# 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.

*By YPB Team · Published October 31, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/best-35-period-drama-series-of-all-time*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Downton Abbey** — score 1000/1000
   ITV saga of the aristocratic Crawleys and their servants in a Yorkshire country house, 1912 to 1926.
2. **Rome** — score 817/1000
   HBO and BBC epic about the fall of the Roman Republic seen through two soldiers.
3. **Pride and Prejudice (1995)** — score 723/1000
   BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's novel starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle.
4. **Gentleman Jack** — score 686/1000
   BBC and HBO drama about 1830s Yorkshire landowner and diarist Anne Lister.
5. **Peaky Blinders** — score 686/1000
   BBC crime drama following the Shelby gang in post-First World War Birmingham.
6. **Brideshead Revisited (1981)** — score 663/1000
   Granada's lavish adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel with Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews.
7. **Babylon Berlin** — score 645/1000
   German noir drama set in the decadent Weimar Berlin of 1929.
8. **Upstairs, Downstairs (1971)** — score 645/1000
   Landmark ITV drama about a London household and its servants from 1903 to 1930.
9. **Shogun (2024)** — score 645/1000
   FX's Emmy-record-setting adaptation of James Clavell's novel of feudal Japan.
10. **Bleak House (2005)** — score 613/1000
   BBC's twice-weekly Dickens adaptation with Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock.
11. **Victoria** — score 599/1000
   ITV drama about the early reign of Queen Victoria, starring Jenna Coleman.
12. **The Jewel in the Crown** — score 548/1000
   Granada's 1984 epic about the last years of the British Raj in India.
13. **War & Peace (2016)** — score 548/1000
   BBC adaptation of Tolstoy's novel with Lily James and Paul Dano.
14. **The Tudors** — score 490/1000
   Showtime drama about the reign of Henry VIII, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers.
15. **Poldark (2015)** — score 490/1000
   BBC remake of Winston Graham's Cornish saga starring Aidan Turner.
16. **The Crown** — score 490/1000
   Netflix drama charting the reign of Queen Elizabeth II across six decades.
17. **Parade's End** — score 490/1000
   BBC and HBO adaptation of Ford Madox Ford's novels with Benedict Cumberbatch.
18. **Boardwalk Empire** — score 425/1000
   HBO Prohibition-era drama about Atlantic City boss Nucky Thompson.
19. **Outlander** — score 425/1000
   Starz time-travel romance that sends a WWII nurse back to 18th-century Scotland.
20. **Anne with an E** — score 425/1000
   CBC and Netflix reimagining of Anne of Green Gables on Prince Edward Island.
21. **Mad Men** — score 425/1000
   AMC drama about ad man Don Draper and Madison Avenue in the 1960s.
22. **Bridgerton** — score 425/1000
   Shondaland's Regency-era romance series from Netflix, based on Julia Quinn's novels.
23. **Little Dorrit (2008)** — score 350/1000
   BBC adaptation of Dickens' novel about the Marshalsea debtors' prison, with Claire Foy.
24. **The Gilded Age** — score 350/1000
   Julian Fellowes' HBO drama about old and new money in 1880s New York.
25. **Cranford** — score 264/1000
   BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's stories of a genteel Cheshire village, led by Judi Dench.
26. **The Knick** — score 264/1000
   Steven Soderbergh's Cinemax drama about a New York hospital in 1900.
27. **Middlemarch (1994)** — score 264/1000
   BBC adaptation of George Eliot's novel of provincial life in the 1830s.
28. **Call the Midwife** — score 264/1000
   BBC drama about midwives and nuns working in London's East End from the 1950s.
29. **Mr Selfridge** — score 264/1000
   ITV drama about Harry Gordon Selfridge and his Oxford Street department store.
30. **Deadwood** — score 163/1000
   HBO western set in the lawless 1870s mining camp of Deadwood, South Dakota.
31. **I, Claudius** — score 163/1000
   Classic 1976 BBC drama of imperial Rome with Derek Jacobi as Claudius.
32. **North & South (2004)** — score 163/1000
   BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's industrial-era romance with Richard Armitage.
33. **Lark Rise to Candleford** — score 0/1000
   BBC drama about a hamlet and a market town in 1890s Oxfordshire.
34. **Wolf Hall** — score 0/1000
   BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel's novels with Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell.
35. **Jane Eyre (2006)** — score 0/1000
   BBC adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's novel with Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens.

Tags: tv shows, historical, british, all time, period drama