Best tv shows like For the Term of His Natural Life
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
In 1830's England, a young man from a good but troubled family is unjustly convicted of stealing a watch. He's transported to Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania) where he suffers under the enmity of Lt. Frere while falling in love with Sylvia, the Warden's daughter. Meanwhile, back in England, an imposter lays claim to the young man's inheritance.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 227
Genere: Adventure, Drama
Country: Australia
Duration: 520 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic
Best tv shows and movies like For the Term of His Natural Life (1983):
Similar in 84%
All the Rivers Run (1983)
Plot Summary:
Orphaned after a shipwreck off the Victorian coast of Australia, the beautiful and spirited Philadelphia Gordon finds both love and adventure aboard a paddle-steamer on the Murray River.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 702
Genere: Adventure, Drama, Romance
Country: Australia
Duration: 400 min
Plot tags: period drama
Similar in 89%
Jailers (2017)
Plot Summary:
Adriano is a correctional officer in charge of locking and controlling all access to the jail cells. A respectable man who is averse to violence, his words are his greatest weapon. They are used to ensure a minimum of tranquility in the workplace, while dilemmas at home take on unexpected proportions, even for someone who is used to dealing with high-stress situations. In addition to the risks he faces at prison, Adriano must still find a way to deal with pressure from his wife, who wants to have a baby, as as well as his teenage daughter and his former-jailer father. Tested daily with ethical and moral dilemmas, he lives between walls and prison bars, weapons, threats, and conflicts--human and, especially, psychological ones.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 172
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 35 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, clever, suspense, realistic, poignant
Similar in 83%
Heartland (1994)
Plot Summary:
Heartland was an Australian television drama series that ran on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1994. It ran for thirteen episodes and starred Cate Blanchett and Ernie Dingo. The show was also known as Burned Bridge in some countries. Heartland deals with the mystery surrounding the death of an Aboriginal girl and the doubts concerning the guilt of her boyfriend, who is arrested for her murder. It is also a love story between two of the people convinced of his innocence—their growing relationship must survive hostility from both the white and black communities and the obstacles of their different backgrounds, attitudes and cultures. Set in a small coastal town against the turmoils of murder, mystery and romance, Heartland follows the people from this seaside community and their battle to restructure their own way of life. Their struggle to restore their self-esteem towards a positive future, despite the obstacles in their path. Other plot elements revolve around the character of Elizabeth Ashton, a writer arriving in a small coastal community. A degree of suspicion exists towards the newcomer who is ignorant of any underlying racial tensions. This naivety allows her to more easily befriend local Aborigine Vincent Burunga. Into this mix is the local police officer Phil McCarthy who seeks Ashton's affections whilst being hostile to her friendship with Burunga, not just as a rival suitor, but because of racial prejudice.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 141
Genere: Drama
Country: Australia
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic
Similar in 77%
Adam's Woman (1970)
Plot Summary:
Adam is a young American wrongly accused of being an accomplice to murder while on shore leave in Liverpool. He is sentenced to death by hanging but the sentence is commuted to twenty years in a convict settlement in Australia.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 193
Genere: Drama
Country: Australia
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic
Similar in 80%
The Secret River (2015)
Plot Summary:
In 1806, William Thornhill is sentenced to New South Wales for life where he is drawn into a terrifying conflict that will leave a bloody and indelible stain.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 662
Genere: Adventure, Drama, History
Country: Australia
Duration:
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, stylized, historical drama, period drama
Similar in 81%
20 Minutes (2013)
Plot Summary:
20 Dakika is a Turkish series broadcast on Star TV.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Action, Drama, Romance
Country: Turkey
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: serious, suspenseful, realistic, melancholic, exciting, sentimental, captivating
Similar in 75%
The Ice Cream Girls (2013)
Plot Summary:
The Ice Creams is based on the bestselling book by Dorothy Koomson about two girls who, one brief summer, find themselves involved with an abusive, controlling man. The situation spirals out of control and they are trial for his murder; ultimately Poppy gets sent to prison. Flash forward 17 years; Serena is married with a daughter in a seemingly comfortable life, returns to Brighton to take care of her dying mother. Poppy has been released and she wants answers. She claims not to have killed Marcus, but if she didn't and Serena didn't....then who did?.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 699
