Similar TV Series

20 best shows like 12 Years a Slave (2013)

List of the best shows and series like 12 Years a Slave (2013): The Long Road Home, Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker, Les Misérables, The Lizzie Borden Chronicles, The Underground Railroad, Catherine the Great, The Pacific, Madoff, Show Me a Hero, Leonardo.

Markimdb: 7.4
Genreaction, drama, military, biography, history
CountryUSA
Duration02:39

Relive a heroic fight for survival during the Iraq War, when the 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood was ferociously ambushed on April 4, 2004, in Sadr City, Baghdad — a day that came to be known in military annals as “Black Sunday.”

Markimdb: 7.3
Genredrama, biography, history
CountryUSA

This limited series chronicles the incredible true story of Madam C.J. Walker, who was the first African American self-made millionaire.

Markimdb: 7.8
Genremelodrama, drama, history
CountryUnited Kingdom, USA
Duration00:59

France, 1815. Jean Valjean, a common thief, is released from prison after having lived a hell in life for 19 years, but a small mistake puts the law again on his trail. Ruthless Inspector Javert pursues him thorough years, driven by a twisted sense of justice, while Valjean reforms himself, thrives and dedicates his life to good deeds. In 1832, while the revolution ravages the streets of Paris, Valjean and Javert cross their paths for the last time.

Markimdb: 6.9
Genrehorror, thriller, drama, crime, detective, biography
CountryUSA
Duration01:07

An intense and fictionalized account of actual events and people surrounding Lizzie’s life after her controversial acquittal of the horrific double murder of her father and stepmother in 1892.

Markimdb: 7.3
Genredrama, military, history
CountryUSA

Follow young Cora’s journey as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. After escaping her Georgia plantation for the rumored Underground Railroad, Cora discovers no mere metaphor, but an actual railroad full of engineers and conductors, and a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil.

Markimdb: 6.2
Genremelodrama, drama, biography, history
CountryUnited Kingdom
Duration00:49

This four-part historical drama follows the end of Catherine the Great's reign and her affair with Russian military leader Grigory Potemkin that helped shape the future of Russian politics.

Markimdb: 8.3
Genreaction, drama, adventure, military, history
CountryUSA, Australia
Duration09:00

Track the intertwined real-life stories of three U.S. Marines – Robert Leckie, John Basilone, and Eugene Sledge – across the vast canvas of the Pacific Theater during World War II. A companion piece to the 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers.

Markimdb: 7.4
Genredrama, crime, biography, history
CountryUSA

The rise and fall of Bernie Madoff, who's Ponzi scheme bilked $65 billion from unsuspecting victims.

Markimdb: 8
Genredrama, history
CountryUSA
Duration01:40

Mayor Nick Wasicsko took office in 1987 during Yonkers' worst crisis when federal courts ordered public housing to be built in the white, middle class side of town, dividing the city in a bitter battle fueled by fear, racism, murder and politics.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genredrama, biography, history
CountryItaly, USA, United Kingdom, France, Spain

A fresh look at the life and legacy of the iconic artist Leonardo da Vinci, positing that he was a gay outsider who used his work as a way of hiding his true self. Each episode will examine one of da Vinci’s artworks for hidden clues about a tortured artist struggling for perfection.

Markimdb: 8.7
Genredrama, biography, history
CountryUnited Kingdom
Duration02:35

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 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.

Markimdb: 8.3
Genredrama, biography, history
CountryUSA
Duration01:56

Anthology series about famous geniuses with the first season charting how Albert Einstein unlocked the mysteries of the atom and the universe, and the second exploring the passionate nature and relentless creative drive of Pablo Picasso.

Markimdb: 8
Genrefantasy, melodrama, drama, adventure, detective, biography, history
CountryUSA
Duration00:59

The series follows the "untold" story of Leonardo Da Vinci: the genius during his early years in Renaissance Florence. As a 25-year old artist, inventor, swordsman, lover, dreamer and idealist, he struggles to live within the confines of his own reality and time as he begins to not only see the future, but invent it.

