manages to play someone genuinely awful and narcissistic and also somehow completely watchable, even occasionally almost sympathetic, which is a very difficult thing to pull off. The chemistry between them is electric, the dialogue is absolutely spot on, the sets and costumes are genuinely stunning, and the whole show has this specific energy of being completely ridiculous and completely brilliant at the same time, which I think is a very rare talent. An absolute binge.
3. The Gilded Age
Also created by Julian Fellowes – so if Downton Abbey had you in a chokehold, welcome, you are going to be just fine here. The Gilded Age is set in 1880s New York and follows what happens when new money and old money collide in a society that runs entirely on status, reputation, and which opera house you choose to attend on a Friday night. The show has a genuinely spectacular cast, the production values are jaw-dropping, and it has that same Downton quality of making you care deeply about an enormous number of characters all at once, both upstairs and down.
The Russells are the ruthless, glamorous new-money couple at the center of the show. They are the kind of television power couple that you know you probably should not be rooting for and root for anyway. They are based in part on the real Vanderbilt family, with much of the wider world of the show drawing inspiration from real figures and real events, including the opera war between the Metropolitan and the Academy of Music, the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, and Ward McAllister, the real-life social arbiter who decided who did and did not matter in New York society. The show also follows a prominent Black family navigating New York in the years just after the Civil War, which gives the whole thing a richness and depth that sets it apart from anything else in the genre right now. It has earned seven Emmy nominations including Outstanding Drama Series, and its second season SAG ensemble nomination broke the record previously held by Game of Thrones for most actors nominated at once. Season 3 aired last year and season 4 is currently filming, and in my honest opinion this is the best period drama on television right now. I said what I said.
4. The Buccaneers
The Buccaneers, on Apple TV+, is a very different kind of period drama from everything else on this list, and I think it is important that you know that going in, because if you sit down expecting perfectly accurate 1870s London, you will be confused and also miss the point entirely. This show is not trying to be Downton Abbey, and it is all the better for it. It is whimsical and romantic and a little chaotic and enormous fun, and it wears all of that very proudly.
Based loosely on Edith Wharton‘s unfinished novel, the series follows a group of young American women who arrive in London for the social season to find husbands and promptly cause absolute havoc because they are spirited and fun-loving and not at all what the English aristocracy was expecting. There is a love triangle involving Nan, the Duke of Tintagel, and the Duke’s best friend that gives the whole show its central dramatic engine, a genuinely sweet lesbian romance that is given real space and real heart, and the whole thing is fundamentally about female friendship and what it means to try to find yourself when the world has very fixed ideas about who you should be. The production has this gorgeous, slightly heightened aesthetic to it – the costumes are beautiful in a way that leans into the fun rather than strict accuracy – and the show also tackles some genuinely heavy subjects like domestic violence with more seriousness than its breezy tone initially suggests. It has been renewed for a third season, so there is plenty more to come, and if you are a Bridgerton fan looking for something with a similar energy, this one is absolutely for you.
5. Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story
And finally, because I have not forgotten about you Bridgerton fans – Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, and in my honest opinion it is better than all four Bridgerton seasons combined, and I will stand by that take fully. A prequel and spin-off to the hit Netflix series adapted from Julia Quinn‘s novels, the show follows a young Queen Charlotte as she arrives in England to marry King George III, and what unfolds across its six episodes is one of the most genuinely heartbreaking and beautiful love stories I have ever watched on screen, as two people who were essentially strangers figure out what it means to actually choose each other in a world that gave them no choice at all.
The casting of the younger and older versions of both Charlotte and George is so precisely right that it gives you a physical reaction, and both pairs of actors are extraordinary in ways that feel deeply specific to each other. The friendship between Charlotte and Lady Danbury is one of the most emotionally rich relationships in the story – two women helping each other survive in a world not built for either of them – and the quiet, tender love story between Brimsley and Reynolds is the first truly central LGBTQ romance in the Bridgerton universe and is genuinely one of the most moving things in the whole show. The show takes creative liberties, as any Bridgerton story does, but the emotional truth of it is executed so extraordinarily well that none of that matters, because what it is really about is love, mental illness, duty, and what it costs two people to carry all of that without losing each other. The costumes and sets and ballroom scenes give you everything you ever wanted from a Regency-era story, but with far more depth and far more heartbreak than you might be expecting, and it will make you cry right from the start, and it is completely worth it.
There you have it, five period dramas for every possible mood and every possible kind of afternoon. May your queue be full and your corsets be metaphorical!