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration:
Plot tags: tense, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 79%
Jacquou the Rebel (2007)
Plot Summary:
In 1815, young Jacquou lives an idyllic peasant life with his parents in the Périgord region of France. But one day, his childhood happiness is cruelly ended when his father is arrested, after a dispute with the arrogant Count de Nansac. With both his parents dead, Jacquou is adopted by Bonal, a kind priest, under whose influence he grows into an assured, morally upright young man. Now an adult, Jacquou has one desire. To repay the Count de Nansac for the evil he once inflicted on his parents.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Adventure, Drama
Country: France
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: sincere, realistic, atmospheric, serious, captivating, stylized, period drama
Similar in 80%
Bangkok Hilton (1989)
Plot Summary:
The story of Kat Stanton (Kidman), an Australian woman searching for her father who, whilst travelling back from London to Australia via Thailand, makes friends with Arkie Ragan (Ehlers), a photographer. Kat is tricked into carrying some luggage through Thai customs for Arkie, only for the police to find drugs in his bag. Kat is sentenced to spend time in the horrific "Bangkok Hilton" prison, where she makes friends with fellow inmate Mandy Engels (Smithers), who has been sentenced to death. Whilst she endures the terrible conditions inside, Kat's lawyer Richard Carlisle (Weaving) and ex-patriot Hal Stanton (Elliott) battle with the authorities to have her freed.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: Australia
Duration: 270 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, rough, detective, disturbing
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 80%
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%
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 75%
Runaway (2006)
Plot Summary:
The Raders are a normal middle-class American family on the run hiding from the legal system that unjustly accused Paul Rader of a terrible and violent crime. Adding to the danger, the real killer is now threatening the lives of the Rader children.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 424
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, psychological, suspense, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 81%
Better Man (2013)
Plot Summary:
The remarkable life and death of Van Nguyen, a Vietnamese Australian man who was convicted of drug trafficking in Singapore and executed for his crime in 2005.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 237
Genere: Drama
Country: Australia
Duration:
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, bleak, thought provoking
Similar in 81%
Huckleberry Finn and His Friends (1979)
Plot Summary:
Huckleberry Finn and His Friends was a 1979 television series documenting the exploits of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, based on the novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by American writer Mark Twain. The series was made up of 26 episodes and was a Canadian/German coproduction. Huckleberry Finn is played by Ian Tracey who is also the narrator. Tom Sawyer is played by Sammy Snyders. Directed by Jack B. Hively and Ken Jubenvill, this mini-series was broadcast in many countries such as Germany, UK, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Venezuela and many other Latin American nations. The series was re-shown many times during the 1980s to early 1990s and has grown somewhat of a cult following. Even though Mark Twain originally wrote the books The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as separate units, this mini-series conjures up both literary works as only one story. Therefore, it places greater importance on Huckleberry's character without putting aside Tom Sawyer's. In 2007, the complete series was released as a 4 DVD box set by Fabulous Films in the UK. It contains many extras including a 12 page color booklet and a 30 minute 'making of' documentary featuring interviews with many stars of the series including Sammy Snyders, Ian Tracey, and Blu Mankuma.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 542
Genere: Adventure, Drama
Country: Canada, West Germany
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: exciting, sincere, uplifting, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 88%
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 88%
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 77%
Breakout (1975)
Plot Summary:
A bush pilot is hired for $250,000 to go to Mexico to free an innocent prisoner.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Action, Adventure, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: light, suspenseful, exciting, entertaining, rough, serious, realistic, fast, tense, romantic
Similar in 79%
Capadocia (2008)
Plot Summary:
Capadocia is a Mexican HBO Latin America television series. It started on March 2, 2008 and its second season was planned for 2010.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 706
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 80%
Buried (2003)
Plot Summary:
Buried is a British television drama series, produced by World Productions for Channel 4 and originally screened in 2003. The programme starred Lennie James as Lee Kingley, who is serving a long prison sentence in order to protect a member of his family from a violent criminal. Critically well-received, the programme won the Best Drama Series category at the British Academy Television Awards in 2004.
