The best historical movies and TV series streaming now
Looking for a new historical TV show or film to watch? From Detectorists and The Last Kingdom to Bridgerton, we've rounded up the best history content streaming on BBC iPlayer, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Now, HBO and other on-demand services in the UK and US
Looking for something to watch? Here are the best historical dramas, TV shows and films available to streaming in the UK and US this month, from binge-watchable period dramas to fascinating documentaries.
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Best historical movies, dramas and documentaries on Netflix
African Queens: Cleopatra
Streaming in the UK and US | drama-documentary series
The second offering in Hollywood star Jada Pinkett Smith’s anthology drama-doc series focuses on Cleopatra, who ruled the Ptolemaic Kingdom from 51-30BC. It’s a portrait of a royal whose beauty, in this reading, has come to overshadow her intellect and daring. It’s also a series that was greeted by controversy in Egypt for casting a mixed-heritage actor, Adele James, in the lead role. Also available to stream via Netflix, African Queens: Njinga focuses on the extraordinary life of Princess Njinga (c1583–1663), who became leader of both Ndongo and Matamba, kingdoms located in modern-day Angola.
All Quiet On The Western Front
Streaming in the UK and US | feature-length drama
Based on German writer Erich Maria Remarque’s First World War novel, like the classic 1930 Oscar winner, here’s a visceral drama that takes viewers to the trenches of the Western Front. Directed by Edward Berger (Deutschland 83, Patrick Melrose), it follows young soldier Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer), who patriotically dreams of being a hero, but instead finds himself descending into a nightmare of filthy conditions, poor food and the ever-present threat of an early demise. A film of starkly beautiful imagery that has been announced as Germany’s submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.
Blood & Gold
Streaming in the UK and US | feature-length drama
Spring, 1945. Nazism’s defeat is imminent. But the prospect of peace is of little consolation to German deserter Heinrich (Robert Maaser) when, trying to get home to see his daughter, he encounters a troop of SS men. Left hanging in a tree to die, he is saved by a farmer, Elsa (Marie Hacke). The SS, it turns out, are searching for a cache of hidden gold. The scene is set for an action-thriller that, to judge by the trailer, reveals director Peter Thorwarth to be as enamoured of comic-book violence as Quentin Tarantino. Streaming from Friday 26 May.
Bridgerton
Streaming in the UK and US | two seasons available
Worldwide, Bridgerton has found an audience of millions, far exceeding the numbers usually drawn to bonnets-and-breeches fiction. In part, that’s because its portrait of high society during the Regency era is unapologetically escapist – and frequently steamy. But the casting has been key to its success too, in that here is an alternate-history period drama that shows London as racially integrated. The second season focuses on the eldest Bridgerton, Anthony (Jonathan Bailey), who decides it’s time he married. Cue complications when Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley) tries to stop Anthony courting her sister, Edwina (Charithra Chandran).
Bridgerton: everything you need to know
Step into the ballrooms of Regency England, and catch up on the real history that underpins seasons 1 and 2 of Bridgerton, from the real royals to the palaces and promenades | Read more
The Crown
Streaming in the UK and US | five seasons available
No list of historical TV series on Netflix would be complete without a mention of The Crown. The sumptuous royal drama offers an engrossing portrait of the Windsors and covers events including the Suez crisis, the Aberfan disaster, and the marriage of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer. The story follows the life of Queen Elizabeth II and her family over several decades, charting the personal and political challenges facing the Queen’s reign as well as the intricate family dramas going on behind the scenes.
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
Streaming in the UK and US from Friday 14 April | feature-length drama
When The Last Kingdom reached the end of its fifth and final series (all available to stream via Netflix), a few loose ends remained. This was in great part because several novels in Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Stories sequence remained unadapted. No longer. Feature-length sequel Seven Kings Must Die returns us to a world where the idea of a united England is in the ether. Although Northumbria’s ruler Uhtred of Bebbanburg (Alexander Dreymon) has yet to pledge his lands to the throne, peace has broken out – at least until King Edward dies and England is once again thrown into turmoil.
The Law According To Lidia Poët
Streaming in the UK and US | drama series
Lidia Poët (1855–49) was the first female lawyer in modern Italy, finally permitted to call herself an advocate after a long campaign for recognition. So what did she do in the years before she was allowed to appear in court? If this six-part Italian drama is to be believed, the younger Poët spent her time investigating murders most horrid. Featuring rising Italian star Matilda De Angelis in the title role, Poët’s cases from working on behalf of an alleged stalker following the death of a ballerina to defending an anarchist accused of murder.
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story
Streaming in the UK and US | drama series
How did the world of The Ton, the hyperreal, multiethnic Georgian England high society we see in the global hit Bridgerton, come into being? This prequel, from the acclaimed showrunner Shonda Rhomes, offers plenty of clues as it traces the story of the young Queen Charlotte (India Amarteifio) meeting King George III (Corey Mylchreest) in 1761. Suffice to say Charlotte isn’t too impressed with the idea of marrying George, but love blossoms. The series also follows events in 1817, where the death of Queen Charlotte’s only legitimate granddaughter, Princess Charlotte, in childbirth leads to a succession crisis.
Transatlantic
Streaming in the UK and US from Friday 7 April | drama series
In 1940, as France fell, leading European intellectuals and artists faced being rounded up by the Nazis. Help, at least for those who could reach Marseille, came from the Emergency Rescue Committee (ERC), an organisation that hid refugees in a villa on the outskirts of the city and forged an escape route across the Pyrenees. Created by Anna Winger (Deutschland 83), Transatlantic focuses largely on ERC co-founder Varian Fry (Cory Michael Smith), an American journalist who assisted the likes of André Breton and Marc Chagall to reach safety. A series that, rather improbably, pays homage to Hollywood’s screwball melodramas.
Vikings: Valhalla
Streaming in the UK and US | two seasons available
Set a century after the conclusion of Vikings, this similarly visceral swords-and-seafaring sequel Vikings: Valhalla follows a new collection of mariner-warrior Norsemen and Norsewomen. Chief among them is Leif Erikson (Sam Corlett), a figure from the Icelandic sagas reputed to have been the first European to set foot on continental North America, where he established a settlement, Vinland, hundreds of years before Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic. His headstrong sister, Freydís Eiríksdóttir (Frida Gustavsson), and an ambitious prince, Harald Sigurdsson (Leo Suter), also feature strongly. The series begins with tensions high in 11th-century England, a prelude to violence.
War Sailor
Streaming in the UK and US | drama series
As the Second World War breaks out, two Norwegian sailors are far from home on a merchant ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Because of their profession, Alfred Garnes, who has recently become the father for a third time, and his longtime friend Sigbjørn ‘Wally’ Kvalen find themselves on the front line as Germany attempts to cut off Allied supply lines. Back at home, Garnes’ wife, Cecilia, struggles to get through the war as a single parent. A Norwegian mini-series that also charts the cost paid by civilians when the RAF targeted the U-boat base in Bergen.
