Downton Abbey

Series Similar to Downton Abbey

If you enjoyed Downton Abbey, these series share similar themes, tone, and quality. Each recommendation is scored on genre overlap, tonal match, and critical acclaim.

1. Victoria

   2016 · Drama, History · ended

   Recommended for similar Drama profile, highly rated (8.3).

   Victoria comes to the throne at a time of great economic turbulence and resurgent republicanism – and died 64 years later the head of the largest empire the world had ever seen, having revitalised the throne's public image and become ‘grandmother of Europe'. The first series of Victoria, will tell the story of the first years of the reign, beginning with the moment of the Queen's accession in 1837, following her first faltering steps from capricious, hormonal teenager with a weak grasp on her duties and responsibilities to her marriage to Albert. The show is a saga of interlocking circles – the circuits of power in Buckingham Palace and Westminster, the intermarrying royal houses of Europe and the scandals of the below-stairs palace staff. At the centre stands the new Queen – a spirited, passionate woman who must, somehow, become an enduring icon of stability and strength.

2. Poldark

   2015 · Drama, Romance · ended

   Recommended for similar Romance profile, highly rated (8.3).

   Britain is in the grip of a chilling recession... falling wages, rising prices, civil unrest - only the bankers are smiling. It's 1783 and Ross Poldark returns from the American War of Independence to his beloved Cornwall to find his world in ruins: his father dead, the family mine long since closed, his house wrecked and his sweetheart pledged to marry his cousin. But Ross finds that hope and love can be found when you are least expecting it in the wild but beautiful Cornish landscape.

3. Chernobyl

   2019 · Drama, History · ended

   Recommended for similar Drama profile, highly rated (8.9).

   Chernobyl dramatizes the true story of one of the worst man-made catastrophes in history and tells of the brave men and women who sacrificed to save Europe from unimaginable disaster. The miniseries focuses on the heartbreaking scope of the nuclear plant disaster that occurred in Ukraine in April 1986, revealing how and why it happened and telling the shocking, remarkable stories of the heroes who fought and fell.

4. Spartacus: Gods of the Arena

   2011 · Drama, Action, History · ended

   Recommended for similar Drama profile, highly rated (8.4).

   The mini-series features the bloody history of the House of Batiatus and the city of Capua before the arrival of Spartacus. Quintus Lentulus Batiatus becomes a lanista (manager) when he takes over his father's ludus of gladiators. He has ambitions of stepping out of his father's shadow by seeking recognition for his own name and achieving further greatness for his house. By his side stands his beautiful wife Lucretia who will help her husband achieve his ambitions, whatever the cost. Batiatus puts all his fortunes on the man who will gain him fame and glory. That would be his best gladiator, the Celt, Gannicus, a skilled warrior who wields dual swords with deadly purpose. Those who oppose Batiatus and his future champion(s) of Capua do so at their own peril.Purchased as an undisciplined and disheveled recruit in the first episode, Crixus the Gaul endures mockery and threats of death to become the champion after Gannicus. As Batiatus fends off repeated attempts by his professional rival Tullius to obtain Gannicus, his relationships with his father Titus and friend Solonius begin to suffer the strain of his relentless ambition. Former champion, Oenomaus, reluctantly becomes Doctore, while Syrian recruits Ashur and Dagan try to prove themselves worthy of being gladiators. Veteran gladiators Barca and Gannicus note the rising star of Crixus, as the machinations of Batiatus and Lucretia end in tragedy for several members of the household. Against all of this, the city's splendid new arena nears completion and with it the opening games that will make slaves into gods. When the arena opens, Batiatus' gladiators prevail in the contest. Gannicus again proves himself to be the champion of Capua and a god of the arena. By virtue of his win against Solonius' gladiators, he gains his freedom and Crixus becomes the new champion.

5. Home Fires

   2015 · Drama, Action, History · ended

   Recommended for similar Drama profile, highly rated (8), also on ITV1.

   In 1939 life for the women of Great Paxford changed forever. Suddenly parted from their men, they must rely on each other to get through the hard times ahead in the midst of a world war.

6. Spartacus

   2010 · Drama, Action, History · ended

   Recommended for similar Drama profile, highly rated (8.5).

   Betrayed by his country. Beaten into slavery. Reborn as a warrior. Spartacus is a graphic and visceral account of Rome's most famous gladiator. When he is separated from the love of his life, Spartacus is forced into the gruesome and bloodthirsty arena, where a grisly death is primetime entertainment. Spartacus must fight for survival, befriend his enemies and play politics in this new world of corruption, violence, sex and fame. He will be seduced by power and tormented by vengeance. But his passion will give him the strength to prevail over every obstacle, in this modern and uninhibited tale of death, honour and endurance.

7. The Gilded Age

   2022 · Drama, History · returning

   Recommended for similar Drama profile.

   The American Gilded Age was a period of immense economic change, of huge fortunes made and lost, and the rise of disparity between old money and new.Against this backdrop of change, the story begins in 1882 — introducing young Marian Brook, the orphaned daughter of a Union general, who moves into the New York City home of her thoroughly old money aunts Agnes van Rhijn and Ada Brook. Accompanied by Peggy Scott, an accomplished African-American woman, Marian inadvertently becomes enmeshed in a social war between one of her aunts, a scion of the old money set, and her stupendously rich neighbors, a ruthless railroad tycoon and his ambitious wife, George and Bertha Russell.In this exciting new world that is on the brink of the modern age, will Marian follow the established rules of society, or forge her own path?

8. John Adams

   2008 · Drama, History · ended

   Recommended for similar Drama profile, highly rated (8).

   This seven-part epic miniseries event explores American history through one of its greatest founding fathers, a fiercely independent spirit whose unwavering vision steered America through a tumultuous period.

9. Rome

   2005 · Drama, Action, Adventure · ended

   Recommended for similar Drama profile, highly rated (8.4).

   Four hundred years after the founding of the Republic, Rome is the wealthiest city in the world. The Republic was founded on principals of shared power, never allowing one man to seize absolute control. But now, those foundations are crumbling...and two soldiers unwittingly become entwined in the historical events of ancient Rome. A drama of love and betrayal, masters and slaves, husbands and wives, Rome chronicles a turbulent era that saw the death of a republic and the birth of an empire.

10. Vikings

    2013 · Drama, Action, History · ended

    Recommended for similar Drama profile, highly rated (8.6).

    Vikings transports us to the brutal and mysterious world of Ragnar Lothbrok, a Viking warrior and farmer who yearns to explore - and raid - the distant shores across the ocean.