20 best shows like Island (2011)

A year after the disappearance of their son, Gabe and Eve Caleigh and their two daughters attempt to start anew, they head to Crickley Hall - a seemingly perfect countryside house. But when cellar doors start to open on their own, phantom children's cries are heard through the night and a frenzied cane-wielding specter rears its head - the Caleigh's realize the house comes with a lot more than they bargained for. Just as they're ready to move out, Eve Caleigh hears Cam's cries and all bets are off.

Bleak House is a fifteen-part BBC television drama serial adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel Bleak House, which was originally published in 1852–53. Produced with an all-star cast, the serial was shown on BBC One from October to December 2005, and drew much critical and popular praise. It has been reported that the total cost of the production was in the region of £8 million.

The story of a group of inspirational women in a rural Cheshire community with the shadow of World War II casting a dark cloud over their lives. As the conflict takes hold and separates the women from their husbands, fathers, sons and brothers, the characters find themselves under increasing and extraordinary pressures in a rapidly fragmenting world. By banding together as the Great Paxford Women’s Institute, they help maintain the nation’s fabric in its darkest hour, and discover inner resources that will change their lives forever.

A noir thriller with diverse individuals whose worlds become interwoven after the murder of drug baron Harvey Wratten. From the cop with a bullet in his brain, whose amnesia leaves him doubtful of his own moral compass; to the drug-lord driven by a profound personal tragedy, risking it all on one last deal; to the brilliantly lethal puppet-master who gradually emerges from the shadows to bring the story to its shocking climax The Shadow Line explores the morality of these characters as they negotiate the repercussions of Wratten's death and attempt to navigate the fine line between right and wrong. As the thread around Wratten's operation begins to unravel, the web of intrigue becomes more complex and the question of which side of the line they stand on becomes increasingly blurred. An intelligent and gripping conspiracy thriller that delves to the heart of human morality, The Shadow Line will have audiences enthralled over six taut and thrilling episodes. Faced with similar dilemmas, on which side of the line would you stand?

'Black Work' is the story of Jo Gillespie, a woman who's husband is shot dead in the line of action, in his job as a undercover cop. Jo, a police officer herself soon has to confront issues in her marriage and family life in order to discover who really killed her husband.

Daniel Demoys has gone from being an idealistic young man with a burning desire to make the world a better place, to a disillusioned and corrupt council official. His alcoholism has driven a wedge between him and his family. When Daniel wakes up after another drunken night, he realizes that he might be responsible for a murder. A dramatic act of redemption buys him public adoration, so much so that he has become a candidate in the race for Mayor, but as his public star rises ever higher and he tries to repair the damage done to his private life, he is painfully aware that it could all come crashing down at any moment.

Three-part crime thriller. When detective Marcus Farrow looks into a seemingly forgotten case, he has no idea of the chaos and heartache that will soon follow. He is found at the scene of a murder, and with all the evidence pointing towards him, he is arrested and charged.

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

Witty, heartfelt and unique interlinked stories covering different aspects of LGBT life, featuring the most exciting emerging talent.

Marnie is not OK. She's had x-rated thoughts for the last 3672 days and she doesn't know why or what they mean. When she jumps on a coach to London, she doesn't know a soul, not even herself, but in the city she will build a new life.

When the decomposed body of Melissa Young is found by a couple in their new flat, Detective Len Harper is determined to discover what happened to her and why nobody noticed she was missing.

A woman haunted by her past, Detective Robin Griffin, investigates complex and unsettling cases.

The story of Tess Durbeyfield, a low-born country girl whose family find they have noble connections.

The worst thing Ben has ever done is, tonight, he takes his Dad's black cab out without his permission. But that's not why Ben ends the evening in a police cell. What looked to be a spontaneous evening of fun with a sexy stranger, Melanie, has culminated in a dead girl and Ben covered in her blood, holding the murder weapon. All the evidence points to Ben. There are no other leads. But he didn t do it. He can t remember all the events of the night, but he s sure he didn t. Ben is about to see what the criminal justice system does to someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time

Secret State explores the relationship between a democratically elected government, big business and the banks.

In Edwardian England, George and his partner Amy attempt to defy society and start a life together as they face the escalating terror of an alien invasion, fighting for their lives against an enemy beyond their comprehension.

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.

Exile is a British psychological thriller television series dealing with the topic of Alzheimer's disease against a background of corruption. It stars John Simm and Jim Broadbent and was broadcast on BBC One. The series received varyingly positive reviews.John Simm received a BAFTA nomination for his role as Tom Ronstadt, as did the director John Alexander.

Amy Dorrit spends her days earning money for the family and looking after her proud father who is a long term inmate of Marshalsea debtors' prison in London. Amy and her family's world is transformed when her employer's son, Arthur Clennam, returns from overseas to solve his family's mysterious legacy and discovers that their lives are interlinked.

A show of heroic deeds and epic battles with a thematic depth that embraces politics, religion, warfare, courage, love, loyalty and our universal search for identity. Combining real historical figures and events with fictional characters, it is the story of how a people combined their strength under one of the most iconic kings of history in order to reclaim their land for themselves and build a place they call home.