Best historical movies, dramas and documentaries on Amazon Prime Video
The Aeronauts
Streaming in the UK and US | feature-length drama
James Glaisher (Eddie Redmayne) has a big idea. He thinks it’s possible to predict the weather. To prove this, he needs to fly as high in the sky as possible. Enter pilot Amelia (Felicity Jones), a fictionalised composite of women balloonists. Based on Falling Upwards: How We Took To The Air (2013) by academic and biographer Richard Homes, Tom Harper’s fine drama charts an ascent in 1862, when Glaisher (and, in reality, balloonist Henry Tracey Coxwell) climbed to at least 29,000ft and perhaps as high as 37,000ft, the kinds of altitudes at which today’s jet liners fly.
Devotion
Streaming in the UK | feature-length drama
Jesse Brown was the first African-American pilot to complete the US Navy’s basic flight training programme. He went on to serve with distinction in the Korean War (1950–53) and won the Distinguished Flying Cross. The frigate USS Jesse L. Brown was named in his honour. This biopic charts his career, the story of a man born in Mississippi and who encountered overt racism throughout his life. The central relationship here is between Brown (Jonathan Major, star of Lovecraft Country) and his wingman, Tom Hudner (Glen Powell of Top Gun: Maverick fame), and charts a deepening friendship.
The English
Streaming in the US | drama series
Forgive the hint of tautology, but a good Western serves as a reminder of why so many of us love a good Western, and Hugo Blick’s The English is very, very good indeed. At its heart lies the relationship between an English noblewoman, Lady Cornelia Locke (Emily Blunt), and Pawnee scout Eli Whipp (Chaske Spencer). Locke has travelled to the USA in search of vengeance over the death of her son, while Whipp, in the wake of military service, wants to return to his homeland. The fates of both are linked, but only gradually do we learn how. Superb.
House Of Gucci
Streaming in the UK | feature-length drama
How did Patrizia Reggiani come to hire a hitman to murder her ex-husband, Maurizio Gucci, former head of the famous luxury fashion house? It’s a late 20th-century story of ambition, power and jealousy laid out here in Ridley Scott’s drama, a film with more than a little of the soap opera about it. That it all works so well is at least in part down to an excellent cast, headed by Lady Gaga as social climber Reggiani and Adam Driver as a rather geeky Gucci. Jeremy Irons plays Maurizio’s father, Rodolfo Gucci, who rightly foresees trouble ahead.
A League Of Their Own
Streaming in the UK and US | comedy-drama series
Released in 1992, Penny Marshall’s movie version of A League Of Their Own told a heavily fictionalised version of the real-life All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), founded in 1943. In the years since, women’s sport has become far more widely covered in mainstream media, as has an interest in the history of women’s sport. This new take on women’s baseball promises to mix the humour and sheer joy of the original film with a greater appreciation that it wasn’t just women who made it to the AAGPBL who dreamt of playing professionally. Streaming from 12 August.
The Marvelous Mrs Maisel
Streaming in the UK and US | five seasons available
The ‘Mrs Maisel’ of the title here is a New York housewife who, via downtown Manhattan misadventures with alcohol and an encounter with Lenny Bruce (1925–66), finds she has a gift for comedy. Created by Amy Sherman-Palladino (Gilmore Girl), the Emmy-winning Mrs Maisel sometimes trades in fuzzy nostalgia, yet more often offers an acerbic take on the social mores of the US in the late 1950s and early 1960s. At times, it could interrogate Maisel’s privilege more acutely, but it’s always funny and the main cast, notably Rachel Brosnahan as Miriam ‘Midge’ Maisel, is terrific.
One Night in Miami
Streaming in the UK and US | feature-length drama
In February 1964, 7-1 underdog Cassius Clay (Eli Goree), soon to change his name to Muhammad Ali, defeated Sonny Liston to become world heavyweight champion. After the fight, he met with three friends: soul singer Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr), Nation of Islam activist Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir) and American football star Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge). Directed by Regina King and scripted by Kemp Powers from his play, One Night imagines what might have transpired. Suffice to say the quartet spent more time musing on their lives and the fight for civil rights than partying. Illuminating and powerful.
Peterloo
Streaming in the UK and US | feature-length drama
On Monday 16 August 1819, a crowd of between 60,000 and 80,000 people gathered at St Peter’s Field in Manchester to demand electoral reform. The actions of the authorities would become infamous after cavalrymen charged the gathering, leaving 18 dead and hundreds injured. Director Mike Leigh’s drama, released in cinemas to coincide with the 200th anniversary of an event dubbed the Peterloo Massacre, conveys a righteous anger as it explores what happened that day. Throughout, there’s a sense of the epic that seems wholly appropriate and there are fine performances, notably from Rory Kinnear as radical orator Henry Hunt.
The Underground Railroad
Streaming in the UK and US | drama series
Prior to filming this series, Oscar-winning writer and director Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) noted more than once that he wanted to make a drama dealing with slavery. But how to approach such a difficult subject? By adapting Colson Whitehead’s 2016 novel, which reimagines the underground railroad, the network of secret routes and safe houses used by enslaved people fleeing the American South, as a physical system of tracks. The fantastic element adds to the power of the piece, by making us look back with fresh eyes. Starring Thuso Mbedu as Cora Randall, a young woman fleeing life on a plantation.
Vikings
Streaming in the UK and US | six seasons available
In AD 793, northern raiders sacked the monastery at Lindisfarne, an event now taken to mark the beginning of the Viking Age. It’s also the starting point for this six-season drama that follows the exploits of chieftain Ragnar Lothbrok and his crew, and in later seasons Ragnar’s descendants. Originally made for the History Channel, the show draws extensively on chronicles written later and on contemporary historical sources, which isn’t to suggest it’s somehow didactic. Rather, this is blood-and-thunder entertainment that’s not for the squeamish. A sequel, Vikings: Valhalla, is now available to stream via Netflix.
Best historical movies, dramas and documentaries on BBC iPlayer
Detectorists
Streaming in the UK | comedy series
No, it’s not a period piece, but Mackenzie Crook’s Detectorists has more to say how our connections to the past play into the present than any number of more conventional costume dramas. Playing out over 20 episodes, including a 2022 Christmas special, it follows the members of Danebury Metal Detecting Club (DMDC) as they explore the Essex countryside. The central relationship between Andy Stone (Crook) and Lance Stater (Toby Jones), is beautifully played, a study of men who can’t always quite express what they feel but come alive when they go hunting for archaeological treasures.
Fight The Power: How Hip Hop Changed The World
Streaming in the UK | documentary series
With Public Enemy’s Chuck D as one of its executive producers, there was every reason to be optimistic this four-part series would treat its subject with appropriate seriousness. And so it proves as Fight The Power tells the story of how hip hop came to be the music to which the world listens, and explores why this is a tale that’s inherently political. The first of four episodes makes the series’ intentions clear as it takes us back to the 1960s and 1970s to trace hip hop’s roots in the civil rights era.
