20 best shows like Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

When CIA analyst Jack Ryan stumbles upon a suspicious series of bank transfers his search for answers pulls him from the safety of his desk job and catapults him into a deadly game of cat and mouse throughout Europe and the Middle East, with a rising terrorist figurehead preparing for a massive attack against the US and her allies.

Tracing the rising threat of Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, it takes a controversial look at how the rivalry between the CIA and FBI inadvertently might have set the stage for the tragedy of 9/11 and the war in Iraq.

The lives of the elite Navy Seals as they train, plan and execute the most dangerous, high-stakes missions our country can ask.

Young CIA analyst Joe Turner has his idealism tested when he learns that the CIA has been using an algorithm he developed to spy on American citizens, leading the organization to a terrorist plot that threatens the lives of millions. Inspired by Sydney Pollack’s 1975 political thriller Three Days of the Condor.

Following an emotional breakup, tough but tender FBI super-agent Will Chase (codename: “Whiskey Cavalier”) is assigned to work with badass CIA operative Frankie Trowbridge (codename: “Fiery Tribune”). Together, they lead an inter-agency team of flawed, funny and heroic spies who periodically save the world (and each other) while navigating the rocky roads of friendship, romance and office politics.

Russia, 1959. A KGB major investigates the mysterious deaths of a group of nine student hikers in the Ural Mountains. Troubled by his past as a WWII veteran, he has a sixth sense and death seems to follow him around as he digs deeper into the mysterious incident. The more he learns, the more it becomes clear: the reason the students died will never see the light of day.

CIA officer Carrie Mathison is tops in her field despite being bipolar, which makes her volatile and unpredictable. With the help of her long-time mentor Saul Berenson, Carrie fearlessly risks everything, including her personal well-being and even sanity, at every turn.

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.

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.

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

The Company tells the thrilling story of Cold War CIA agents imprisoned in double lives, fighting an amoral, elusive, formidable enemy – and each other – in an internecine battle within the Company itself.

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

The harrowing true story of the 1993 standoff between the FBI, ATF and the Branch Davidians, a spiritual sect led by David Koresh in Waco, TX that resulted in a deadly shootout and fire.

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.”

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.

Shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraqi ex-policeman Muhsin al-Khafaji has lost everything and is battling daily to keep himself and his sick daughter, Mrouj safe. But when he learns that his estranged elder daughter Sawsan is missing Khafaji is forced into a desperate search to find her.

Heroic U.S. Army scientist Dr. Nancy Jaax, working with a secret military specialized team, puts her life on the line to head off an Ebola outbreak before it spread to the human population.

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.

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.

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.

Their mission is simple: Find a cure. Stop the virus. Save the world. When a global pandemic wipes out eighty percent of the planet's population, the crew of a lone naval destroyer must find a way to pull humanity from the brink of extinction.

Alex O'Connor, a young idealistic CIA analyst specializing in Russian affairs, learns a shocking secret and his close-knit, affluent family is about to be split apart when it's revealed that his parents, Mark and Katya, are covert Russian spies deactivated decades ago. But today the Kremlin has re-enlisted them into service as they plan a terrorist operation inside the U.S. border that will bring America to its knees.

A covert team of special forces operatives risk their lives on undercover missions around the globe, while their wives maintain the homefront, protecting their husbands' secrets.

The series follows John Porter, a former British Special Forces soldier, who is drafted back into service by Section 20, a fictional branch of the Secret Intelligence Service.

The crew of a Royal Naval expedition searching for the Arctic's treacherous Northwest Passage discovers instead a monstrous predator.

A former Marine out to punish the criminals responsible for his family's murder finds himself ensnared in a military conspiracy.

A wary CIA officer investigates a charismatic man who sparks a spiritual movement and stirs political unrest. Who exactly is he? And what does he want?

The complex world of our bravest military heroes who make personal sacrifices while executing the most challenging and dangerous missions behind enemy lines.

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

A thriller set two hundred years in the future following the case of a missing young woman who brings a hardened detective and a rogue ship's captain together in a race across the solar system to expose the greatest conspiracy in human history.

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.

