20 best shows like Kon-Tiki (2012)

The Odyssey is a 1997 American fantasy–adventure television miniseries and Emmy Award-winning and Golden Globe-nominated. Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, the miniseries aired in two-parts beginning on May 18, 1997 on NBC. The series later won the award for "Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries or a Special". The series is based on the ancient Greek epic poem, The Odyssey, which is usually attributed to Homer. It was filmed in Malta and Turkey, as well as many other places around the Mediterranean, where the story takes place, plus parts of England. The international all-star cast includes Armand Assante, Greta Scacchi, Irene Pappas, Isabella Rossellini, Bernadette Peters, Christopher Lee, and Vanessa L. Williams.

Sinbad accidentally kills the son of the powerful Lord Akbari in a fist fight. As recompense for the blood debt, Sinbad's brother is killed in front of his eyes. Sinbad escapes, but his grandmother uses a magic talisman to curse him for the death of his brother. The curse prevents Sinbad from staying on land for more than one day; if he tarries the talisman will choke him to death. This prohibition against remaining on land leads to a life of adventure at sea that holds many wonders. Sinbad is unaware that he is still being hunted by Lord Akbari, who does not consider Sinbad's brother's death as sufficient payment of the blood debt.

The true story of Ernest Shackleton's 1914 Endurance expedition to the the South Pole and his epic struggle to lead his crew to safety after his ship was crushed in the pack ice.

Terra Nova follows an ordinary family on an incredible journey back in time to prehistoric Earth as a small part of a daring experiment to save the human race. In the year 2149, the world is dying. The planet is overdeveloped and overcrowded, with the majority of plant and animal life extinct. The future of mankind is in jeopardy, and its only hope for survival is in the distant past.

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.

A English navigator becomes both a player and pawn in the complex political games in feudal Japan.

The life of Napoleon Bonaparte.

When Germany and Prussia declare war on Denmark, two brothers are called to serve in the bloodiest battle in Denmark's history.

Seven noble families fight for control of the mythical land of Westeros. Friction between the houses leads to full-scale war. All while a very ancient evil awakens in the farthest north. Amidst the war, a neglected military order of misfits, the Night's Watch, is all that stands between the realms of men and icy horrors beyond.

Icelandic crime drama featuring Chief of Police Andri.

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.

The sole survivor of a lost whaling ship relates the tale of his captain's self-destructive obsession to hunt the white whale, Moby Dick. This is a TV series starring William Hurt, Ethan Hawke, and Charlie Cox.

The incredible, true story of the Norwegian Crown Princess Märtha’s efforts to support her country during World War II. After a headlong flight from the Nazis, she was forced to part from her husband and cross the Atlantic Ocean to seek refuge in the United States. There, she soon found herself involved in a close relationship with the President of the United States: Franklin D. Roosevelt.

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.

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.

A shipping magnate hires four experts from various fields to investigate what happened to his ships that went missing in the Bermuda Triangle. The team discovers a threat that might unravel time itself and cause the world to end.

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.

Set in 17th century Paris, musketeers Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan are members of an elite band of soldiers who fight for what is just. They are heroes in the truest and most abiding sense – men that can be trusted and believed in to do the right thing, regardless of personal risk.

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.”

Spartacus is an American television series inspired by the historical figure of Spartacus, a Thracian gladiator who from 73 to 71 BCE led a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic departing from Capua.

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.

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.”

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?

It's 1715 on the Bahamian island of New Providence, the first functioning democracy in the Americas, where the diabolical pirate Edward Teach, a.k.a. Blackbeard, reigns over a rogue nation of thieves, outlaws and miscreant sailors. Part shantytown, part marauder's paradise, this is a place like no other on earth - and a mounting threat to international commerce. To gain control of this fearsome society, Tom Lowe, a highly skilled undercover assassin, is sent to the buccaneers' haven to take down the brilliant and charismatic Blackbeard. But the closer Lowe gets, the more he finds that his quest is not so simple. Lowe can't help but admire the political ideals of Blackbeard, whose thirst for knowledge knows no bounds - and no law. But Lowe is not the only danger to Blackbeard's rule. He is a man with many villainous rivals and one great weakness - a passionately driven woman whom he cannot deny.

In the 1960s, Israeli clerk-turned-secret agent Eli Cohen goes deep undercover inside Syria on a perilous, years-long mission to spy for Mossad.

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.

