20 best shows like Bright Star (2009)

Jim Broadbent, Matthew Macfadyen and Sam Claflin take on the lead role of Logan Mountstuart in William Boyd's adaptation of his best-selling novel. From one man's emotional, tumultuous and unpredictable journey through the 20th century comes a funny, moving and ambitious four-part drama. Told through Logan's intimate journals, beginning with the idealism and arrogance of his youth, through the triumphs and tragedies of middle-age, to the unexpected dramas of his twilight years - his story reveals that all our lives are ultimately random, and defined by luck and seemingly inconsequential choices. Hayley Atwell, Natasha Little, Emerald Fennell, Ed Stoppard, Samuel West and Kim Cattrall star alongside Gillian Anderson and Tom Hollander as the lovers, wives, friends and infamous figures he encounters throughout his ordinary and yet utterly extraordinary life.

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.

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

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.

The spirited and impulsive Charlotte Heywood moves from her rural home to Sanditon, a fishing village attempting to reinvent itself as a seaside resort.

The social and class divisions in early 20th century England through the intersection of three families - the wealthy Wilcoxes, the gentle and idealistic Schlegels and the lower-middle class Basts.

The life of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Set in the small hamlet of Lark Rise and the wealthier neighbouring market town, Candleford, the series chronicles the daily lives of farm-workers, craftsmen and gentry at the end of the 19th Century. Lark Rise to Candleford is a love letter to a vanished corner of rural England and a heart-warming drama series teeming with wit, wisdom and romance.

Desperate to escape from his emotional baggage and the heavy responsibility he’s had all his life, a psychiatric ward worker begins to heal with help from the unexpected—a woman who writes fairy tales but doesn’t believe in them.

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.”

Adaptation of PD James's bestselling homage to Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth and Darcy, now six years married, are preparing for their annual ball when festivities are brought to an abrupt halt.

The story of a young Louis XIV on his journey to become the most powerful monarch in Europe, from his battles with the fronde through his development into the Sun King. Historical and fictional characters guide us in a world of betrayal and political maneuvering, revealing Versailles in all its glory and brutality.

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.

In 1935, financially strapped widow Louisa Durrell, whose life has fallen apart, decides to move from England, with her four children (three sons, one daughter), to the island of Corfu, Greece. Once there, the family moves into a dilapidated old house that has no electricity and that is crumbling apart. But life on Corfu is cheap, it's an earthly paradise, and the Durrells proceed to forge their new existence, with all its challenges, adventures, and forming relationships.

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.

The story of Claire Randall, a married combat nurse from 1945 who is mysteriously swept back in time to 1743, where she is immediately thrown into an unknown world where her life is threatened. When she is forced to marry Jamie, a chivalrous and romantic young Scottish warrior, a passionate affair is ignited that tears Claire's heart between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

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.

Jodha Akbar is an epic drama about a sixteenth century story of the political marriage of convenience between a Mughal emperor Abu'l-Fath Jalal ud-din Muhammad Akbar and a Rajput princess Jodha Bai. The show focuses on how their political marriage brings love between them to an extent that it changed the fate of India. This period drama also portrays the wars of that time along with the relations between the Mughals and the Rajputs. The drama also focuses on the functioning of the queens, the courts, courtesans, the ministers and their influence on the love story of Jalal ud-din Muhammad Akbar and Jodha Bai. The show also highlights on how Mughal emperor Jalal ud-din Muhammad acquires the title of Akbar from the people.

Rayna Jaymes and Juliette Barnes face personal and professional challenges as they navigate their paths as artists and individuals. Surrounding them, and often complicating their lives, are their family, friends and, in some cases, lovers, as well as the up-and-coming performers and songwriters trying to get ahead in the business. In Nashville, musicians and songwriters are at the heart of the storm driven by their own ambitions. Some are fueled by their creativity and passion for fame. Others struggle to cope with the pressures of success and are doing everything in their power to stay on top.

Longing for love, obsessed with sex, Linda is on the hunt for the perfect lover. But finding Mr Right is much harder than she thought.

The three-part series centres on the close and often fraught relationship between sisters Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf, and Vanessa’s sexually complicated alliance with gay artist Duncan Grant as they, and their group of like-minded friends, navigate their way through love, sex and artistic life through the first half of the 20th century.

Mary Ann returns to present-day San Francisco and is reunited with her daughter and ex-husband, twenty years after leaving them behind to pursue her career. Fleeing the midlife crisis that her picture-perfect Connecticut life created, Mary Ann is quickly drawn back into the orbit of Anna Madrigal, her chosen family and a new generation of queer young residents living at 28 Barbary Lane.