Great Expectations
Streaming in the UK | drama series
It’s safe to say Steven Knight’s take on Charles Dickens’ much-loved novel has divided opinion. Why? Because of the way the Peaky Blinders creator has embellished the source material in this latest of many screen adaptations of the story of Pip, Estella and, in this version, an opium-smoking Miss Havisham. For Knight’s part, he says that his additions are all rooted in a close reading of Dickens – including, it seems, a naked Mr Pumblechook (Matt Berry) being spanked. But whatever your thoughts on the script, it draws out some terrific performances, especially Olivia Colman’s eerie turn as Havisham.
The Holy Land and Us – Our Untold Stories
Streaming in the UK | documentary series
The foundation of the State of Israel in 1948 was a pivotal event in post-Second World War history. For Jews across the world, here was the promise of sanctuary. Conversely, Palestinians talk of the ‘Nakba’, or ‘Catastrophe’, and as many as 700,000 Palestinians were made refugees. Grappling with this history, actor and writer Sarah Agha, whose family fled Galilee 75 years ago, and barrister and broadcaster Rob Rinder, whose grandfather’s cousin moved to Israel as a place of refuge, trace how events in 1948 are central to the stories of British families of Jewish and Palestinian heritage.
How The Holocaust Began
Streaming in the UK | documentary
The genocide of the Holocaust has come to be seen as a kind of nightmarish industrial process, in which people were either worked to death or murdered in death camps. But as historian James Bulgin relates in this powerful documentary, the mass slaughter of Jews didn’t just take place in gas chambers. In the east, the gun was the preferred method of killing and, as the Nazis moved into states under the control of the former Soviet Union, millions of men, women and children were shot, and then buried in thousands of trenches and ditches – a holocaust of bullets.
Lucy Worsley Investigates
Streaming in the UK | documentary series
In which, as the title suggests, Lucy Worsley turns historical sleuth as she looks at some of the more brutal chapters in Britain’s past. The tone is set in the first of four episodes, which looks back at the witch-hunt mania that engulfed the country 400 years ago. Agnes Sampson, a healer and midwife, is a central figure here, not least because she was personally interrogated at Holyrood Castle by King James VI of Scotland. Other episodes deal with the Black Death, the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower and the illness of King George III.
The MI5 Spy And The IRA: Operation Chiffon
Streaming in the UK | documentary
Journalism may represent the first draft of history, but sometimes stories miss deadline. This doesn’t in itself make these stories less important, as this documentary from reporter Peter Taylor, arguably the foremost chronicler of The Troubles, makes clear. Here, in a documentary first transmitted around the time of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, Taylor tells the story of how a former MI5 officer, ‘Robert’, ran back-channel communications with the leadership of the IRA. More specifically, Taylor reveals how the 1993 Warrington bombing, in which two children died, became a prelude to peace.
Peaky Blinders
Streaming in the UK | six seasons available
An epic gangster drama set in 1920s Birmingham, Peaky Blinders started out as cult viewing, but became a worldwide hit. Inspired by stories of real-life Brummie mobsters, the series follows the rise of gangster boss Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy). The final season takes the Shelbys’ story into the years after 1929, and shows a world thrown into turmoil by the Great Depression. But that may not be quite the end: a big-screen movie is said to be in the works. The show offered the late Helen McCrory OBE, who played matriarch Aunt Polly, one of her defining roles.
Storyville – Nelly And Nadine: Ravensbrück, 1944
Streaming in the UK | feature-length documentary
The BBC’s Storyville strand is consistently fascinating for the way it highlights stories that really should be better known. The story of Nadine Hwang, an émigré Chinese pilot, and opera singer Nelly Mousset-Vos, who served as a courier in the Belgian Resistance, is one such tale. The two met and became lovers in the Ravensbrück concentration camp – where Mousset-Vos sometimes sang in exchange for food. After the Second World War, they relocated to Venezuela, where they posed as cousins. A documentary that draws on Nelly’s own writing to tease out the grandest of hidden love stories.
A Very British Scandal
Streaming in the UK | drama series
It was a divorce that both scandalised and fascinated the country. In 1963, the marriage between Ian Campbell, the 12th duke of Argyll (Paul Bettany), and socialite Margaret Sweeny (Claire Foy), fell apart amidst lurid stories of infidelity on Margaret’s part, stories supported by Campbell finding sexually explicit photographs of his wife. It’s a divorce revisited here in a modern take on the story that shows Margaret as a heroic figure who, to quote screenwriter Sarah Phelps, “set fire to the expectation of her class, gender and her sex rather than go quietly” when she found herself engulfed by scandal.
Best historical movies, dramas and documentaries on ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, BritBox, UKTV Play
The Architecture the Railways Built
Streaming in the UK | documentary series, three seasons available via UKTV Play
Tim Dunn likes railways a lot, an enthusiasm he conveys so vividly that in itself it greatly explains why this series has become cult viewing. More seriously, Dunn, who is especially good on the Victorian era, when so many of Britain’s railways were built, is adept at explaining how the railways have transformed our lives down the years. It’s a subject he approaches through the buildings associated with trains – not just stations but viaducts, signal boxes, tunnels, pedestrian walkways, workshops and railway hotels, so many of which turn out to have fascinating stories associated with them.
Call the Midwife
Streaming in the UK | 12 seasons available via BritBox (& other services)
From its launch in 2012, Call the Midwife has been one of the BBC’s flagship period dramas. Inspired by the memoirs of real-life midwife Jennifer Worth, the programme follows the lives of staff at an East London nursing convent during the late 1950s and, latterly, through the 1960s. Boasting a cast that includes Jenny Agutter, Helen George and Stephen McGann, the award-winning show has plenty of heartwarming moments as it shows how maternity care developed in the wake of the Second World War, but it also tackles gritty issues such as poverty, racism, domestic violence and abortion.
- Read more | Midwifery and childbirth: a historical A–Z guide
Deutschland 89
Streaming in the UK | drama series available via All4
The German-American Cold War spy drama reached its third and final series with a story set in the year the Berlin Wall fell. Not every East German, we’re reminded, welcomed this momentous moment. For many of those working for the Stasi, there was a sudden imperative to cover their tracks. Jonas Nay heads the cast as Martin Rauch, an ex-intelligence officer who is forced to return to his former employment as a double agent. Expect an atmospheric evocation of the past. Newbies may be better off working their way through Deutschland 83 and Deutschland 86 first.
- Read more | What happened after the fall of the Berlin Wall?