Markimdb: 7.9
Genredrama, crime, biography
CountryUSA
Duration00:53

A seasonal anthology series that tells startling, stranger-than-fiction true crime stories with the first season following Gypsy Blanchard, a girl trying to escape the toxic relationship she has with her overprotective mother.

Markimdb: 8.2
Genredrama, crime, biography, history
CountryCanada, USA
Duration00:33

This drama series is a fictionalized retelling of the story of meth dealer-turned-ATF informant Charles Falco, who spent three years inside one of America's most dangerous motorcycle gangs, the Vagos. Although Falco originally took on the assignment to avoid spending 20 years in prison on drug charges, it eventually evolved into a quest for justice for him. “Gangland Undercover” documents the lives of outlaw bikers, who live in a world in which respect is earned through fear. The series is based on Falco's memoir, “Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws,” and documented historical research of gang rivalries.

Markimdb: 7.8
Genredrama, military, history
CountryCanada
Duration01:24

Kidnapped in Africa and subsequently enslaved in South Carolina, Aminata must navigate a revolution in New York, isolation in Nova Scotia and treacherous jungles of Sierra Leone, in an attempt to secure her freedom in the 19th century.

Markimdb: 7
Genredrama, biography, history
CountryUnited Kingdom, Italy

The extraordinary rise of Livia Drusilla, who overcame adversity to become the most powerful woman in the world. Follow Livia’s journey from a naïve young girl whose world crumbles in the wake of Julius Caesar’s assassination, to Rome’s most powerful and influential Empress.

Markimdb: 7.7
Genrecomedy, drama, crime, biography, history
CountryUnited Kingdom
Duration02:16

It's the late 1960s, homosexuality has only just been legalised and Jeremy Thorpe, the leader of the Liberal party, has a secret he's desperate to hide.

Markimdb: 7.9
Genrehorror, thriller, fantasy, drama, history
CountryUSA
Duration02:37

The crew of a Royal Naval expedition searching for the Arctic's treacherous Northwest Passage discovers instead a monstrous predator.

Markimdb: 8.1
Genredrama, biography, history
CountryUnited Kingdom
Duration01:00

Following the fact-based historical book of the same name, this drama follows the rise of Cromwell as he becomes Henry the VIII's closest advisor. England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the King dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The Pope and most of Europe oppose him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer, and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?

Markimdb: 8.2
Genrecomedy, melodrama, biography, history
CountryUnited Kingdom, USA
Duration00:56

Halifax, West Yorkshire, England, 1832. Anne Lister attempts to revitalize her inherited home, Shibden Hall. Most notably for the time period, a part of her plan is to help the fate of her own family - by taking a wife.

Markimdb: 7.3
Genrehorror, thriller, drama
CountryUSA

A limited anthology series that explores terror in America.

Markimdb: 7.3
Genredrama, military, history
CountryCanada, USA
Duration03:00

Justice Robert H. Jackson leads Allied prosecutors in trying 21 Germans for Nazi war crimes after World War II.

Markimdb: 7.5
Genredrama, military, biography, history
CountryUnited Kingdom, USA

The intimate world of Saddam Hussein and his closest inner circle is in this gripping four-part drama that charts the rise and fall of one of the most significant political figures in recent history.

Markimdb: 8
Genredrama, military, biography
CountryCzech Republic, USA

Anne Frank: The Whole Story is a two-part mini-series based on the book Anne Frank: The Biography by Melissa Müller. The mini-series aired on ABC on May 20 and 21, 2001. The series starred Ben Kingsley, Brenda Blethyn, Hannah Taylor-Gordon, and Lili Taylor. Controversially, but in keeping with the claim made by Melissa Müller, the series asserts that the anonymous betrayer of the Frank family was the office cleaner, when in fact the betrayer's identity has never been established. A disagreement between the producers of the mini-series and the Anne Frank Foundation about validity of this and other details led to the withdrawal of their endorsement of the dramatization, which prevented the use of any quotations from the writings of Anne Frank appearing within the production. Hannah Taylor-Gordon received both Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominations for her performance as Anne Frank, while Ben Kingsley won a Screen Actor's Guild Award for his performance as Otto Frank, Anne's father.

