20 best shows like Victoria (2016)

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Anthology series about famous geniuses with the first season charting how Albert Einstein unlocked the mysteries of the atom and the universe, and the second exploring the passionate nature and relentless creative drive of Pablo Picasso.

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

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 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.

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.

Invisible Heroes tells the heroic tale of young Finnish diplomats in Chile during 1973’s infamous military coup. Finnish diplomats Tapani Brotherus and Ilkka Jaamala along with Tapani’s wife Lysa Brotherus helped over 2000 left-wing Chileans escape the military junta’s persecution. The Finns acted without official authorization while Swedish ambassador Harald Edelstam was the most visible defendant of human rights with the backing of Sweden’s Prime Minister, Olof Palme.

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

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

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 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.

The Caesars is a British television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV network in 1968. Made in black-and-white and written and produced by Philip Mackie, it covered similar dramatic territory to the later BBC adaptation of I, Claudius, dealing with the lives of the early emperors of Ancient Rome, but differed in its less sensationalist depictions of historical characters and their motives.

Casanova is a 2005 British television comedy drama serial, written by television scriptwriter Russell T Davies and directed by Sheree Folkson. Produced by Red Production Company for BBC Wales in association with Granada Television, the 3-episode series was first screened on digital television station BBC Three from 13 March, with a repeat on mainstream analogue network BBC One commencing 4 April.

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.

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.”

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.

The true story of one of the worst man-made catastrophes in history: the catastrophic nuclear accident at Chernobyl. A tale of the brave men and women who sacrificed to save Europe from unimaginable disaster.

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

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?

Haute couture meets the high court in this drama based on Lady Jang Hui Bin, or Jang Ok Jung, one of the most celebrated royal concubines of the Joseon Dynasty. Lady Jang establishes herself as a coveted fashion designer who quickly finds herself sought after not only by fashionable noblewomen, but by the king himself. Political drama and the catwalk collide in this tale of fashioning dreams into reality!

A re-imagining of the legendary tale of the troubled father-son relationship between King Yeongjo and his only son Prince Sado. While his father insists on a strong and centralized government, Crown Prince Sado promotes social justice and equality throughout the kingdom. Throughout eight fateful years, the strain on their relationship — both familial and political — eventually evolves into a total breakdown, ending with one of the most tragic stories in Joseon history.

The Shadow of the Tower is a historical drama that was broadcast on BBC2 in 1972. It was a prequel to the earlier serials The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elizabeth R. Consisting of thirteen episodes, it focused on the reign of Henry VII of England and the creation of the Tudor dynasty.

Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire is a 2006 BBC One docudrama series, with each episode looking at a different key turning point in the history of the Roman Empire.

The life of Napoleon Bonaparte.

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.

Picking up where the Emmy-winning miniseries The Kennedys left off, The Kennedys – After Camelot provides a fascinating look into the modern era of America’s royal family. Based on the best-selling book of the same name by J. Randy Taraborrelli.

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.