Best historical TV shows of all time
Real eras and events brought vividly to the screen. Ranked by the Boxlist quality score, from TV shows with over 300 audience ratings.
See which ones match your taste- 1
House of the Dragon (2022)
The Targaryen dynasty is at the absolute apex of its power, with more than 15 dragons under their yoke. Most empires crumble from such heights. In the case of the Targaryens...
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Band of Brothers (2001)
Drawn from interviews with survivors of Easy Company, as well as their journals and letters, Band of Brothers chronicles the experiences of these men from paratrooper training in...
- 3
Chernobyl (2019)
The true story of one of the worst man-made catastrophes in history: the catastrophic nuclear accident at Chernobyl. A tale of the brave men and women who sacrificed to save...
- 4
The Crown (2016)
The gripping, decades-spanning inside story of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the Prime Ministers who shaped Britain's post-war destiny. The Crown tells the inside story of...
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Mad Men (2007)
Mad Men is set in the 1960s, initially at the fictional Sterling Cooper advertising agency on Madison Avenue in New York City, and later at the newly created firm, Sterling Cooper...
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The Queen's Gambit (2020)
In a Kentucky orphanage in the 1950s, a young girl discovers an astonishing talent for chess while struggling with addiction.
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1883 (2021)
Follow the Dutton family as they embark on a journey west through the Great Plains toward the last bastion of untamed America. A stark retelling of Western expansion, and an...
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1923 (2022)
Follow a new generation of the Dutton family during the early twentieth century when pandemics, historic drought, the end of Prohibition and the Great Depression all plague the...
- 9
Downton Abbey (2010)
A chronicle of the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants in the post-Edwardian era—with great events in history having an effect on their lives and on the...
- 10
Deadwood (2004)
The story of the early days of Deadwood, South Dakota; woven around actual historic events with most of the main characters based on real people. Deadwood starts as a gold mining...
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The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017)
It’s 1958 Manhattan and Miriam “Midge” Maisel has everything she’s ever wanted - the perfect husband, kids, and Upper West Side apartment. But when her life suddenly takes a turn...
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Lessons in Chemistry (2023)
In the 1950s, Elizabeth Zott's dream of being a scientist is challenged by a society that says women belong in the domestic sphere. She accepts a job on a TV cooking show and sets...
- 13
Vikings (2013)
The adventures of Ragnar Lothbrok, the greatest hero of his age. The series tells the sagas of Ragnar's band of Viking brothers and his family, as he rises to become King of the...
- 14
Boardwalk Empire (2010)
Atlantic City at the dawn of Prohibition is a place where the rules don't apply. And the man who runs things -- legally and otherwise -- is the town's treasurer, Enoch "Nucky"...
- 15
IT: Welcome to Derry (2025)
In 1962, amid a spate of unexplained disappearances of local children, a group of misfit friends begin to suspect a long-buried ancient evil lurking. As the kids set out to...
- 16
The Great (2020)
A genre-bending, anti-historical ride through 18th century Russia following the rise of Catherine the Nothing to Catherine the Great and her explosive relationship with husband...
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The Americans (2013)
Set during the Cold War period in the 1980s, The Americans is the story of Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, two Soviet KGB officers posing as an American married couple in the...
- 18
American Primeval (2025)
A mother and son fleeing from their past form a found family while confronting a harsh landscape of freedom and cruelty in the American West.
- 19
The Tudors (2007)
The Tudors is a history-based drama series following the young, vibrant King Henry VIII, a competitive and lustful monarch who navigates the intrigues of the English court and the...
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Black Sails (2014)
The pirate adventures of Captain Flint and his men twenty years prior to Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic “Treasure Island.” Flint, the most brilliant and most feared pirate...
- 21
Bridgerton (2020)
Wealth, lust, and betrayal set in the backdrop of Regency era England, seen through the eyes of the powerful Bridgerton family.
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MATARIFE (2020)
Matarife, an unmentionable genocide | The series has generated great controversy in Colombia because it exposes former president Alvaro Uribe Vélez in its plot like never before.
- 23
Merlin (2008)
The unlikely friendship between Merlin, a young man gifted with extraordinary magical powers, and Prince Arthur, heir to the crown of Camelot.
- 24
The Last Dance (2020)
A 10-part documentary chronicling the untold story of Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls dynasty with rare, never-before-seen footage and sound from the 1997-98 championship...