IMDB Rating: 8.4
IMDB Votes: 193
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, serious, suspenseful, thought provoking, bleak, captivating, realistic
Similar in 83%
Whitewash: The Clarence Brandley Story (2002)
Plot Summary:
Based on the true story of Clarence Brandley, a black man wrongly accused in 1980 of the murder of a 16-year-old white high school girl named Cheryl Ferguson. Brandley worked at Conroe High School, where Ferguson was visiting as a member of the Belleville High School volleyball team. Three days after her body was discovered, Brandley was arrested as the murderer. Jew Don Boney, a popular activist and Houston city council member, leads the fight to uncover the truth about the Ferguson murder. Mike DeGeurin, a Texas attorney, is brought in to act as the head defense attorney for Brandley, and is joined by a former minister, Jim McCloskey. The lawyers discover that not only is there a complete lack of evidence against Brandley, but the District Attorney, James Keeshan, has been strategizing with the presiding judge. After nine years in prison, three trials and a stay of execution that saved Brandley's life, justice finally prevails as Brandley is granted his freedom.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 165
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: disturbing, emotional, realistic, suspenseful, tense, serious
Similar in 76%
Black and White (2002)
Plot Summary:
Australia, 1958. When a nine year old white girl is found murdered, police are quick to arrest illiterate Aborigine, Max Stuart. Under interrogation Max admits to the killing and signs a statement that will send him to the gallows. With no Court of Appeal established in the country, and with a legal system compromised by intimidation tactics and the stain of institutional racism, the skills of his two gifted but naive defense lawyers are put to the test. Based on a true story.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 861
Genere: Drama
Country: Australia, UK
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic
Similar in 89%
Moby Dick (2011)
Plot Summary:
The sole survivor of a lost whaling ship relates the tale of his captain's self-destructive obsession to hunt the white whale, Moby Dick.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Adventure, Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 184 min
Plot tags: exciting, realistic, psychological, serious, captivating, nautical, fairy tale, stylized, period drama
Similar in 84%
Robinson Crusoe (2003)
Plot Summary:
The classical story of Robinson Crusoe, a man who is dragged to a desert island after a shipwreck.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 440
Genere: Adventure, Drama
Country: France, Canada, UK
Duration: 192 min
Plot tags: humorous, serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 79%
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%
Banished (2015)
Plot Summary:
At its heart, Banished is a story of survival. Though it is set in the stark historical reality of the founding of the penal colony in Australia in 1788 after the arrival of the First Fleet, it is not the story of Australia and how it came to be. Rather, it is a tale of love, faith, justice and morality played out on an epic scale in a confined community where the stakes are literally life and death.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: serious, historical drama, tense, realistic, captivating, costume drama, epic, period piece, period drama
Similar in 90%
The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant (2005)
Plot Summary:
A young woman is transported to the New South Wales penal colony in 1788.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Adventure, Drama
Country: Australia, UK
Duration: 480 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, captivating, suspense, historical drama, road movie, costume drama, period drama, tragic
Similar in 76%
The Count of Monte Cristo (1998)
Plot Summary:
After nearly 20 years in prison, Edmond Dantes escapes the fortress Chateau d'If. He returns as the Count of Monte Cristo and recognizes that his love Mercedes has married another man. Now, he is only driven by revenge on the people who falsely accused him.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Adventure, History, Romance, Thriller
Country: France, Italy, Germany
Duration: 400 min
Plot tags: serious, exciting, captivating, suspenseful, tense, fairy tale, action adventure, historical drama, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 80%
David Copperfield (1999)
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
Similar in 77%
Jailbait (2004)
Plot Summary:
Randy commits a crime that would normally get him probation and a hefty fine, but in the "three-strikes" world of justice, he finds himself locked up for 25 years. His cellmate Jake is a congenial yet remorseless lifer who casually informs Randy that he slit his wife's throat because she slept with another man just three months after they exchanged vows. Jake recognizes Randy's fear and offers him advice on how to make it in prison. But it soon becomes clear that Jake has much more than mentoring in mind as he takes Randy under his wing. "Jailbait" sets a darkly cerebral tone, juxtaposing brutality with the unattainable ideal of intimacy in the harshest of psychological environments. For these two men so yearning to be anything but who they are and where they are, power is the goal, and it's never clear who truly holds it right up to the last unsettling moment.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 436
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, realistic