Best tv shows like David Copperfield
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Charles Dickens' haunting semi-autobiographical tale of a boy who is sent away by his stepfather after his mother dies but manages to triumph over incredible adversities.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 185 min
Plot tags: costume drama, atmospheric, uplifting, touching, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, spiritual, period piece
Best tv shows and movies like David Copperfield (1999):
Similar in 90%
The Mayor of Casterbridge (1978)
Plot Summary:
In a drunken and disheartened state, Michael Henchard sells his wife at a fair. When he becomes sober again he realises what he has done, and though unable to find his wife and child, changes his ways. He becomes the Mayor of the town. Nearly twenty years later his past comes back to haunt him.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 339
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 350 min
Plot tags: spiritual, tense, atmospheric, clever, serious, emotional, realistic, talky, period drama
Similar in 78%
David Copperfield (1974)
Plot Summary:
Adaptation of the Dickens novel.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 105
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 300 min
Plot tags: historical drama, period drama
Similar in 79%
The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019)
Plot Summary:
A fresh and distinctive take on Charles Dickens’ semi-autobiographical masterpiece, The Personal History of David Copperfield, set in the 1840s, chronicles the life of its iconic title character as he navigates a chaotic world to find his elusive place within it. From his unhappy childhood to the discovery of his gift as a storyteller and writer, David’s journey is by turns hilarious and tragic, but always full of life, colour and humanity.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 22000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: costume drama, atmospheric, touching, sentimental, captivating, semi serious, enigmatic, satirical, period piece, cult classic
Similar in 76%
The Old Curiosity Shop (2007)
Plot Summary:
A kindly shop owner whose overwhelming gambling debts allow a greedy landlord to seize his shop of dusty treasures. Evicted and with no way to pay his debts, he and his granddaughter flee.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 765
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA, Ireland
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, serious, emotional, costume drama, period piece, historical drama, realistic, gloomy, period drama
Similar in 83%
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1982)
Plot Summary:
Young Nicholas Nickleby sets out to make his fortune in order to prevent his mother and sister from depending upon his uncle, Ralph Nicklby. But he finds his first job as master at a Yorkshire school to be cruel, and runs away with one of the students. Meanwhile, Kate is subjected to the unwanted attentions of Sir Mulberry Hawk, aided by her uncle. Nicholas and his new friend, Smike, begin their adventures and eventually set out to rescue Kate, with the usual Dickensian twists, turns and asides.
IMDB Rating: 9.1
IMDB Votes: 541
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 540 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, touching, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, period drama
Similar in 90%
Martin Chuzzlewit (1994)
Plot Summary:
Martin Chuzzlewit is an old man with a large fortune and an even larger set of family and friends. A portrait of greed and selfishness, this magnificent adaptation of Dickens' comic masterpiece features an all-star cast.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 938
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 385 min
Plot tags: costume drama, serious, captivating, realistic, stylized, period drama
Similar in 88%
Oliver Twist (1999)
Plot Summary:
Based on Charles Dickens' novel, this adaptation traces the childhood of an orphan whose mother dies giving birth to him in an English work-house in the 1820s.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 829
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 386 min
Plot tags: costume drama, period piece, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy, period drama
Similar in 79%
Upstairs, Downstairs (1971)
Plot Summary:
Upstairs, Downstairs is a British television drama series originally produced by London Weekend Television and revived by the BBC. It ran on ITV in 68 episodes divided into five series from 1971 to 1975. Set in a large townhouse in Edwardian, First World War and interwar Belgravia in London, the series depicts the lives of the servants "downstairs" and their masters—the family "upstairs". Great events feature prominently in the episodes but minor or gradual changes are also noted. The series stands as a document of the social and technological changes that occurred between 1903 and 1930.
IMDB Rating: 8.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, stylized, costume drama, period piece, social, historical drama, touching, period drama, vintage
Similar in 82%
Bleak House (2005)
Plot Summary:
A suspenseful tale about the injustices of the 19th Century English legal system.