Markimdb: 8.9
Genredrama, crime
CountryUSA
Duration02:43

Five teens from Harlem become trapped in a nightmare when they're falsely accused of a brutal attack in Central Park.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryUnited Kingdom, Canada, USA
Duration01:01

The story of Jim Worth, an expat British police officer starting a new life with his family as police chief in Little Big Bear, an idyllic town near the Rocky Mountains. When his small town is overrun by migrant workers from a massive new oil refinery – the wave of drugs, prostitution and organised crime that follows them threatens to sweep away everything in its wake.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genredrama
CountryUnited Kingdom, USA
Duration00:30

Set against the backdrop of the American Civil War, the story follows sisters Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy March on their journey from childhood to adulthood. With the help of their mother, Marmee, and while their father is away at war, the girls navigate what it means to be a young woman: from sibling rivalry and first love, to loss and marriage.

Markimdb: 6.8
Genremelodrama, drama, military, history
CountryUnited Kingdom, USA
Duration01:55

The beautiful Spanish princess, Catherine of Aragon, navigates the royal lineage of England with an eye on the throne.

Markimdb: 7.5
Genredrama, crime, biography
CountryUnited Kingdom, USA
Duration02:20

The trials and triumphs of one of America’s wealthiest and unhappiest families, the Gettys. Told over multiple seasons and spanning the twentieth century, the series begins in 1973 with the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III, an heir to the Getty oil fortune, by the Italian mafia in Rome.

Markimdb: 7.1
Genredrama, biography
CountryRussia
Duration02:26

The life pages of a man who changed the world but paid back everything he had. Leon Trotsky is being interviewed in Mexico city of the year 1940 by Canadian journalist Frank Jackson. During eight days they have eight interview sessions revealing the true face of Comrade Trotsky.

Markimdb: 7
Genrethriller, drama, crime, biography
CountryUSA

In the late 1960s, a Los Angeles police sergeant with a complicated personal life starts tracking a small-time criminal and budding cult leader seeking out vulnerable women to join his “cause.” The name of that man is Charles Manson.

Markimdb: 7.3
Genremelodrama, drama, adventure, military, biography, history
CountryFrance, Germany, Italy, Canada, USA, United Kingdom, Hungary, Spain, Czech Republic
Duration05:57

The life of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Markimdb: 7.4
Genredrama, history
CountryUnited Kingdom
Duration02:43

At its heart, Banished is a story of survival. Though it is set in the stark historical reality of the founding of the penal colony in Australia in 1788 after the arrival of the First Fleet, it is not the story of Australia and how it came to be. Rather, it is a tale of love, faith, justice and morality played out on an epic scale in a confined community where the stakes are literally life and death.

Markimdb: 8
Genrefantastic, action, fantasy, comedy, drama, adventure
CountryUSA, Canada

A dysfunctional family of superheroes comes together to solve the mystery of their father's death, the threat of the apocalypse and more.

Markimdb: 7.5
Genrecomedy, drama, biography
CountryUSA

Emily Dickinson. Poet. Daughter. Total rebel. In this coming-of-age story, Emily’s determined to become the world’s greatest poet.

Markimdb: 8.2
Genrecomedy, biography, history
CountryUnited Kingdom, USA

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 Peter, the emperor of Russia.

Markimdb: 7.7
Genrethriller, drama, detective, military, history
CountryRussia

Russia, 1959. A KGB major investigates the mysterious deaths of a group of nine student hikers in the Ural Mountains. Troubled by his past as a WWII veteran, he has a sixth sense and death seems to follow him around as he digs deeper into the mysterious incident. The more he learns, the more it becomes clear: the reason the students died will never see the light of day.