Vikings follows the adventures of Ragnar Lothbrok, the greatest hero of his age. The series tells the sagas of Ragnar's band of Viking brothers and his family, as he rises to become King of the Viking tribes. As well as being a fearless warrior, Ragnar embodies the Norse traditions of devotion to the gods. Legend has it that he was a direct descendant of Odin, the god of war and warriors.

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.

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.

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.

Spartacus is an American television series inspired by the historical figure of Spartacus, a Thracian gladiator who from 73 to 71 BCE led a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic departing from Capua.

The story of Romulus and his twin brother Remus, in eighth century B.C. as seen through the eyes of three people marked by death, loneliness and violence.

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.

London, 1605. Robert Catesby, a 33-year old Warwickshire gentleman, devises a plot to blow up Parliament and kill the King.

After crash-landing on an alien planet, the Robinson family fights against all odds to survive and escape. But they're surrounded by hidden dangers.

Acclaimed blackly comic historical drama series. Set amidst a web of power, corruption and lies, it chronicles the reigns of the Roman emperors - Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula and finally Claudius.

House of Anubis is a jointly Nickelodeon British, American, and Belgian mystery television series based on the Dutch-Belgian television series Het Huis Anubis aired in the Netherlands and Belgium. The series was created by Hans Bourlon and Gert Verhulst and premiered on Nickelodeon on New Year's Day 2011 in the United States and on 25 February 2011 in the United Kingdom. The series is the first Nickelodeon series to be filmed overseas, the first soap opera created by Nickelodeon and the channel's first soap opera aimed at children and teenagers. As of 25 February, the program will be broadcast on TeenNick. The show has since concluded its third season and as of 28 September 2013 Nickelodeon has not announced a fourth season.

April 1958. Maria Krapivina, a graduate of the law faculty of Leningrad University, Department of criminal procedure and criminalistics, is assigned to the UGRO of the Central district police Department. Just a girl, an excellent student, the daughter of intelligent parents falls into a team consisting of rough and experienced operatives who have passed the war. On the first day, Masha wants to quit. But she gets her hands on information about a traitor in the Department associated with a large and audacious gang. Masha decides that it is her duty to stay and uncover the "mole". And also to prove that it is worth something. Everyone falls under suspicion, including the head of the Opera Department of the Swedes ,the "uncouth lout", with whom Masha unexpectedly falls in love, and every day more and more..

During a snowy Christmas season in Sweden, psychologist and profiler Inger Johanne Vik finds not only herself but also her autistic daughter drawn into the investigation of a number of disturbing deaths, through which she meets detective Ingvar Nyman of “Rikskrim,” a Swedish national police force.

The early 17th Century story of three courageous, dynamic women who leave their dark pasts behind in England, and make the journey of a lifetime across the ocean for a new life in America.

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.

Driven by revenge, human-turned-vampire Mia sets out to vanquish Dmitry, a ruthless vampire leader who seeks an artifact that grants immortality.

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

A fantasy drama set in a world of legendary heroes and mythical creatures. Far from home and desperate for answers, Jason washes up on the shores of an ancient land. A mysterious place; a world of bull leaping, of snake haired goddesses and of palaces so vast it was said they were built by giants - this is the city of Atlantis. Aided by his two new friends, Pythagoras and Hercules, Jason embarks on a voyage of discovery, and salvation, which sees him brush shoulders with Medusa, come face to face with the Minotaur and even do battle with the dead.

When heroes alone are not enough ... the world needs legends. Having seen the future, one he will desperately try to prevent from happening, time-traveling rogue Rip Hunter is tasked with assembling a disparate group of both heroes and villains to confront an unstoppable threat — one in which not only is the planet at stake, but all of time itself. Can this ragtag team defeat an immortal threat unlike anything they have ever known?

The story of the Egyptian Pharaoh, one of the most renowned leaders in human history. This ambitious special-event series tells the story of Tut’s rise to power and his struggle to lead Egypt to glory, while his closest advisers, friends and lovers scheme for their own nefarious interests. “Tut” opens up a fascinating window into a world filled with heart-breaking romance, epic battles, political backstabbing, conspiracy, jealousy, and even murder — proving his world was not far removed from our own — and that his reign as the youngest Egyptian king played out as a real-life drama for the ages.

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

Siberia is an American mockumentary series about a reality television show where 16 contestants must survive in the Siberian territory of Tunguska. The show was filmed in Birds Hill Provincial Park just north of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It premiered on NBC on July 1, 2013. The first season was met with generally favorable reviews from critics and viewers, with average viewership per episode coming in around 2.03 million viewers. Metacritic scored the show with a 63 out of 100. The series concluded its first season on September 16, 2013.

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.