Dunkirk: Mission Impossible
Streaming in the UK | documentary series available via My5
The evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk in France in 1940 is sometimes portrayed as victory snatched from the jaws of defeat. In truth, for all that more than 335,000 men escaped capture by the Nazis, this was a disaster. Over three episodes, former marine JJ Chalmers looks back at what happened, beginning by following in the footsteps of British troops being driven towards the sea The second episode focuses on the Royal Norfolk Regiment, whose men held the line to cover the retreat. The final instalment looks at how the battle to keep the Nazis out of Dunkirk ended.
The Great British Dig: History In Your Garden
Streaming in the UK | documentary series, three seasons available via All4
When it comes to excavating certain areas of the United Kingdom, community archaeology is really the only way forward. That’s because so many historically important sites in the country have either been continuously occupied, or built upon after earlier structures have fallen into disrepair. Still, as the success of The Great British Dig proves, many people are happy for their gardens or community spaces to be dug over in the name of historical research. It probably helps too to have presenter Hugh Dennis of Outnumbered fame on hand, a man whose good humour consistently shines through, when undertaking such projects.
Guy Martin’s D-Day Landing
Streaming in the UK | feature-length documentary, available via All4
Even when he’s telling us he’s having fun, Guy Martin often looks vaguely worried. As well he might considering his documentaries inevitably involve an element of personal risk. This documentary, made to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day, is a case in point. It follows the mechanic as he helps to restore a Dakota transport plane, an aircraft once used to ferry paratroopers into Normandy, soldiers who landed at night ahead of the seaborne invasion. Martin also meets veterans and trains with the Red Devils as he himself prepares to leap from the sky into France.
Jungle Mystery: Lost Kingdoms Of The Amazon
Streaming in the UK | documentary series, available via All4
For many years, received wisdom, at least outside South America, suggested the Amazon rainforest had long been, in human terms, sparsely inhabited. This was despite an account by the Spanish Dominican missionary Gaspar de Carvajal (c1500–1584), who travelled the Amazon and wrote of seeing large cities and other evidence of an advanced civilisation on the great river’s banks. Sadly, as palaeoarchaeologist Ella Al-Shamahi explores here, diseases imported from Europe decimated the local population. Over three episodes, cameras follow Al-Shamahi as she travels in South America in search of evidence to tell us how these forgotten peoples lived.
The King Of Warsaw
Streaming in the UK | drama series, available via All4
Based on a novel by Polish-Silesian writer Szczepan Twardoch, The King of Warsaw is set in Poland’s capital in 1937. It’s a time of huge tension as different political factions struggle for power during the Second Polish Republic era, which lasted from 1918 until 1939, when the country was invaded by both the Nazis and the Soviets. It’s also a time of opportunities for those with ambition, men such as boxer Jakub Szapiro, who dreams of being more than just an enforcer for gang leader Buddy Kaplica. A series that intertwines real and fictional characters.
Nolly
Streaming in the UK | drama series via ITVX
Playing motel owner Meg Mortimer in Crossroads for 17 years from 1964–81, Noele ‘Nolly’ Gordon was once one of British television’s most famous faces. Among her fans was Russell T Davies, the man who brought Doctor Who back to British TV screens. His three-part biographical drama functions as a salute to the monstrous yet marvellous Nolly – and also to a particular era in British television history. Helena Bonham Carter has huge fun camping in up in the title role, while there are some fabulous turns in the supporting cast, including Mark Gatiss as Larry Grayson.
A Spy Among Friends
Streaming in the UK via ITVX | feature-length drama
The story of the Cambridge spy ring continues to fascinate us. And no wonder, it’s a tale that involves idealism, subterfuge and betrayal, all played out in the highest echelons of British society. This latest take on British agents behaving badly stars Guy Pearce and Damian Lewis as, respectively, Kim Philby, a man who ultimately defected to the USSR at the height of the Cold War, and fellow spook Nicholas Elliott. Based on the book of the same name by Ben Macintyre, it focuses in on the idea that Philby’s betrayal of Elliott, a lifelong friend, was especially cruel.
The Tudors
Streaming in the UK | four seasons available via All4
If you are looking for the series that kicked off the current vogue for glossy historical dramas, you could do a lot worse than look to The Tudors, created by Michael Hirst, the screenwriter and producer who later gave the world Vikings. First broadcast in 2007, it follows the life and times not of the Tudor dynasty as a whole, but of Henry VIII, played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers. The series often plays fast and loose with the historical record, but the performances, notably Natalie Dormer as a proto-feminist Anne Boleyn, are terrific.
Best historical movies, dramas and documentaries on Lionsgate+
Becoming Elizabeth
Streaming in the UK and US | drama series
In 1558, following the death of her half-sister, Mary I, Elizabeth Tudor ascended to the English throne. ‘Good Queen Bess’ would rule for more than four decades. But as this series created by playwright Anya Reiss reminds us by focusing on the young Elizabeth, things might have been very different. A teenager and third in succession when Henry VIII died, it’s remarkable she survived the era’s poisonous court politics, let alone become such a powerful figure. A drama that explores how people use sex to wield power. Starring Alicia von Rittberg as Elizabeth and Romola Garai as Mary.
Dangerous Liaisons
Streaming in the UK via Lionsgate+ & in the US via Starz | one season available
Set aside all thoughts of director Stephen Frears’ garlanded 1988 film version, this take on events in late 18th-century France has rather less lofty ambitions. Very loosely based on the epistolatory novel of the same name by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (1741–1803), it stars Nicholas Denton as Pascal Valmont and Alice Englert as Camille. Later, both will be better known under ennobled monikers, but for now we’re in origin story territory as we learn how each came to be, well, a horrible person. A drama that’s hard to take too seriously but entertaining nonetheless.
The Great
Streaming in the UK | two seasons available
There’s not a great deal of emphasis placed on historical accuracy in The Great. Instead, to quote the opening credits of the second series, it tells an almost entirely untrue story of 18th-century Russia. Then again, historical accuracy is hardly the point. Created by Tony McNamara, co-writer of the Oscar-winning The Favourite, this is a royal romp that has huge fun as it traces the ascent to power of Catherine the Great – portrayed by Elle Fanning as mischievous and progressive – at the expense of her husband, the monstrous Peter III (Nicholas Hoult).
- Read more | Hypocrite, reactionary, usurper, sex maniac: is Catherine the Great's reputation justified?
The Serpent Queen
Streaming in the UK & US | drama series
Samantha Morton stars as Catherine de’ Medici (1519–89), a daughter of the banking dynasty that came to prominence in the Republic of Florence in the 15th century. Similarly to The Great and Dickinson, it shows its protagonist, someone who has down the years often been vilified, as single-minded, blunt and far more able than so many of the dreary men who surround her. The plot centres on de’ Medici’s life at the French court, which began when she was married to the future Henry II and which saw her exert a huge influence in her adopted country.
