20 best shows like Richard III (1955)

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

An inexperienced U-boat crew has to survive a secret mission and a young German woman is torn between loyalty for her home country and the French resistance in the WWII drama.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

The Tudors is a history-based drama series following the young, vibrant King Henry VIII, a competitive and lustful monarch who navigates the intrigues of the English court and the human heart with equal vigor and justifiable suspicion.

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.

Five-part adaptation of Anne Frank's famous wartime diaries in which a young teenager and her family go into hiding from the Nazis in wartime Amsterdam.

The life of Napoleon Bonaparte.

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 story that revolves around five aristocratic families, set during the reign of Alexander I, and centered on the love triangle between Natasha Rostova, Pierre Bezukhov, and Andrei Bolkonsky.

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.

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

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.

The Hollow Crown is a series of British television films featuring William Shakespeare's History Plays. The first Season is an adaptation of Shakespeare's second historical tetralogy, the Henriad: Richard II, Henry IV, Part I and Henry IV, Part II (treated as one film in two parts in the series) and Henry V. The Second Season is subtitled "The Wars of the Roses" as a reference to its scope. It is based on Shakespeare's first tetralogy: Henry VI: Part I, Henry VI: Part II, Henry VI: Part III (treated as two films in the series) and Richard III.

Omar or Farouk Omar is a historical Arab television drama series that was produced and broadcast by MBC1 and directed by Hatem Ali. Co-produced by Qatar TV, the series is based on the life of Omar, one of the Prophet Mohammad's best companions and the second Caliph of Islam. The series had to face large controversy due to its depiction of Omar, Abu Bakr, Osman and Ali, the four Rashidun Caliphs, along with other characters, who some Muslims believe should not be depicted much like the Prophet Mohammad. The series consisted of 30 episodes and was originally aired in the month of Ramadan since July 20, 2012. It was made at a cost of 200 million Saudi Riyals and filmed in Morocco, mostly in Marakesh, Tangiers, El Jadida, Casablanca and Mohammedia. After the series was broadcast on MBC, dubbed into several languages and subtitled in English on youtube, it received great support from many different scholarly bodies and people watching it. As the series depended solely on reliable historical established facts, the series did not face criticism in terms of its content, as past movies and films faced.

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.

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.

Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II wages an epic campaign to take the Byzantine capital of Constantinople and shapes the course of history for centuries.

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.

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.

Our World War is a gripping factual drama series offering viewers first-hand experience of the extraordinary bravery of young soldiers fighting 100 years ago. Drawing on real stories of World War One soldiers it uses the visual techniques and imagery familiar from modern warfare – POV helmet camera footage, surveillance images and night vision – to immerse the BBC Three audience in life on the Western Front. Each episode is closely based on first-hand testimony, interviews and memoirs that reveal often hidden and sometimes disturbing aspects of the combat experience.

The growth of the great Seljuk Empire. An epic journey with love, secrets and struggle for the pursuit of order in the world and justice.

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.

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.

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 diverse, dedicated, rough-and-tumble squad of soldiers spearheads the Allied invasion of Italy during World War II.

Britain is in the grip of a chilling recession... falling wages, rising prices, civil unrest - only the bankers are smiling. It's 1783 and Ross Poldark returns from the American War of Independence to his beloved Cornwall to find his world in ruins: his father dead, the family mine long since closed, his house wrecked and his sweetheart pledged to marry his cousin. But Ross finds that hope and love can be found when you are least expecting it in the wild but beautiful Cornish landscape.