Best 35 Period Drama Series of All Time

Corsets and coal smoke, royal courts and Prohibition backrooms: decades of television that dressed up the past and made it gripping. A few are cosy Sunday-night comfort, others are bleak and bloody.

1. 1
   Downton Abbey

   ITV saga of the aristocratic Crawleys and their servants in a Yorkshire country house, 1912 to 1926.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Rome

   HBO and BBC epic about the fall of the Roman Republic seen through two soldiers.
   817pts
3. 3
   Pride and Prejudice (1995)

   BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's novel starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle.
   723pts
4. 4
   Gentleman Jack

   BBC and HBO drama about 1830s Yorkshire landowner and diarist Anne Lister.
   686pts
5. 5
   Peaky Blinders

   BBC crime drama following the Shelby gang in post-First World War Birmingham.
   686pts
6. 6
   Brideshead Revisited (1981)

   Granada's lavish adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel with Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews.
   663pts
7. 7
   Babylon Berlin

   German noir drama set in the decadent Weimar Berlin of 1929.
   645pts
8. 8
   Upstairs, Downstairs (1971)

   Landmark ITV drama about a London household and its servants from 1903 to 1930.
   645pts
9. 9
   Shogun (2024)

   FX's Emmy-record-setting adaptation of James Clavell's novel of feudal Japan.
   645pts
10. 10
    Bleak House (2005)

    BBC's twice-weekly Dickens adaptation with Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock.
    613pts
11. 11
    Victoria

    ITV drama about the early reign of Queen Victoria, starring Jenna Coleman.
    599pts
12. 12
    The Jewel in the Crown

    Granada's 1984 epic about the last years of the British Raj in India.
    548pts
13. 13
    War & Peace (2016)

    BBC adaptation of Tolstoy's novel with Lily James and Paul Dano.
    548pts
14. 14
    The Tudors

    Showtime drama about the reign of Henry VIII, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers.
    490pts
15. 15
    Poldark (2015)

    BBC remake of Winston Graham's Cornish saga starring Aidan Turner.
    490pts
16. 16
    The Crown

    Netflix drama charting the reign of Queen Elizabeth II across six decades.
    490pts
17. 17
    Parade's End

    BBC and HBO adaptation of Ford Madox Ford's novels with Benedict Cumberbatch.
    490pts
18. 18
    Boardwalk Empire

    HBO Prohibition-era drama about Atlantic City boss Nucky Thompson.
    425pts
19. 19
    Outlander

    Starz time-travel romance that sends a WWII nurse back to 18th-century Scotland.
    425pts
20. 20
    Anne with an E

    CBC and Netflix reimagining of Anne of Green Gables on Prince Edward Island.
    425pts
21. 21
    Mad Men

    AMC drama about ad man Don Draper and Madison Avenue in the 1960s.
    425pts
22. 22
    Bridgerton

    Shondaland's Regency-era romance series from Netflix, based on Julia Quinn's novels.
    425pts
23. 23
    Little Dorrit (2008)

    BBC adaptation of Dickens' novel about the Marshalsea debtors' prison, with Claire Foy.
    350pts
24. 24
    The Gilded Age

    Julian Fellowes' HBO drama about old and new money in 1880s New York.
    350pts
25. 25
    Cranford

    BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's stories of a genteel Cheshire village, led by Judi Dench.
    264pts
26. 26
    The Knick

    Steven Soderbergh's Cinemax drama about a New York hospital in 1900.
    264pts
27. 27
    Middlemarch (1994)

    BBC adaptation of George Eliot's novel of provincial life in the 1830s.
    264pts
28. 28
    Call the Midwife

    BBC drama about midwives and nuns working in London's East End from the 1950s.
    264pts
29. 29
    Mr Selfridge

    ITV drama about Harry Gordon Selfridge and his Oxford Street department store.
    264pts
30. 30
    Deadwood

    HBO western set in the lawless 1870s mining camp of Deadwood, South Dakota.
    163pts
31. 31
    I, Claudius

    Classic 1976 BBC drama of imperial Rome with Derek Jacobi as Claudius.
    163pts
32. 32
    North & South (2004)

    BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's industrial-era romance with Richard Armitage.
    163pts
33. 33
    Lark Rise to Candleford

    BBC drama about a hamlet and a market town in 1890s Oxfordshire.
    0pts
34. 34
    Wolf Hall

    BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel's novels with Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell.
    0pts
35. 35
    Jane Eyre (2006)

    BBC adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's novel with Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens.
    0pts

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