Following a raft of shootings in an English market town, the crimes are retold in a nonlinear narrative structure through the eyes of a journalist and the tragedies' victims.

The life of an orphan is changed by the providential intervention of a mysterious benefactor.

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?

Powerful historical drama series, based on the lives of real people, telling the story of young 19th-century apprentices taking their lives into their own hands for the first time.

The story of a bustling and glamorous five star hotel at the centre of London society and a world at war.

In Overton, a remote little village in the English countryside, the townsfolk have two interests which are farming and racehorses. Life there seems simple but the village teens resort to playing chicken over razor-sharp blades spinning atop farm silos and other dangerous games to kill their boredom.Then, quite suddenly, life in Overton becomes a lot less boring. Another, much more literal type of killing is revealed when someone finds the body of a local teen under the wheels of a tractor. Now a murder investigation will bring to light all those secrets this close-knit community has been hiding, and life in Overton will never be the same.

When a pizza delivery driver is shot dead in south London, a tenacious detective goes after the people traffickers behind his murder and unravels a conspiracy that goes to the top.

A drama about the shifting power in a marriage when the personal and political collide.

A middle-aged man recently ditched by his long-term girlfriend, ‘Karl’ lives with his elderly Auntie and his closest companion is his doppelgänger alter ego.

An explosive 1930s drama following a jazz band in London at a time of huge change.

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.

Frank Hathaway, a hardboiled private investigator, and his rookie sidekick Lu Shakespeare form the unlikeliest of partnerships as they investigate the secrets of rural Warwickshire's residents.

Silk is a British television drama series produced by the BBC and first shown in 2011. Written by Peter Moffat, the series follows a set of barristers, and what they do to attain the rank of Queen's Counsel, known as "taking silk."

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.

Two hundred years after the construction of the great cathedral, the medieval town of Kingsbridge is taken under siege by Queen Isabella. Caris, a visionary young woman, inspires her people to stand up for their rights and revolt against to the most powerful forces of her time, the Church and the Crown.

Nessa Stein, the daughter of a Zionist arms procurer who as a child witnessed his assassination. Now an adult, Nessa inherits her father's company and changes course from supplying arms to laying data cabling networks between Israel and the West Bank. Her efforts to reconcile the Israelis and Palestinians lands her an appointment to the House of Lords and creates an international political maelstrom.

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.

The story of a love triangle between a conservative English aristocrat, his mean socialite wife and a young suffragette in the midst of World War I and a Europe on the brink of profound change.

New Worlds is a gripping 4 part mini series dealing with love, loss and the human price paid for the freedoms and liberties we enjoy today. We follow the fortunes of four young people - Beth, Hope, Abe and Ned - from across both sides of the Atlantic, caught up in these turbulent times. We see them struggle as they are torn between love and ideals in the harsh reality of the changing world. In England, the restored monarchy of Charles II has betrayed its promises and reverted to tyranny. Behind the decadence of the Court, a terror machine is repressing the freedoms won for the people with so much blood during the Civil War of England when Charles I was executed. In America, the tentacles of state terror reach the English colonists of New England who are struggling to throw off the shackles of the English Crown. At the same time the colonists are ruthlessly staking their claim to the territories occupied by the Native American Indians, and shedding much of the American Indian's blood in the process - in a chilling echo of the tyrannical behaviour that they sought to escape from when they crossed the Atlantic

A two-part drama about the search in 2008 for missing Yorkshire schoolgirl Shannon Matthews.

Father Brown is based on G. K. Chesterton's detective stories about a Catholic priest who doubles as an amateur detective in order to try and solve mysteries.

Samantha Hunter suspects someone within the private intelligence agency she works at tried to kill her and she seeks to uncover the person behind it.

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.

A dark psychological crime drama starring Idris Elba as Luther, a man struggling with his own terrible demons, who might be as dangerous as the depraved murderers he hunts.

Karen Clarke was an ordinary girl thrown into an extraordinary world, as she first meets the glamorous Biba and her brother Rex in one long summer of love, but quickly becomes tangled up in their tragic family history with the romantic idyll turning into a nightmare – one that haunts her to the present day. She will go to extraordinary lengths to protect her family and the secrets that she keeps from them.

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

A coming-of-age story about an outsider who, against all odds and numerous challenges, fights for love and acceptance and for her place in the world. The series centers on a young orphaned girl in the late 1890’s, who, after an abusive childhood spent in orphanages and the homes of strangers, is mistakenly sent to live with an elderly woman and her aging brother. Over time, 13-year-old Anne will transform their lives and eventually the small town in which they live with her unique spirit, fierce intellect and brilliant imagination.

Two detectives are dispatched to investigate the murder of a young girl on the outskirts of Dublin, but as the case of the missing children intensifies, both are forced to confront the darkness that lies in their past.

In a world where everyone is striving for what is not worth having, no one is more determined to climb to the heights of English society than Becky Sharp.

When strange young misfit Kim Noakes was just a little girl, her father died in murky circumstances and her mother Tina whisked her away to a remote rural life of seclusion and bizarre survival techniques. Now all grown up, Kim sets out into the real world for the first time to begin a secret mission of honouring her father’s memory.