37 great British period drama box sets on BBC iPlayer for autumn 2023
The night are drawing in and autumn is here, so it’s time to snuggle up with a British period drama series and a mug of tea!
If you’re searching for your next show to binge-watch, there’s a wonderful selection on BBC iPlayer right now.
UK viewers who have a TV licence can watch the BBC’s streaming service on a wide range of devices, including tablets, mobile phones, computers and smart televisions – all with no adverts!
In addition to featuring recently aired shows for catch-up, BBC iPlayer also showcases a huge array of classic series from the corporation’s archive.
Alongside brand new titles like Magpie Murders, the second season of World on Fire, and 1950s Aussie drama Ten Pound Poms, viewers can rediscover a selection of ’90s classics with Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice and Rufus Sewell in Middlemarch, plus acclaimed television from this decade like Peaky Blinders, SAS Rogue Heroes, and The North Water.
(While BBC iPlayer is only available in the UK, many of these TV shows can also be found internationally on BritBox.)
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We’ve put together this list of suggestions for British period drama fans to check out on BBC iPlayer in the autumn of 2023:
A Christmas Carol (3 episodes)
Peaky Blinders writer Steven Knight adapts Charles Dickens’ classic Christmas story, with an all-star cast including Guy Pearce (Mary Queen of Scots) as Ebenezer Scrooge, Andy Serkis (The Lord of the Rings) as the Ghost of Christmas Past, and Stephen Graham (Line of Duty) as Jacob Marley.
Available for 5 months.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (TV movie)
Doctor Who and It’s a Sin writer Russell T Davies’ fun 2016 adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic play, with an all-star cast including Maxine Peake, Bernard Cribbins, Elaine Page, John Hannah, and Matt Lucas.
Available for over a year.
Around the World in 80 Days (8 episodes)
Based on Jules Verne’s classic 1873 novel, this period drama adventure series stars David Tennant (Broadchurch, Doctor Who) as intrepid explorer Phileas Fogg.
Available for over a year.
A Suitable Boy (6 episodes)
Set in India during the 1950s, Vikram Seth’s modern classic has been adapted by Sanditon writer Andrew Davies.
In newly independent India, passionate literature student Lata Mehra is torn between family duty and the promise of romance as three very different men try to win her heart.
Available for over a year.
A Very English Scandal (3 episodes)
Based on the true story and written by Russell T Davies (Doctor Who, The Grand), this darkly comic three-part mini-series tells the true story of an illegal love affair that threatened the life of one man and the entire British establishment in 1960s England.
Available for over a year.
A Very British Scandal (3 episodes)
The follow-up to 2018’s A Very English Scandal focuses on one of the most notorious, extraordinary and brutal legal cases of the 20th century: the divorce of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll. Leading the cast are Claire Foy (The Crown) and Paul Bettany (The Da Vinci Code).
Available for over a year.
Bleak House (15 episodes)
Andrew Davies (Pride & Prejudice) wrote the BBC’s 2005 adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic novel, starring Denis Lawson (New Tricks), Anna Maxwell Martin (Motherland), Carey Mulligan (Suffragette), and Gillian Anderson (The Crown).
Available for over a year.
Burton and Taylor (TV movie)
Dominic West and Helena Bonham Carter star in this one-off 2013 drama about Hollywood’s most glamorous couple, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, who acted together for the last time in Noel Coward’s Private Lives in 1983.
Available for over a year.
Call the Midwife (105 episodes)
Based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth, the BBC’s hit period drama series follows a group of nurse midwives working in the East End of London in the 1950s and 1960s.
Available for over a year.
Dickensian (20 episodes)
BBC One’s 2015 series brings characters from various Charles Dickens novels together in one Victorian London neighbourhood, as Inspector Bucket investigates the murder of Ebenezer Scrooge’s partner Jacob Marley.
Available for over a year.
The English (6 episodes)
Emily Blunt (The Young Victoria) leads the cast of Hugo Blick’s high-octane epic western as an aristocratic Englishwoman in late 19th century America.
Available for over a year.
Father Brown (10 episodes)
Based on the stories by GK Chesterton, BBC One’s period crime drama follows the titular clerical sleuth’s mystery-solving skills in the Cotswolds during the early 1950s.
Available for 2 months.
The Gallows Pole (3 episodes)
Downton Abbey actress Sophie O’Shera is amongst the cast of director Shane Meadows’s gripping tale of a revolutionary criminal enterprise in 1760s Yorkshire.
Available for over 7 months.
Gentleman Jack (16 episodes)
Based on the diaries of remarkable Regency landowner Anne Lister, this drama is set in Halifax, 1832. Rejected by aristocratic Vere Hobart, Anne Lister returns to her shabby ancestral home, Shibden Hall, determined to restore its fortunes and find herself a wife.
Available for over a year.
The Gold (6 episodes)
Starring Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey), Charlotte Spencer (Sanditon), and Dominic Cooper (Mamma Mia!), this new six-part mini-series dramatises the true story of ‘the crime of the century’ and the decades-long chain of events that followed the Brink’s-Mat robbery in 1983.
Available for over a year.
Great Expectations (6 episodes)
Olivia Colman (The Crown) plays the iconic Miss Havisham in Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knights’ new adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novel.
