Best 205 Hours of Drama Shows That You Can Binge Right Now
During the first couple-three weeks of staying at home, we checked the news at least once every 14 milliseconds. But reality is so last week. So now, we offer you over 200 hours of PBS drama! Romance, war, scandal, betrayal, frock coats, English accents… we have all the essential elements of great drama.
Recently, we’ve offered you links to over 500 great history, science and food documentaries and shows that you can stream on the free PBS video app for your Roku, Apple TV, Samsung Smart TV, Fire TV, phone or tablet — no membership required. The shows below are also available in the PBS video app, but only with NMPBS Passport. If you are interested in getting a Passport membership, check out our NMPBS Passport page.
Edmund Hillary was a beekeeper. Incidentally, he also climbed Mount Everest before anyone else. This dramatization of the life of the legendary mountain climbing apiarist doesn’t treat him like a demigod. Before he triumphs, he struggles, he fails, he considers giving up. In other words, he’s real… but he still becomes extraordinary. “It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”
Two love stories, 60 years apart, chart the changes and challenges in gay lives in England—from the era of jail terms to the onset of dating apps. Vanessa Redgrave stars in this drama scripted by best-selling novelist Patrick Gale.
The Child In Time is a lyrical and heart-breaking exploration of love, loss and the power of things unseen. Benedict Cumberbatch will star as Stephen Lewis, a successful writer of children's books, who is confronted with the unthinkable: the loss of a child.
Based on true events, Resistance tells the story of a group of young heroes fighting for freedom from German Nazi occupation in WWII. Together, they join forces to produce a newspaper.From Walter's Choice, in French with English subtitles.
When the opportunity arises for Louise Brooks (Haley Lu Richardson) to go to New York to study with a leading dance troupe, her mother insists there be a chaperone. Norma Carlisle (Elizabeth McGovern), a local society matron who never broke a rule in her life, impulsively volunteers to accompany Louise to New York for a surprising, whirlwind summer.
After the fall of the Third Reich, the small town of Tannbach is cruelly divided down the middle in the battle between East and West regimes and the town's inhabitants suffer the consequences. A gripping historical drama exploring the devastating and sobering effects that decades of conflict had on the close-knit German communities after the second world war.
Late one night, a young artist finds a terrified woman on the road. Her words are mysterious and unsettling. Is she a ghost? Is she real? This is the first step in a dance of intrigue, insanity and injustice that plays across 19th century England. You’re going to love Marian Halcombe, a character who’s been called one “of the finest creations in all Victorian fiction."
Often considered E.M. Forster’s masterpiece, Howards End is the story of two independent and unconventional sisters and the men in their lives seeking love and meaning as they navigate an ever-changing world. Kenneth Lonergan brings a fresh take to this adaptation starring Hayley Atwell, Matthew Macfadyen, Julia Ormond and Tracey Ullman.
See what happens when a teen bride's new husband gives her an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet that is a miniature replica of their home—and seems to predict and unravel the future with unsettling precision.
Downton Abbey, the award-winning series from Julian Fellowes, spans 12 years of gripping drama centered on a great English estate on the cusp of a vanishing way of life. The series follows the Granthams and their family of servants through sweeping change, scandals, love, ambition, heartbreak, and hope.
Loved by generations of women worldwide, Little Women is a truly universal coming of age story. Set against the backdrop of the Civil War, the story follows sisters Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy March on their journey from childhood to adulthood. With the help of their mother, Marmee, the girls navigate what it means to be a young woman: from sibling rivalry and first love, to loss and marriage.
Gurinder Chadha’s (Bend it Like Beckham) drama Beecham House is set in 19th century Delhi before the British ruled in that region. Tom Bateman steps into the role of John Beecham, a handsome former soldier who has purchased the mansion, Beecham House, to begin a new life. The cast includes Lesley Nicol (Downton Abbey), Gregory Fitoussi (Mr. Selfridge), Adil Ray, Pallavi Sharda, and others.
Victor Hugo’s masterpiece comes to television in a six-part adaptation by multi-award-winning screenwriter Andrew Davies. Dominic West stars as fugitive Jean Valjean, with David Oyelowo as his pursuer Inspector Javert and Lily Collins as the luckless single mother Fantine. Ellie Bamber and Josh O'Connor costar as the young lovers Cosette and Marius.
Keeley Hawes (Upstairs Downstairs) stars as an intrepid widow who decamps from dreary England to a sun-dappled Greek island with her four recalcitrant children, ages 11 to 21, on this adaptation of Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals and its two sequels.
Ruth Wilson (The Affair, Jane Eyre) stars in this drama inspired by her grandmother's memoir. Alison Wilson thinks she is happily married until her husband Alec (Iain Glen, Game of Thrones) dies, and another woman claims to be Alec’s wife. Alison is determined to prove the validity of her own marriage – but is instead led into a world of disturbing secrets.
From the makers of Downton Abbey, Passport presents Jamestown. In the 17th century, on the edge of the untamed Virginian wilderness, sits the English colony. The settlement barely survived its first decade but is on the brink of change with the arrival of a new governor and 90 so-called ‘maids to make brides'.
Jane Austen’s final and incomplete novel, written only months before her death in 1817, Sanditon tells the story of the joyously impulsive, spirited and unconventional Charlotte Heywood (Rose Williams) and her spiky relationship with the charming, enigmatic Sidney Parker (Theo James).
Aidan Turner (The Hobbit) stars as Ross Poldark, a redcoat who returns to Cornwall after battle to discover that his father is dead, his lands are ruined, and his true love is engaged to another. Can Poldark change his destiny, restore his lost fortune, and reclaim his love?
In 1837, a diminutive, neglected teenager is crowned Queen Victoria, navigates the scandal, corruption, and political intrigues of the Court, and soon rises to become the most powerful woman in the world. Victoria stars Jenna Coleman (Doctor Who) as Queen Victoria in a highly anticipated series that follows the drama of the candid, spirited monarch.
World on Fire, an adrenalized, emotionally gripping and resonant World War II drama, follows the intertwining fates of ordinary people in five countries as they grapple with the effects of the war on their everyday lives. Starring Helen Hunt, Sean Bean, Jonah Hauer-King and more, the series premiered Sunday, April 5, 2020, but you can watch the whole season now with NMPBS Passport.