The White Princess
Streaming in the US | drama series
Following on from The White Queen, The White Princess begins with the marriage of Lancastrian chancer Henry Tudor (Jacob Collins-Levy) and Elizabeth of York, aka Lizzie (Jodie Comer of Killing Eve fame), the daughter of Edward IV. The two, it’s safe to say, don’t much like each other initially. Once again based on the writings of Philippa Gregory, this eight-episode series traces events between 1485 and 1496, years in which the queen’s paternal aunt, Margaret of Burgundy (Joanne Whalley), is among those trying to undermine a regime that was vulnerable to challenge.
The White Queen
Streaming in the UK and US | drama series
Based on novelist Philippa Gregory’s Cousin’s War trilogy, The White Queen tells the interweaving stories of three women who, often working behind the scenes, wielded power and influence during the War of the Roses. The drama begins in 1464, where widowed Elizabeth Woodville (Rebecca Ferguson) no longer has access to the wealth of her Lancastrian husband. An appeal to the new Yorkist king, Edward IV (Max Irons), will change her life forever. Also starring Amanda Hale as Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor, and Faye Marsay as Lady Anne Neville, queen consort to Richard III.
Best historical movies, dramas and documentaries on Now
1968: A Year of War, Turmoil and Beyond
Streaming in the UK | feature-length documentary
As the title here suggests, 1968 was a momentous year in US history. This was the year of the Tet offensive, a coordinated series of Viet Cong attacks by the that weakened support for the Vietnam War in the USA. It was also the year Lyndon B Johnson announced he wouldn’t be standing for re-election as president, a decision that threw open the race to be Democratic candidate. Both Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr were assassinated. Above the Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 circled the Moon and Bill Anders captured his famous Earthrise image.
Apollo 11
Streaming in the UK | feature-length documentary
Originally released in cinemas to mark the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong becoming the first human being to step out onto the Moon’s surface, director Todd Douglas Miller’s extraordinary documentary uses hi-res period footage and audio to tell the story of the Apollo 11 mission. Yes, you know what happens, but that doesn’t lessen the awe. More specifically, the pervading sense that all this happened long ago gives the footage a near-mythic quality. Did men and women really do this less than a quarter of a century after the end of the Second World War? Yes, they did.
Battle of Britain 80: Allies at War
Streaming in the UK | documentary
The summer of 1940 was a time when the fate of Great Britain hung in the balance. The retreat from Dunkirk may have been a small miracle of improvisation but it also represented a demoralising defeat. And yet somehow the Royal Air Force, its Spitfires and Hurricanes flown by those Churchill dubbed “the few”, summoned up the fighting strength and will to repel the Luftwaffe, which was seeking to establish control of the skies over the country prior to invasion. This one-off documentary celebrates the role of those Polish and Czech pilots who fought alongside their British compatriots.
Britain’s Greatest Obsessions
Streaming in the UK | documentary series
Britons may disagree about subjects as diverse as politics, football and whether the jam should go above or below the cream on scones, but we nevertheless have shared national obsessions to bind us together: the weather, pubs and the nuances of social class. These are among the subjects explored in a celebrity-fronted series that begins with comedian Harry Hill investigating the roots of our conviction that we have the world’s greatest sense of humour, or at the very least one that’s far superior to the Germans. Other famous names appearing include Reginald D Hunter, Suggs and Chris Packham.
Read more | What is the oldest pub in Britain?
Britannia
Streaming in the UK | three seasons available
The year is 43 AD and life for ordinary Britons is about to change thanks to the arrival of Roman invaders who, unlike the troops landed by Julius Caesar many decades previously, aren’t going to go home anytime soon. Jez Butterworth’s Britannia, a mix of fantasy and historical drama, may be over the top, but it’s undeniably entertaining, at least so long as you enjoy a mix of Celtic-tinged mysticism, strong violence and switchback plotting. Amidst an ensemble cast, look out for David Morrissey as General Aulus Plautius, Kelly Reilly as Kerra and Mackenzie Crook as Veran.
- Read more | Who were the rebels of Roman Britain?
Das Boot
Streaming in the UK | three seasons available
Like the 1981 movie, the television version of submarine drama Das Boot probably isn’t for those who suffer from claustrophobia. Nevertheless, the series widens out the story considerably. In season one, set in 1942, we see events on U-boat 612 as a secret mission starts to go badly wrong. Back on land, we watch as the French Resistance seeks to disrupt the Nazi war effort in La Rochelle, home to the Germans’ submarine base. Further seasons take the show further from Lothar-Günther Buchheim’s 1973 novel and its sequel, Die Festung (1995), but without losing the books’ essence.
Domina
Streaming in the UK | drama series
Livia Drusilla (Kasia Smutniak) was one of the most powerful women in Rome, both wife and advisor to the emperor Augustus Caesar. But as this new series fictionalising her early life makes clear, she first had to survive through years when the men around her ruthlessly competed for power. It helps, it seems, that Livia was single minded and ambitious. We meet the young Livia in the wake of the assassination of Julius Caesar when, despite still being a teenager, she is married to boorish Tiberius Claudius Nero. A strong cast includes Liam Cunningham, Isabella Rossellini and Matthew McNulty.
The Good Lord Bird
Streaming in the UK | drama series
Ethan Hawke is on fine form as real-life abolitionist John Brown in a raucous adaptation of James McBride’s 2013 novel. The plot here has strong fictional elements, not least because we see events through the eyes of Henry ‘Little Onion’ Shackleford (Joshua Caleb Johnson), a teenage slave Brown frees and then informally adopts. Bowen mistakenly thinks Henry is a girl, Henrietta, and survivor Henry isn’t about to tell the truth if it keeps him out of trouble. It was Brown, remember, who led the Harpers Ferry raid in 1859, an attempt to initiate a slave revolt in the South.
River Hunters
Streaming in the UK | three seasons available
Exploring Britain’s rivers can reveal hitherto unfound archaeological evidence. That’s broadly the premise of this entertaining series, which sees wild swimmer Rick Edwards, underwater archaeologist Gary Bankhead and American river detectorist Beau Ouimette diving into the past. To give a flavour of what to expect, season two looked back the battle of Killiecrankie, fought during the Jacobite rising of 1689, an engagement that was notable for featuring one of the earliest uses of grenades. Other shows focused on the Viking era in York and a hunt for relics left by 12th-century pilgrims in Canterbury.
Six Minutes To Midnight
Streaming in the UK | feature-length drama
In a drama loosely inspired by a strange-but-true story, co-scriptwriter Eddie Izzard, in what he has dubbed “boy mode”, stars as Thomas Miller, who in the summer of 1939 takes a job at Augusta Victoria College in Bexhill-on-Sea. It’s a place where, despite tensions between Britain and Germany, pupils are the daughters of high-ranking Nazi officials. (In real life, the school badge featured both a union jack and a swastika.) The school is also, it transpires, at the centre of a Nazi intelligence plot. Judi Dench stars as Miss Rocholl, the school’s head teacher
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The Americans
Streaming in the UK | six seasons available
Evoking the chill of the Cold War during the Reagan years, The Americans ran for six seasons from 2013–18. The title is, of course, ironic because Elizabeth (Keri Russell) and Philip Jennings (Matthew Rhys) are in reality Soviet spies so deeply embedded that few guess at their true identities – and those that do sometimes wind up dead. At the heart of the series lies the emotional cost of such duplicity within the Jennings’ marriage, often played out via the couple’s strained relationships with their children. A slow-burning and subtle series whose reputation, quite rightly, continues to grow.
