20 best shows like Roots (1977)

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.

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.”

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 down-to-earth account of the lives of both illustrious and ordinary Romans set in the last days of the Roman Republic.

Dateline: November 1967. Within klicks of Danang, Vietnam, sits a U.S. Army base, bar and hospital on China Beach filled with wounded soldiers and one very lovely but damaged Army Nurse Colleen McMurphy. Many heroes, dead and alive, try to make sense of life and death in between bourbon, bullets and battles.

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

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.

Dynamic reenactments and expert commentaries bring to life the tumultuous history and power struggles of a warring 16th-century feudal Japan.

Berlin, Germany, 1935. The day Karl Weiss, a Jewish painter, and Inga Helms, a Christian woman, marry, is the one in which both of them and the entire Weiss family are caught up in the maelstrom of the Nazi regime, the storms of World War II and the horrors of the criminal Final Solution, the Holocaust, the Shoah; while Erik Dorf, an ambitious lawyer, undertakes his fall into hell at the hands of the sinister Reinhard Heydrich.

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.

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.

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

The life of Napoleon Bonaparte.

It is late spring of 1942, and the Great Patriotic War is in full swing. A long way off from the front-line, at some God-forgotten junction, the Germans make an air landing operation in an attempt to get through to the Kirov railway and the White Sea - the Baltic Sea Canal. These aren't just ordinary paratroopers. This is a team of seasoned and highly trained infiltrators, the elite of the Waffen-SS, superhumans. The only thing in their way is an anti-aircraft artillery unit of corporal Vaskov and five young women in training. It may seem like a fight of local significance, but the countrys main strategic transportation artery is at stake. Can the corporal and his 'petite newbies' prevent Nazi sabotage and at what cost?

The dynamic story of Lt. Sodhi and his daredevil band of men and women who fought a heroic battle for the independence of India as part of the Indian National Army which was forged out of British defeat in Singapore during WWII and led by the charismatic, indomitable Indian leader Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

The story of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, a Castilian nobleman and war hero in medieval Spain.

Drama series set in the mid-sixties, in which a unit of Royal Military Police officers and their families deal with the challenges of politics, love and war in British-controlled Aden.

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

Scarlett is a 1994 six hour miniseries loosely based on the sequel to Margaret Mitchell's novel, Gone with the Wind, written by Alexandra Ripley. The series was filmed at 53 locations in the United States and abroad, and stars Joanne Whalley as Scarlett O'Hara, Timothy Dalton as Rhett Butler, and Sean Bean as Lord Richard Fenton as well as many other notable British and American actors.

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

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.

American Dreams is an American television drama program broadcast on the NBC television network, produced by Once A Frog and Dick Clark Productions in association with Universal Network Television and NBC Studios. The series was created by Jonathan Prince and developed by Josh Goldstein and Prince; the latter was also one of the executive producers with Dick Clark. It debuted on September 29, 2002. The show is set mostly in Philadelphia. It initially aired on Sundays at 8:00 pm Eastern time, but moved to the same time on Wednesdays from March 9, 2005, to the third season finale. The show tells the story of the Pryor family of Philadelphia during the mid-1960s. Season one takes place in 1963–64, season two in 1964–65, and season three in 1965–66. The show was known as Our Generation when it debuted in Australia, however it was changed back to American Dreams when it returned for the second season.The theme song "Generation" was written and performed by Emerson Hart, lead singer of the band Tonic. The song earned Hart an ASCAP award for Best Theme Song of Television in 2003. The show was the 2003 TV Land Awards "Future Classic" winner.

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.

Berlin, summer of 1941, during the World War II. Five young Germans promise to meet again as soon the war ends… in Christmas: brothers Wilhelm and Friedhelm will go to the Russian front. Charlotte will serve as a nurse in a campaign hospital. Greta dreams of becoming a singer. Viktor, her Jewish boyfriend, works as a tailor with her father. But soon their naive wishes of peace and happiness will become a long and tragic nightmare.

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.

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