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Apr 22, 2022 · Whether it be “Bridgerton” or classic BBC period television dramas such as “Pride and Prejudice,” it is clear that the obsession for period dramas stems from the paradoxical nostalgia of...
- Nancy Durrant
- Bridgerton, 2020 - ongoing. (Liam Daniel/Netflix/PA) PA Media. With its second season pulling in a whopping 620 million viewing hours in under a month back in spring, Bridgerton has long since taken the title of the world’s most popular period drama.
- Persuasion, 2022. Nick Wall/Netflix. So people hated it, some people loved it. This Netflix adaption of Persuasion has a dreamy cast Dakota Johnson playing Anne Elliot, Cosmo Jarvis playing Captain Frederick Wentworth, Henry Golding playing Mr. William Elliot and had acclaimed stage director Carrie Cracknell behind the camera.
- The Essex Serpent, 2022. In 1893, released by his death from her abusive husband, young widow Cora Seaborne (Claire Danes) moves to a small village in Essex to look into reports of a mythical creature known as the Essex Serpent, which is spooking the locals.
- The Personal History of David Copperfield, 2019. The sweetest, brightest, happiest adaption of a Dickens that there ever was, nothing could be a better distraction from that fourth Unprecedented Times news bulletin you received this morning.
- Dirty Lines
- Winning Time: The Rise of The Lakers Dynasty
- The First Lady
- The Essex Serpent
- Hotel Portofino
- Vikings: Valhalla
- Our Flag Means Death
- Minx
- Tokyo Vice
- The Gilded Age
Stream On Netflix
The power of period drama lies in its ability to evoke the feeling of living in another period. This dynamic is very much at work in Dirty Lines, a Dutch series airing on Netflix. It very quickly immerses the viewer in the world of 1980s Denmark, in which a young woman, Marly Salomon, is employed by a pair of brothers to work for their newly-minted phone sex line. Though it takes a great deal of trouble to evoke the period of its story, it also focuses on Marly’s coming-of-age, and she slowly...
Stream On HBO Max
Many notable sports dramas have appeared on television, and Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynastyis sure to take its place as among the genre has to offer. Focusing on the Lakers during the 1980s, it captures the excitement, and the drama, attendant on the high-stakes world of basketball, particularly in this specific historical moment. What allows it to flourish as a series, however, is the extraordinary cast, who bring their characters to life in all of their complexity.
Stream On Showtime
Showtime has a well-established reputation for creating compelling dramas. One of their most notable recent entries is The First Ladywhich, as its title suggests, focuses on several women who occupied this very important position in American politics. Featuring a powerful cast, the series shows the extent to which various First Ladies have had to contend with the pressures of their historical moments. Each of these women–Eleanor Roosevelt, Betty Ford, and Michelle Obama–manage to triumph, des...
Stream On Apple TV+
The Essex Serpent is one of the stranger series to appear on the streaming service Apple TV+, but it has quickly become one of the best it has to offer. Focusing on a woman who goes to Essex to seek out a supposed sea serpent, it quickly veers into Gothic romance once she falls in love with a local clergyman. Claire Daines and Tom Hiddleston both deliver powerful performances such as Cora and Will, and it brilliantly captures the unsettling nature of its setting, in which people are very pron...
Stream On Prime Video
As with so many of the best period dramas, Hotel Portofinois a series very much invested in evoking the sensual pleasures of the past. In this case, the setting is a posh English hotel, which hosts several wealthy, pampered guests who reside there for the summer. As is usual in this type of drama, there’s more than a little intrigue, as the various members of the cast engage with one another. Just as notable, however, is the fact that the series also manages to inject just a hint of menace in...
Stream On Netflix
Vikings was (and is) one of the most successful series to have been aired on the History Channel, and so it’s not surprising that it would earn its spinoff. In this case, it focuses on the Vikings and their various conflicts with the English. Though the series is full of the usual blood and battle viewers expect of the parent series, it also focuses a great deal on the politics of the medieval era. Kings and queens constantly compete with and betray one another as they all attempt to seize th...
Stream On HBO Max
Though pirates have often appeared in popular culture, rarely have they done so with as much panache and flair as they do in Our Flag Means Death. While it begins as a fairly typical comedy focusing on the fussy mannerisms and exploits of the gentleman pirate Stede Bonnet and his equally strange crew, it soon turns into a touching queer romance once he meets the infamous Blackbeard. The two men strike up a beautiful relationship, though ultimately their world and its forces tear them apart. W...
Stream On HBO Max)
The 1970s was a remarkably unsettled decade in the US, with much of the country engaged in debates about such pressing issues as civil rights. Minxsituates its story squarely in the decade, focusing in particular on one young woman’s attempt to establish a feminist magazine. Along the way, she gains a publisher, though in the process her magazine becomes one akin to Playgirl. The series is a brilliant evocation of the period, in particular the debate about women’s desires and the role of femi...
Stream On HBO Max
Though many periods shows focus on distant periods, Tokyo Vicefocuses instead on a relatively recent period, late 1990s Japan. It focuses in particular on an American journalist who earns a place with a Japanese newspaper and proceeds to investigate the sinister world of an organized country. The series captures several significant details about this dangerous milieu in which the main character finds himself, allowing the viewer to feel a similar sense of cultural dislocation as the protagonist.
Stream On HBO Max
Julian Fellowes is best known as the creator of Downton Abbey, arguably the best period drama of recent vintage. However, he flexed his muscles in the series The Gilded Age, which focuses on New York society in the years after the Civil War. He highlights the foibles of the enormously wealthy, even as he also allows the viewer to get invested in the various characters who appear, particularly Carrie Coon’s Bertha Russell. It is, in many respects, an elaborate comedy of manners, but that is pr...
Mar 25, 2022 · Bridgerton, Sanditon, Downton Abbey: Why are period dramas having a resurgence and why do we love them so much?
- Emily Gulla
- 3 min
- Emily.Gulla@hearst.co.uk
May 21, 2024 · A list of the best period drama films and TV series to watch in 2024, from Downton Abbey and Bridgerton to The Crown.
- Naomi May
- Acting News Editor
- Naomi.May@elleuk.com
Jan 1, 2022 · From a show about civil rights activist Mamie Mobley-Till to a spinoff of 'Vikings,' here are some historical TV shows and period dramas coming in 2022.
People also ask
What are the best period dramas and historical TV shows to watch in 2022?
Are there any historical dramas Coming out in 2022?
What are the best period drama movies & TV series in 2024?
Why are period dramas so popular?
Aug 9, 2024 · From the recent past to times of sumptuous costumed drama, the new historical dramas premiering in 2022 are your time machine to good stories. Biographical dramas are a favorite subject for period pieces, giving the audience a dramatized (sometimes very dramatized) view of historical events.