Markimdb: 7.9
Genremelodrama, drama, biography, history
CountryUnited Kingdom, USA
Duration03:43

Elizabeth I is a two-part 2005 British historical drama television miniseries directed by Tom Hooper, written by Nigel Williams, and starring Helen Mirren as Elizabeth I of England. The miniseries covers approximately the last 24 years of her nearly 45-year reign. Part 1 focuses on the final years of her relationship with the Earl of Leicester, played by Jeremy Irons. Part 2 focuses on her subsequent relationship with the Earl of Essex, played by Hugh Dancy. The series originally was broadcast in the United Kingdom in two two-hour segments on Channel 4. It later aired on HBO in the United States, CBC and TMN in Canada, ATV in Hong Kong, ABC in Australia, and TVNZ Television One in New Zealand. The series went on to win Emmy, Peabody, and Golden Globe Awards. The same year, Helen Mirren starred as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen, with which she dominated the award season.

Markimdb: 7.9
Genrethriller, drama, crime, history
CountryUSA
Duration01:36

The harrowing true story of the 1993 standoff between the FBI, ATF and the Branch Davidians, a spiritual sect led by David Koresh in Waco, TX that resulted in a deadly shootout and fire.

Markimdb: 8.9
Genredrama, western
CountryUSA
Duration01:50

Follow the violent world of the Dutton family, who controls the largest contiguous ranch in the United States. Led by their patriarch John Dutton, the family defends their property against constant attack by land developers, an Indian reservation, and America’s first National Park.

Markimdb: 8.5
Genredrama, military
CountryUSA, United Kingdom
Duration07:00

The first 40 days of the war in Iraq as seen through the eyes of an elite group of U.S. Marines who spearheaded the invasion along with an embedded Rolling Stone reporter. A vivid account of the soldiers and of the forces that guided them in an often-improvised initiative.

Markimdb: 8
Genredrama, western, biography, history
CountryUSA
Duration04:50

It’s the true American story of a legendary family feud—one that spanned decades and nearly launched a war between Kentucky and West Virginia. The Hatfield-McCoy saga begins with Devil Anse Hatfield and Randall McCoy.. Close friends and comrades until near the end of the Civil War, they return to their neighboring homes—Hatfield in West Virginia, McCoy just across the Tug River border in Kentucky—to increasing tensions, misunderstandings and resentments that soon explode into all-out warfare between their families. As hostilities grow, friends, neighbors and outside forces join the fight, bringing the two states to the brink of another civil war.

Markimdb: 7.8
Genredrama, biography, history
CountryUSA

The true story of the movement to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, and the unexpected backlash led by a conservative woman named Phyllis Schlafly, aka “the sweetheart of the silent majority.”

Markimdb: 8.5
Genrethriller, drama, crime, biography, history
CountryColombia

Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal is a 2012 Colombian television series produced and broadcast on Caracol TV, about the life of Pablo Escobar. It is only available in Spanish. There is a version available with English subtitles.

Markimdb: 8.5
Genremelodrama, drama, biography, history
CountrySouth Korea

The story of the woman that would become Empress Ki, and her struggles as she worked her way through war, political conspiracies, and the imperial palace to become Empress of China. This Korean Drama re-imagines the historical figure as a fierce, independent woman who goes to extreme lengths to protect those she loves.

Markimdb: 7.8
Genrecomedy, melodrama, drama, biography, history
CountryUnited Kingdom
Duration02:54

Casanova is a 2005 British television comedy drama serial, written by television scriptwriter Russell T Davies and directed by Sheree Folkson. Produced by Red Production Company for BBC Wales in association with Granada Television, the 3-episode series was first screened on digital television station BBC Three from 13 March, with a repeat on mainstream analogue network BBC One commencing 4 April.

Markimdb: 7.6
Genredrama, history, sport
CountryUnited Kingdom

Two 19th-century footballers on opposite sides of a class divide navigate professional and personal turmoil to change the game — and England — forever.




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