Boston Strangler
Streaming in the UK | feature-length drama
Between June 1962 and January 1964, 13 single women, ranging in age from 19 to 85, were murdered in the Boston area. The killings would be attributed to multiple rapist Albert DeSalvo, although some even now question whether a single individual was responsible for the crimes. What is certain is that two reporters, Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole, tenaciously reported on the murders and helped to alert women to the possibility that a serial killer was at large. This tense historical crime thriller, starring Keira Knightley as McLaughlin and Carrie Coon as Cole, dramatises their investigations.
Buried Secrets Of WWII
Streaming in the UK | documentary series
The latest 3D scanning techniques are revealing hitherto hidden information about the battlefields of the Second World War. Step forward Pete Kelsey, an expert in this technology, who here teams up with military historian Martin KA Morgan to look anew at the past. The six-part series takes in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Nazi V-bomb programme, the relentless German Siege of Malta in 1940, the Allied advance on Rome, the 1944 battle of Hürtgen Forest on the Belgian-German border, and Allied attempts to dismantle the Japanese war machine during the long-running New Guinea campaign.
Europe From Above
Streaming in the UK and US | four seasons available
The format here is straightforward. Deploying cameras in the sky and ‘hyperlapse’ effects, Europe From Above travels to different countries, and looks down on both natural wonders and manmade marvels. The results of this filming are frequently mesmerising as we’re offered, for example, a bird’s eye view of star-shaped Fort Bourtange in the Netherlands, originally constructed in the 16th century to control the only road between Germany and the city of Groningen. Subsequent episodes are devoted to Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain and Poland, home to the world’s largest castle, which sprawls over more than 50 acres.
Flooded Tombs Of The Nile
Streaming in the UK and US | documentary
As anyone who has watched an Indiana Jones movie can testify, it’s dangerous exploring ancient sites. Doubly so when the site in question is a pyramid awash with rising groundwaters. This one-off documentary shows the risks very clearly as it follows efforts to explore a site associated with Nastasen, the Nubian king of Kush, a kingdom that was centred on the Nile valley in northern Sudan and southern Egypt. The work of Pearce Paul Creasman, an archaeologist whose expertise encompasses ancient Egypt and Nubia, maritime archaeology and the study of the ancient environment, is central to the documentary.
Hamilton
Streaming in the UK and US | feature-length musical
Was there ever a more unlikely Broadway hit? Inspired by Ron Chernow’s biography, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop musical traces the eventful life and times of Alexander Hamilton, lawyer, soldier, statesman and banker, a Founding Father who rose to prominence despite the stigma of being born out of wedlock in the British Leeward Islands. It’s an exhilarating show that received rave reviews and has been a hit in London as well as New York. This film captures the excitement of the show’s first Broadway run and features Miranda himself in the title role.
The Last Duel
Streaming in the UK | feature-length drama
Rooted in Germanic law, a judicial duel involved two parties fighting in single combat to settle a dispute. Such duels were fought in Europe through the Middle Ages, with the last such encounter in France taking place in 1386, a real-life face-off that underpins this historical epic directed by Ridley Scott. The Last Duel plays out over three distinct chapters, each essentially offering a different character’s perspective, and relates what happens after Marguerite de Carrouges (Jodie Corner), the wife of knight Jean (Matt Damon), accuses his one-time friend, squire Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver), of raping her.
The Lost City Of Machu Picchu
Streaming in the UK and US | documentary
The Disney+ site features a terrific range of National Geographic documentaries, including this documentary focusing on the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, the existence of which was revealed to the wider world by American archaeologist Hiram Bingham (1875–1956) in 1911, after he had been guided to the site with the help of local farmers. The selling point here is that the documentary will go below the citadel where “mummy kings wait to share their stories”. In truth, the chance just to see the site in such glorious detail makes this well worth watching.
- Read more | The last days of the Incas
Notre-Dame: Race Against the Inferno
Streaming in the UK and US | documentary
On 15 April 2019, at around 6.20pm, a fire broke out beneath the roof at Notre-Dame de Paris. What followed was a catastrophe, as the cathedral’s spire and much of its roof were destroyed. Yet it could have been much worse. The city’s firefighters fought for seven hours and more to bring the blaze fully under control and restoration is now in progress at a building that’s a marvel of the French Gothic style. Drawing on exclusive footage and interviews with those who were there, this National Geographic documentary focuses on efforts to contain the blaze.
Sam: A Saxon
Streaming in the UK and US | drama series
The son of a Cameroonian father and a German mother, Samuel Meffire was the first Afro-German police officer to serve in East Germany. What motivated a man who, thanks to an advertising campaign, literally became a poster boy for anti-racism around the time Germany was reunified? And how, disenchanted with what he saw around him, did Meffire come to serve time for armed robbery? This mini-series, starring Malick Bauer, dramatises a life that has more than enough outlandish incidents to keep the story moving along and also has much to say about racism in contemporary Germany.
A Small Light
Streaming in the UK and US | drama series
Thanks to Anne Frank’s diary, the story of how she and her family hid from the Nazis in a secret Amsterdam annex has become woven into our wider culture. Yet we would not be able to read of these experiences were it not for Miep Gies (1909–2010), former PA to Anne’s father, Otto. Not only did she save the diary for posterity, but it was Miep (Bel Powley) and her husband, Dutch Resistance member Jan (Joe Cole), who watched over the Franks and brought them food. This powerful drama tells the story from the perspective of Miep.
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The Banker
Streaming in the UK and US | feature-length drama
Pulled from release in December 2019 following allegations of sexual abuse were levelled at one of its producers (the son of one of the lead characters, whose name was removed from the film’s credits), The Banker arrived with baggage. Nevertheless, it tells an important story, of how real-life African-American entrepreneurs – Bernard Garrett (Anthony Mackie) and Joe Morris (Samuel L Jackson) – employed a white frontman, Matt Steiner (Nicolas Hoult), and beat a racist system to make a fortune in Los Angeles real estate in the 1950s. But success eventually brings the unwanted attention of the authorities.
The Best Beer Run Ever
Streaming in the UK and US | feature-length drama
Directed and co-written by Peter Farrelly of Green Book fame, here’s a comedy-drama based on the extraordinary true story of John ‘Chickie’ Donohue. In 1968, Donohue, a former marine and sailor who in real life had been heavily influenced by anti-war demonstrations, travelled through the Vietnam War delivering beer to men from his home neighbourhood of Inward, New York. Zac Efron plays Donohue as a wastrel on a lark whose worldview is radically changed by what he sees, while Russell Crowe adds A-list star power to the cast as photographer Arthur Coates.