Available for 6 months.
Great Expectations (3 episodes)
Dickens fans can also watch the BBC’s 2011 adaptation of Great Expectations too, with a cast featuring Gillian Anderson, Douglas Booth, Ray Winstone, and Poirot star David Suchet.
Available for over a year.
I, Claudius (12 episodes)
Derek Jacobi, Sian Phillips and Brian Blessed bring ancient Rome’s power, corruption and lies to life in the BBC’s classic 1976 drama series.
Available for 10 months.
Interview with the Vampire (7 episodes)
Based on Anne Rice’s best-selling novel, this 2023 series stars Jacob Anderson (Game of Thrones), Sam Reid (Prime Suspect 1973), Bailey Bass (Avatar: Way of Water), and Assad Zaman (Hotel Portofino).
Available for over a year.
Life After Life (4 episodes)
Based on Kate Atkinson’s acclaimed novel, the four-part mini-series stars Jessica Brown Findlay (Downton Abbey), Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit), Sian Clifford (Fleabag), and Jessica Hynes (Up the Women).
In 1941, Ursula says goodbye to her brother Teddy as he heads off to war. What if? She asks him. What if you could live your life over again?
Available for over a year.
Life on Mars (16 episodes)
Is he mad, in a coma… or has Detective Sam Tyler really travelled back in time to the 1970s? John Simm stars in BBC One’s hit drama series from 2006.
Available for over a year.
Little Dorrit (15 episodes)
Claire Foy (The Crown) and Matthew Macfadyen (Pride & Prejudice) star in 2008’s fifteen-part adaptation of Charles Dickens’ powerful story of love, honour, debt and hope in 1820s London.
Available for over a year.
Magpie Murders (6 episodes)
The Crown star Lesley Manville plays a determined sleuth in Anthony Horowitz’s mind-bending murder mystery drama.
Available for over a year.
Marie Antoinette (8 episodes)
From the writer of The Favourite and the makers of Versailles, Marie Antoinette follows the tumultuous early years of the Austrian princess as she rises to become queen of a repressive French royal court.
Available for over a year.
Middlemarch (6 episodes)
Rufus Sewell plays Will Ladislaw in the BBC’s classic 1994 adaptation of George Eliot’s epic novel, exploring rural life, social change and the messy, complex world of relationships and marriage.
Available for over a year.
The Musketeers (30 episodes)
A thrilling world of action, adventure and romance inspired by Dumas’ legendary characters, starring Tom Burke (Strike), Santiago Cabrera (Merlin), and Peter Capaldi (Doctor Who).
Available for over a year.
The North Water (5 episodes)
The BBC’s five-part adaptation of Ian McGuire’s critically acclaimed 2016 novel is set in the ice floes of the Arctic in the late 1850s.
Available for 10 months.
Oliver Twist (5 episodes)
Timothy Spall and Tom Hardy star in 2007’s BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens’s much-loved tale of a young orphan boy.
Available for over a year.
Peaky Blinders (36 episodes)
Stylish, epic gangster saga. Fierce, damaged crime boss Tommy Shelby stalks the lawless streets of 1920s Birmingham, carving out an empire for himself and his family.
Available for over a year.
Pride and Prejudice (6 episodes)
Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle lead the cast of the BBC’s iconic 1995 version of Jane Austen’s classic Regency romance.
Available for over a year.
Rillington Place (3 episodes)
Jodie Comer from Killing Eve stars in this three-part 1940s-set drama series based on the true story of serial killer John Christie.
Available for over a year.
SAS Rogue Heroes (6 episodes)
Set during darkest days of the Second World War, SAS Rogue Heroes is inspired by the origins of the world’s greatest Special Forces unit, the SAS.
Available for over a year.
Small Axe (5 episodes)
Love letters to black resilience and triumph in London’s West Indian community, directed by Oscar winner Steve McQueen. Five feature-length vivid stories of hard-won victories in the face of racism.
Available for 2 months.
Taboo (8 episodes)
Dark, mesmerising drama with Tom Hardy, playing James Keziah Delaney who returns to London from Africa in 1814 and is encircled by conspiracy, murder and betrayal.
Available for 3 months.
Ten Pound Poms (6 episodes)
BBC One’s new six-part drama follows a group of Brits as they depart post-war Britain in 1956 for a life-altering adventure on the other side of the world.
Available for 7 months.
Versailles (30 episodes)
Flamboyant nobles, beautiful courtesans and scheming servants. The brutal, glorious reign of France’s Sun King – an intoxicating world of secrets, betrayals, love and war.
Available for over a year.
War and Peace (6 episodes)
Lily James (Downton Abbey) and James Norton (Grantchester) star this six-part adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s timeless novel as three young people experience life, love and loss against the epic backdrop of Russia’s wars with Napoleon.
Available for over a year.
World on Fire (13 episodes)
Telling the story of ordinary people from all sides of the global conflict of the Second World War, this epic drama series features Oscar-winner Helen Hunt (As Good As It Gets), Sharpe star Sean Bean, Lesley Manville (Magpie Murders), Jonah Hauer-King (Little Women), and Julia Brown (The Last Kingdom).
Available for over a year.
Take a look at more new streaming recommendations here!