When England won the World Cup in July 1966 Bobby Moore became a national hero. Swept up by the media frenzy and the nation’s adoration, he and wife Tina were the original ‘golden’ couple.

Follow Sugar into the underbelly of Victorian London seething with vitality, sexuality, ambition and emotion.

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.

Set in 1996 in Lincolnshire, the show tells the tragic and humorous story of a very troubled young girl Rae, who has just left a psychiatric hospital, where she has spent four months after attempting suicide, begins to reconnect with her best friend Chloe and her group, who are unaware of Rae's mental health and body image problems, believing she was in France for the past four months.

Nothing delights Emma more than meddling in the love lives of others. But when she takes protege Harriet Smith under her wing, her plans can only end in disaster...

Set at the outbreak of WWII – mischievous playboy Ian Fleming is untroubled by the specter of impending war – chasing women, collecting rare books and living off his family fortune. Forever in the shadow of his brother Peter, and an eternal disappointment to his formidable mother Eve, Fleming dreams of becoming the ‘ultimate’ man – a hero, a lover, a brute and the one who always gets the girl. He is finally given some direction in his life when he’s recruited by the Director of Naval Intelligence to help in the effort against the Nazis. Suddenly, Fleming finds his chance to shine and prove his worth.

Valentine's Day, 1900. Three schoolgirls and their governess mysteriously disappear in Hanging Rock, Australia, without a trace.

Vice Adm. Horatio Nelson's remarkable naval career and troubled personal affairs are brought to life in this miniseries, which tells his famous story through the narratives of those who knew him best.

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.

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.

Dates is a British television romantic drama series created by Bryan Elsley, who also created Skins, which first aired on Channel 4 on 10 June 2013, at 22:00, as part of its "Mating Season" programming, illustrating a series of first dates between online dating service users. The show's target audience is "ABC1".

Off the grid and miles from civilization, Little Otter Family Camp has summer fun for everyone. Parents decompress over gin and tonics while their kids run wild, and teenage counselors fall in and out of love.Mackenzie Granger is the camp owner and director. Still reeling from her recent divorce, Mackenzie is ready for a fresh start. She is running things on her own for the first time and scrambling to keep the cash-strapped Little Otter from going under.

It's the late 19th century, and the mysterious Dracula has arrived in London, posing as an American entrepreneur who wants to bring modern science to Victorian society. He's especially interested in the new technology of electricity, which promises to brighten the night - useful for someone who avoids the sun. But he has another reason for his travels: he hopes to take revenge on those who cursed him with immortality centuries earlier. Everything seems to be going according to plan... until he becomes infatuated with a woman who appears to be a reincarnation of his dead wife.

The story of how Detective Superintendent Steve Fulcher deliberately breached police procedure and protocol to catch a killer, a decision that ultimately cost him his career and reputation.

Jack the Ripper is a 1988 two-part television film/miniseries portraying a fictionalized account of the hunt for Jack the Ripper, the unidentified serial killer responsible for the Whitechapel murders of 1888. The series coincided with the 100th anniversary of the murders.

Factual drama based on the notorious White House Farm murders, and the ensuing police investigation and court case.

The story of one of the most infamous cases in UK criminal history, that of serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Told through the prism of three men, the series explores the personal and professional consequences of coming into contact with a man like Nilsen.

Eduard, a husband and father who loses his family in a tragic accident, travels to parallel universes to seek a better fate for his beloved wife.

8 August 1963: Britain wakes up to news of the biggest robbery in the country’s history. A train has been hijacked and robbed, 35 miles from its arrival in central London. The country is stunned. Who could be behind it? How did they pull off such an audacious raid?

Based on a true story, the drama tells the tragic love story of Kim Woo Jin, a married stage drama writer, and Yun Shim Duk, Korea's first professional soprano, who meet while studying at Tokyo University in the 1920s. Yun Shim Duk's recording of "Death Song" became the first Korean pop song in 1926.

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?

The remarkable story of how murderer Charles Sobhraj was captured. As the chief suspect in unsolved murders of young Western travellers across India, Thailand and Nepal’s ‘Hippie Trail’ in 1975 and 1976, Sobhraj had repeatedly slipped from the grasp of authorities worldwide to become Interpol's most wanted man, with arrest warrants on three different continents.

A writer in a creative and marital crisis finds refuge and support in her three best friends. Based on the novels by Elisabet Benavent.

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.

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.

A love story in two films charts the very different challenges to happiness for Michael and Thomas in the aftermath of World War 2, and to Adam and Steve in the present day.

A group of friends from Boston who feel stuck in life experience an unexpected wake-up call after one of their friend dies unexpectedly.

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