Emancipation
Streaming in the UK & US via Apple+ | feature-length drama
A still and steely presence in a film that’s often brutal and even harrowing, Will Smith stars as a slave labourer, Peter, on the run from a Confederate Army work camp. If dealing with alligators, leeches and snakes in the swamps of Louisiana weren’t bad enough, Peter finds himself pursued by a relentless manhunter, Fassel (Ben Foster). A film that only becomes more powerful when you learn it was inspired by the true story of “Whipped Peter”, an escaped slave who became an abolitionist icon after images of his back, a lattice of keloid scars, were published in 1863.
The Essex Serpent
Streaming in the UK & US | drama series
Based on Sarah Perry’s bestselling novel, The Essex Serpent takes us back to the late 19th century, where a young widow, Cora Seaborne (Claire Danes) finds new freedom after the death of her abusive husband. Leaving London for life in the country, she resolves to pursue her interest in palaeontology. At which point sightings of a legendary monster, dubbed by locals “The Blackwater Beast”, begin. Could this be, Seaborne theorises, a living fossil that has made its home out in the marshes? A subtle and sometimes eerie drama that also features, as the Rev Will Ransome, Tom Hiddleston.
Greyhound
Streaming in the UK and US | feature-length drama
Ever adept at playing everyman figures placed in danger, Tom Hanks stars as a US Navy commander, Ernest Krause, given command of a destroyer, USS Keeling. Krause is tasked with defending a merchant ship convoy from submarine attack during the battle of the Atlantic in 1942, but also has to battle his own demons. Based on CS Forester’s novel The Good Shepherd and scripted by Hanks himself, Greyhound was initially going to be released in cinemas, until the pandemic made this impossible and Apple stepped in. Also starring Stephen Graham, Rob Morgan and Elisabeth Shue.
Lincoln’s Dilemma
Streaming in the UK | documentary series
The thoughts of Abraham Lincoln on slavery evolved through his life. At one point, for example, he was a supporter of ‘colonization’, the idea that African-Americans might be funded to leave the United States. Ultimately, after issuing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, he abandoned this position. The subject of how his standpoint on this crucial issue changed over the years, and why, is at the centre of Lincoln’s Dilemma. Much is made of the way abolitionist and social reformer Frederick Douglass may have pushed the 16th president into changing his stance. Narrated by Jeffrey Wright.
Louis Armstrong’s Black And Blues
Streaming in the UK and US | feature-length documentary
In so many respects, the public image of Louis Armstrong (1901–71) has come to be defined by his later career, when he was a mainstream star and sometimes attracted criticism for not talking more about the struggle for civil rights. Yet as Sacha Jenkins’ excellent documentary reminds us, this is at best a partial picture of a complex man. In particular, the film reveals Satchmo as one of jazz’s foundational figures – a trumpet virtuoso, a consummate band leader and, gravelly voice to the fore, a man able to make even the most unlikely song choices his own.
Tetris
Streaming in the UK and US | feature-length drama
Even allowing for a certain amount of dramatic licence, the story of how Tetris came to be a worldwide sensation is gloriously improbable. At its heart lies Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton), a Dutch entrepreneur who early on realised the potential of the video-game. There’s just one problem. Obtaining the rights to Tetris, a convoluted job in itself, involves travelling east to meet the game’s Russian inventor, Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Yefremov). A film that, in entertaining fashion, mixes up elements of screwball comedy, the Cold War thriller and tech-origin tales such as The Social Network.
The Velvet Underground
Streaming in the UK & US | feature-length documentary
The Velvet Underground’s debut, released in 1967, sold only a few thousand copies. Yet according to Brian Eno, everyone who bought the album started a band. Yes, that’s an exaggeration, but the fact this idea exists is testament to the huge, and ongoing, cultural influence of the Velvets. As to why the band are considered so important, director Todd Haynes’ documentary, which features new interviews with surviving members John Cale and Mo Tucker, should help to explain. Expect evocative footage of Lou Reed, Nico and the denizens of Andy Warhol’s Factory, where the Velvets were the house band.
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Band of Brothers
Streaming in the US | drama series
First shown in 2001, Band Of Brothers has dated well. In great part, that’s down to the elegant simplicity of the central idea: to follow Easy Company, part of the 101st Airborne Division, from jump training through parachute landings in Normandy and onwards to the end of conflict. Based on historian Stephen E Ambrose’s 1992 book, which gathered together interviews with veterans, it conveys a gritty authenticity, although the filmmakers did take some historical liberties for dramatic reasons. Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks bagged credits as executive producers, further proof that here was a big-money, high-profile project.
Boardwalk Empire
Streaming in the US | five seasons available
Originally aired between 2010 and 2014, Boardwalk Empire set out to tell an epic story of Atlantic City gangsters in the prohibition era. And it largely succeeded, although it’s arguable the earlier episodes are stronger, notably a pilot directed by Martin Scorsese. Back before the long-form television revolution meant it was routine to see film stars on TV, its cast was notably starry, including Steve Buscemi as Enoch ‘Nucky’ Thompson, corrupt city treasurer; Michael Shannon as Nelson Van Alden, a puritanical government agent whose life spirals out of control; and Kelly Macdonald as troubled widow Margaret Thompson.
Catherine the Great
Streaming in the US | drama series
Far more imperious than most royals, Helen Mirren deservedly won a Golden Globe for her turn here as the empress who ruled Russia from 1762 until 1796, and who revitalised the country after organising a coup d’état against her own husband, Peter III. The four-part series, where you can see the budget in every frame, focuses on Catherine the Great’s years in power, and shows her as ruthless and yet enlightened, interested in the latest thinking across Europe. The relationship between the empress and her lover, military commander Grigory Potemkin (Jason Clarke), is central to the series.
- Read more | Catherine the Great: fact and fiction
Chernobyl
Streaming in the US | drama series
On 26 April 1986, a safety test at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine went catastrophically wrong. The plant’s No4 reactor exploded, an accident that spewed nuclear contamination across Europe. What would it have been like to be on the ground, seeing these events as they happened? The multiple award-winning Chernobyl, based in part on Svetlana Alexievich’s book Voices From Chernobyl, imagines just that. Those who lives we glimpse include first-responder firefighters and miners who had to dig beneath the facility. A strong ensemble cast includes Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgård, Paul Ritter, Jessie Buckley and Emily Watson.
John Adams
Streaming in the US | drama series
Adapted from historian David McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, John Adams chronicles the political life of the founding father and second president of the US. The life of Adams (1735–1826) was eventful, yet by telling its story over seven episodes, there’s plenty of time for the series (from 2008) to explore the deeper currents of his life. Paul Giamatti stars as Adams, Laura Linney as his wife, Abigail. There are some inaccuracies, yet John Adams never takes too many liberties with the historical record and its sheer quality was reflected in a haul of 13 Emmy Awards.