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

Carlos is a French-German television and cinema biographical film from 2010, about the life of the 1970s international terrorist Carlos the Jackal, from his first series of attacks in 1973 until his arrest in 1994. It premiered as a three-part TV mini-series on French pay channel Canal+, with the three parts airing on 19 May, May 26 and June 2, 2010. On the same day it premiered on Canal+, the full 5½ hour version was also shown out of competition at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Produced by Daniel Leconte of French production company Film En Stock and Jens Meuer of German production company Egoli Tossell Film, in association with Canal+ and French Arte, it was directed by Olivier Assayas from a screenplay by Leconte, Assayas and Dan Franck, and stars Édgar Ramírez as Carlos. The film exists both as a three-part mini-series and a feature film of various lengths between 338 and 319 minutes, but also in several abridged versions, from 187 minutes down to 166 minutes. Classified as a theatrical film as well as a TV film/TV mini-series, Carlos has been awarded both theatrical awards and TV awards; among them the 2010 Golden Globe award for the 'Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television', the 2010 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Director, the National Society of Film Critics 2010 award for Best Director, the New York Film Critics Circle 2010 award for Best Foreign Language Film, the 2010 European Film Award for Best Editor, the 2010 Critics Award for Best Film at the São Paulo International Film Festival, and Édgar Ramírez won the 2010 César Award for Most Promising Actor.

Lieutenant Erling Riiser is on his way back to Norway after a long stay in Afghanistan. Much has gone wrong, several soldiers are missing from the Hercelus-plane. After only one day in Norway, Erling receives a text message saying an old acquaintance from Afghanistan is in Oslo - which can mean only one thing: A woman's life is in danger

In a mystical and dark city filled with humans, fairies and other creatures, a police detective investigates a series of gruesome murders leveled against the fairy population. During his investigation, the detective becomes the prime suspect and must find the real killer to clear his name.

The remarkable story of how murderer Charles Sobhraj was captured. As the chief suspect in unsolved murders of young Western travellers across India, Thailand and Nepal’s ‘Hippie Trail’ in 1975 and 1976, Sobhraj had repeatedly slipped from the grasp of authorities worldwide to become Interpol's most wanted man, with arrest warrants on three different continents.

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

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

A chronicle of the true top secret U.S. Air Force-sponsored investigations into UFO-related phenomena in the 1950s and ’60s, known as “Project Blue Book.”

Falling Skies opens in the chaotic aftermath of an alien attack that has left most of the world completely incapacitated. In the six months since the initial invasion, the few survivors have banded together outside major cities to begin the difficult task of fighting back. Each day is a test of survival as citizen soldiers work to protect the people in their care while also engaging in an insurgency campaign against the occupying alien force.

The series dramatically documents the last era of the Mamluk state and its fall by the Ottomans in the early 16th century, highlighting a period in Arab history rich in events, revealing many facts about this era.

A radical group of young men band together in secrecy to change the course of history and make America a nation.

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 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.

When FBI Agent Peter Connelly, recently stationed in Jerusalem, begins investigating the murder of a young American, he realizes that he’s uncovered an ancient international conspiracy that threatens to change the course of human history. Certain that the dangerous prophecy is nearing fruition, Peter must race against the clock to unravel its mystery. From a remote farm in Norway, to an enigmatic compound in New Mexico, to the serpentine tunnels of Jerusalem, he searches for the truth, the revelation of which will shake the world's beliefs to its very core.

Becca Winstone learns that her son, Michael, disappears while studying abroad, and it's a race against time when she travels to Europe to track him down. A surprising turn of events reveals just how far one mother will go to protect her family. Exotic locations and thrilling twists will keep you riveted in "Missing."

The story of the United States' space program, from its beginnings in 1961 to the final moon mission in 1972.

The series follows Himmat Singh of Research and Analysis Wing who draws similar patterns in terrorist attacks and is convinced a single person is behind all the attacks. His task force team of five agents living in various parts of the world aim to catch the mastermind. The story is based on an inspiration taken from nineteen years worth of national significant events.

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.

The Event is an emotional, high-octane conspiracy thriller that follows Sean Walker, an everyman who investigates the mysterious disappearance of his would-be fiancée Leila, and unwittingly begins to expose the biggest cover-up in U.S. history.