IMDB Rating: 8.3
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 510 min
Plot tags: captivating, costume drama, bleak, serious, period piece, historical drama, suspense, educational, realistic, mysterious
Similar in 90%
Vanity Fair (1967)
Plot Summary:
Adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's novel. The first colour production from the BBC.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 67
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: costume drama, serious, captivating, realistic, stylized, period piece, period drama
Similar in 79%
Oliver Twist (2007)
Plot Summary:
Oliver is born into poverty and misfortune - the son of an unmarried mother, who dies shortly after his birth. He is soon delivered to the workhouse, where the cruel Mr. Bumble oversees children tormented by starvation and suffering. When Oliver dares to ask for more gruel, he finds himself cast out and forced to make his own way in the world.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 176 min
Plot tags: costume drama, sentimental, touching, sincere, captivating, juvenile, historical drama, bleak, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 84%
Servants (2003)
Plot Summary:
Bold and irreverent drama following the fortunes of a group of servants in an 1850s English country house.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 209
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: costume drama, captivating, disturbing, period piece, period drama
Similar in 87%
Great Expectations (1974)
Plot Summary:
Charles Dickens' classic tale of Pip, a poor orphan who befriends an escaped convict and who grows up in the company of a bitter old woman, Miss Havisham, and her haughty young ward, Estella. Pip learns the rewards of both vindictiveness and gratitude as a result of these events.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 494
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 81%
The Wingless Bird (1997)
Plot Summary:
On the eve of World War I, Agnes Conway manages both the business and the problems of her troubled family. She finds the strength to break class barriers and help her sister Jessie marry a good boy from a family of dockside toughs. Is she strong enough to break them again when Charles Farrier, a gentleman, courts her over his parents' opposition? Agnes faces an added dilemma when she finds her heart divided between Charles and his soldier brother Reginald.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 540
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, realistic, period piece, costume drama, period drama
Similar in 86%
The Mill (2013)
Plot Summary:
Powerful historical drama series, based on the lives of real people, telling the story of young 19th-century apprentices taking their lives into their own hands for the first time.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, captivating, stylized, psychological, rough, period piece, costume drama, grim, historical drama
Similar in 90%
Doctor Thorne (2016)
Plot Summary:
The story of the penniless Mary Thorne, who grows up with her rich aunt/cousins at Greshamsbury Park estate.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 48 min
Plot tags: costume drama, captivating, cynical, historical drama, sentimental, thought provoking, touching, period piece, period drama
Similar in 81%
Our Mutual Friend (1998)
Plot Summary:
Intertwining tales of love, greed, and secret identities in Charles Dickens's 1860s London.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 350 min
Plot tags: costume drama, period piece, historical drama, serious, captivating, realistic, period drama
Similar in 89%
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (2001)
Plot Summary:
Adaptation of the Dickens novel.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 200 min
Plot tags: serious, sentimental, atmospheric, uplifting, touching, captivating, juvenile, historical drama, emotional, realistic
Similar in 89%
David Copperfield (1970)
Plot Summary:
A made for TV movie of the Charles Dickens' classic novel, turns Dickens' picaresque tale into an extended flashback, with David Copperfield Robin Phillips as a young man, brooding on a deserted beach, recalling his youth. The characters are all trotted out in choppy flashbacks as David remembers his life as a young orphan, brought to London and passed around from relatives, to guardians, to boarding school.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 585
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, gloomy, period drama
Similar in 86%
David Copperfield (2000)
Plot Summary:
An orphan with a rough childhood becomes a barrister.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Ireland, USA
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, captivating, costume drama, juvenile, period drama
Similar in 84%
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1996)
Plot Summary:
Based on a little known 1848 novel by Anne Bronte, Tara Fitzgerald stars as an enigmatic young woman who moves to 19th Century Yorkshire with a young son. Distancing herself from everyone in the village and their prying questions, she remains totally aloof until a charming neighbor farmer gets her to reveal her past through his persistence. Only then does she reveal she is hiding away from a womanizing, belittling husband.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 159 min
Plot tags: costume drama, period piece, historical drama, gothic, serious, realistic, period drama
Similar in 89%
The Way We Live Now (2001)
Plot Summary:
The Way We Live Now is a 2001 four-part television adaptation of the Anthony Trollope novel The Way We Live Now. The serial was first broadcast on the BBC and was directed by David Yates, written by Andrew Davies and produced by Nigel Stafford-Clark. David Suchet starred as Auguste Melmotte, with Shirley Henderson as his daughter Marie, Matthew Macfadyen as Sir Felix Carbury, Cillian Murphy as Paul Montague and Miranda Otto as Mrs Hurtle.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 300 min
Plot tags: period piece, serious, costume drama, realistic, captivating, historical drama, witty, biting, romantic drama, suspense
Similar in 76%
Vanity Fair (1998)
Plot Summary:
This faithful BBC adaptation once again brings William Makepeace Thackeray's classic satirical novel to the screen. Becky Sharp (Natasha Little) is a beautiful, clever and poor girl determined to earn a higher place in society at any cost. The Napoleonic Wars provide a dramatic backdrop as Becky sets out to manipulate various characters -- from London ballrooms to the battlefields of Waterloo.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: costume drama, historical drama, sincere, serious, captivating, realistic, witty, stylized, period piece, period drama
Similar in 76%
Little Dorrit (2008)
Plot Summary:
The series tells the story of Amy Dorrit, who spends her days earning money for the family and looking after her proud father, who is a long term inmate of Marshalsea debtors' prison in London. Amy and her family's world is transformed when her boss's son, Arthur Clennam, returns from overseas to solve his family's mysterious legacy and discovers that their lives are interlinked.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Romance
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 420 min
Plot tags: captivating, costume drama, sincere, period piece, historical drama, heartbreaking, romantic drama, historical romance, atmospheric, serious
Similar in 87%
Daniel Deronda (2002)
Plot Summary:
Daniel Deronda is a British television serial drama adapted by Andrew Davies from the George Eliot novel of the same name. The serial was directed by Tom Hooper, produced by Louis Marks, and was first broadcast in three parts on BBC One from 23 November to 7 December 2002. The serial starred Hugh Dancy as Daniel Deronda, Romola Garai as Gwendolen Harleth, Hugh Bonneville as Henleigh Grandcourt, and Jodhi May as Mirah Lapidoth. Co-production funding came from WGBH Boston. Louis Marks originally wanted to make a film adaptation of the novel but abandoned the project after a lengthy and fruitless casting process. The drama took a further five years to make it to television screens. Filming ran for 11 weeks from May to August on locations in England, Scotland and Malta. The serial was Marks' final television production before his death in 2010.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 210 min
Plot tags: costume drama, period piece, serious, captivating, realistic, heartbreaking, historical drama, romantic drama, historical romance, period drama
Similar in 76%
Great Expectations (1999)
Plot Summary:
A young boy called Pip stumbles upon a hunted criminal who threatens him and demands food. A few years later, Pip finds that he has a benefactor. Imagining that Miss Havisham, a rich lady whose adopted daughter Estella he loves, is the benefactor, Pip believes in a grand plan at the end of which he will be married to Estella. However, when the criminal from his childhood turns up one stormy night and reveals that he, Magwitch, is his benefactor, Pip finds his dreams crumbling. Although initially repulsed by his benefactor, Pip gradually becomes loyal to him and stays with him until his death.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 168 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, sincere, captivating, period piece, costume drama, realistic, period drama, weird
Similar in 88%
Harlots (2017)
Plot Summary:
Brothel owner, Margaret Wells, struggles to raise her daughters in London during the 18th century.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 45 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, stylized, costume drama, captivating, period piece, thought provoking, historical drama, erotic, rough, dark
Similar in 83%
Great Expectations (1989)
Plot Summary:
Phillip Pirrip, known as Pip, meets a convict or two in a graveyard and sets into motion a series of events that lead him from a comfortable life in his brother-in-law's forge to a mysterious inheritance and his acquaintance with the eerie Miss Havisham, her beautiful ward Estella, and the unusual lawyer Jaggers.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 456
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 303 min
Plot tags: historical drama, period drama
Similar in 84%
Great Expectations (2011)
Plot Summary:
'Great Expectations' opens with Pip as a boy (played as an young man by newcomer Douglas Booth, 'The Pillars of the Earth') on the marshes near his home, where he encounters the desperate escapee Magwitch (Winstone). Pip is coerced into stealing a metal file to break Magwitch's chains, but the boy willingly snares a piece of meat pie to feed the famished man. So begins a classic coming-of-age story about innate kindness and learned indifference. Young Pip expects no more from life than to join his brother-in-law Joe at the blacksmith's forge. But fate intervenes when the neighboring rich eccentric Miss Havisham (Anderson) seeks Pip out as a playmate for her adopted daughter, Estella (Vanessa Kirby, 'The Hour'). This sets Pip on a course that sees him tested in many ways, not least in being thrown into a wish-fulfillment paradise for a young man, where he has the pleasures of London at his disposal and true love - and great expectations - in his future. Or so he thinks.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, historical drama, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, costume drama, period piece, gothic, stylized
Similar in 88%
North & South (2004)
Plot Summary:
North & South is a British television drama serial, produced by the BBC and originally broadcast in four episodes on BBC One in November and December 2004. It follows the story of Margaret Hale, a young woman from southern England who has to move to the North after her father decides to leave the clergy. The family struggles to adjust itself to the industrial town's customs, especially after meeting the Thorntons, a proud family of cotton mill owners who seem to despise their social inferiors. The story explores the issues of class and gender, as Margaret's sympathy for the town mill workers conflicts with her growing attraction to John Thornton. The serial is based on the 1855 Victorian novel North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. It was adapted for television by Sandy Welch and directed by Brian Percival.
IMDB Rating: 8.6
IMDB Votes: 34000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 235 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, sincere, captivating, costume drama, period piece, romantic, historical drama, romantic drama, heartbreaking