Marco Polo

Series Similar to Marco Polo

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

1. Rome

   2005 · Drama, Action, Adventure · ended

   Recommended for similar Action / Adventure 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.

2. Shōgun

   2024 · Drama, Adventure, History · returning

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

   Shōgun is set in Japan in the year 1600 at the dawn of a century-defining civil war. Lord Yoshii Toranaga is fighting for his life as his enemies on the Council of Regents unite against him, when a mysterious European ship is found marooned in a nearby fishing village.

3. The Borgias

   2011 · Drama, Romance, History · ended

   Recommended for similar Drama profile.

   This expansive drama series stars Oscar winner Jeremy Irons in his Golden Globe-nominated role as Pope Alexander VI, the cunning, manipulative patriarch of the infamous Borgia dynasty, who builds an empire by bribing, buying and muscling his way into the papacy.

4. The Tudors

   2007 · Drama, History · ended

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

   Jonathan Rhys Meyers stars in this original, history-based drama series as the young, vibrant King Henry VIII, a competitive and lustful monarch who navigates the intrigues of the English court and the human heart with equal vigor and justifiable suspicion.

5. Spartacus

   2010 · Drama, Action, History · ended

   Recommended for similar Action 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.

6. Spartacus: Gods of the Arena

   2011 · Drama, Action, History · ended

   Recommended for similar Action 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.

7. Black Sails

   2014 · Drama, Action, Adventure · ended

   Recommended for similar Action / Adventure profile, highly rated (8.4).

   1715. The Golden Age of Piracy. New Providence Island is a lawless territory, controlled by history's most notorious pirate captains. The most feared is Captain Flint.As the British Navy returns to redeem their land and exterminate Flint and his crew, another side of him emerges. Captain Flint aligns himself with Eleanor Guthrie, daughter of the local kingpin, to hunt the ultimate prize and ensure their survival.Many opponents stand in their way: rival captains, jealous of Flint's power; Eleanor's ambitious and intrusive father; and a young sailor recently recruited onto Flint's crew, John Silver, who constantly undermines his captain's agenda.

8. War & Peace

   2016 · Drama, Romance, History · ended

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

   In a new adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's timeless novel, three young people experience life, love and loss against the epic backdrop of Russia's wars with Napoleon.

9. The Crown

   2016 · Drama, History · ended

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

   The Crown tells the inside story of two of the most famous addresses in the world -- Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street - and the intrigues, love lives and machinations behind the great events that shaped the second half of the 20th century. Two houses, two courts, one Crown.

10. 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.