Our Flag Means Death
Streaming in the US | comedy series
The story of Stede Bonnet (1688–1718) is genuinely fascinating. Why did a man who was a moderately well-to-do member of the landed gentry in Barbados decide to become a self-styled gentleman pirate? It’s this question that underpins showrunner David Jenkins’ pirate comedy, which portrays Bonnet (Rhys Darby) as a man bored by life – and heroically ill-equipped to lead the dysfunctional crew of his ship, Revenge, in a life of crime. A strong cast features Ewen Bremner as Nathaniel Buttons, Bonnet’s grizzled first mate, and Taika Waititi as Edward ‘Blackbeard’ Teach.
The Pacific
Streaming in the US | drama series
Once again numbering Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks as executive producers, the follow-up to Band of Brothers focuses on the experiences of three real-life members of the US 1st Marine Division, Robert Leckie, Eugene Sledge and John Basilone. Based on such first-hand memoirs as Leckie’s Helmet For My Pillow, it’s a series offering an unflinching portrait of men at war. It also portrays many of the key engagements in the Pacific theatre during the Second World War, including the Guadalcanal campaign, the battle of Iwo Jima and the notoriously bloody US landing at Okinawa.
Perry Mason
Streaming in the US | drama series
Perry Mason has long been associated with Raymond Burr, who played the character on television from 1957 until his death in 1993. This longevity perhaps explains why it’s taken so long for crime novelist Erle Stanley Gardner’s upstanding defence attorney to return to our screens. The spin in this big-budget HBO series is that we meet Mason (Matthew Rhys) in 1932 Los Angeles, where he’s working as a gumshoe detective. Haunted by his experiences in the First World War, this is Mason down on his luck, when along comes a kidnapping case offering the opportunity for redemption.
The Plot Against America
Streaming in the US | drama series
Alternate histories don’t come spookier than Philip Roth’s 2004 novel, The Plot Against America, which imagines a xenophobic Charles Lindbergh using his aviation fame to run for president and to turn the country towards fascism. In this mini-series from writers David Simon and Ed Burns of The Wire fame, it’s a rise to power we see primarily through the eyes of a working-class Jewish family from Newark, New Jersey. The cast includes Winona Ryder as independently minded Evelyn Finkel and John Turturro as charismatic Rabbi Lionel Bengelsdorf, who supports Lindbergh despite the disquiet this causes in his community.
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The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years
Streaming in the US | feature-length documentary
In 1966, The Beatles quit touring. The Fab Four, the cheeky lads from Liverpool who had conquered the world, ceased to be – to be replaced by serious musicians who preferred recording at Abbey Road to life on the road. Yet the quartet’s itinerant years between 1962 and 1966 are important to understanding the band, and Ron Howard’s acclaimed documentary from 2016 tells a cultural history story of huge significance as we see The Beatles on the hoof redefining what it meant to be a pop star. Plus, for all the screaming, the music is pretty good.
Buried Secrets Of WWII
Streaming in the US | documentary series
The latest 3D scanning techniques are revealing hitherto hidden information about the battlefields of the Second World War. Step forward Pete Kelsey, an expert in this technology, who here teams up with military historian Martin KA Morgan to look anew at the past. The six-part series takes in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Nazi V-bomb programme, the relentless German Siege of Malta in 1940, the Allied advance on Rome, the 1944 battle of Hürtgen Forest on the Belgian-German border, and Allied attempts to dismantle the Japanese war machine during the long-running New Guinea campaign.
Escape From Pretoria
Streaming in the US | feature-length drama
In 1979, a trio of anti-apartheid activists escaped prison in Pretoria. But how exactly did Tim Jenkin, Stephen Lee and Alex Moumbaris (renamed Leonard Fontaine here) get away? Adapted from a book by Jenkin, this Australian film takes us back to an era when South Africans could be incarcerated for distributing pro-ANC leaflets and when political prisoners received especially harsh treatment. The trio’s ingenious bid for freedom involves making wooden keys and plays out as a thriller. Daniel Radcliffe leads the cast as Jenkin. Ian Hart plays Denis Goldberg, a long-imprisoned activist who helps his fellow prisoners.
Great Expectations
Streaming in the US | drama series
It’s safe to say Steven Knight’s take on Charles Dickens’ much-loved novel has divided opinion. Why? Because of the way the Peaky Blinders creator has embellished the source material in this latest of many screen adaptations of the story of Pip, Estella and, in this version, an opium-smoking Miss Havisham. For Knight’s part, he says that his additions are all rooted in a close reading of Dickens – including, it seems, a naked Mr Pumblechook (Matt Berry) being spanked. But whatever your thoughts on the script, it draws out some terrific performances, especially Olivia Colman’s eerie turn as Havisham.
Hillary
Streaming in the US | documentary series
If journalism is the “first rough draft of history”, the analysis piece that runs a little after the newsmen have gone home might be said to be its second draft. Television has developed its own variation on this latter idea with series that offer testimony from those who were there during major events yet have had time to reflect, an approach much used by the BBC. Hillary takes a similar approach. Nanette Burstein’s four-part series draws on campaign footage from the 2016 presidential election, and features Hillary Clinton reflecting on what’s been, by any standards, an eventful life.
Mrs. America
Streaming in the US | drama series
Author and activist Phyllis Schlafly (1924–2016) was a conservative who doggedly fought the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution in the 1970s, legislation that would have offered women protection from discrimination. The contradictions of such an intelligent, formidable and self-starting campaigner, a woman who herself often had to battle sexism, pitting herself against the leading lights of American feminism are explored in a series that stars Cate Blanchett as Schlafly. Those on the other side of the argument include writer and feminist leader Gloria Steinem, played with a waspish intensity by Rose Byrne.
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Devotion
Streaming in the US | feature-length drama
Jesse Brown was the first African-American pilot to complete the US Navy’s basic flight training programme. He went on to serve with distinction in the Korean War (1950–53) and won the Distinguished Flying Cross. The frigate USS Jesse L. Brown was named in his honour. This biopic charts his career, the story of a man born in Mississippi and who encountered overt racism throughout his life. The central relationship here is between Brown (Jonathan Major, star of Lovecraft Country) and his wingman, Tom Hudner (Glen Powell of Top Gun: Maverick fame), and charts a deepening friendship.
1923
Streaming in the UK and US | drama series
The neo-Western Yellowstone, a knotty tale of Montana ranchers starring Kevin Costner, has been one of the biggest hits on US television in recent years. So much so that it has spawned two sequels going back in time to explore the story of the Dutton family, the clan that lies at the centre of the drama. First there was 1883, which starred Sam Elliott, and now there is 1923, which takes the family saga through Prohibition, years of drought and the Great Depression. Helen Mirren, playing family matriarch Cara, and Harrison Ford as her husband, Jacob, lead the cast.
*All information correct at time of publication
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