Best tv shows like Small Island
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
In 1939 Hortense, illegitimate but intelligent and ambitious, is brought up on Jamaica with the family of charismatic, free-thinking Michael, who joins the Air Force when war breaks out and goes to England. After the war, Hortense, now a qualified teacher, makes a marriage of convenience to Gilbert Joseph, paying for his passage to England on condition he sends for her.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating, realistic, family saga, saga, period drama
Best tv shows and movies like Small Island (2009):
Similar in 86%
Kin (2000)
Plot Summary:
While on a hunt for elephant poachers in Namibia, a white female conservationist and a black lawyer fall for each other despite the condemnation by the local community.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 164
Genere: Drama
Country: South Africa, UK
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: sentimental, captivating, emotional, erotic, independent film, serious, realistic, sexual, touching, sexy
Similar in 87%
The Indian Doctor (2010)
Plot Summary:
The Indian Doctor is a British television drama set in the summer of 1963. Produced by Rondo Media and Avatar Productions, it was first broadcast on BBC One in 2010. The most recent series began on 27 February 2012 and concluded on 2 March. It is a period comedy drama starring Sanjeev Bhaskar as an Indian doctor who finds work in a South Wales mining village.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: UK
Duration:
Plot tags: sentimental, realistic, captivating, psychological, period piece, historical drama, humorous, semi serious, period drama
Similar in 85%
In the Club (2014)
Plot Summary:
In The Club follows six pregnant women and their partners as they get ready for the arrival of their babies at the local parenting class. Housewife Diane, schoolgirl Rosie, newlywed Jasmin, businesswoman Roanna, midwife Vicky and writer and teaching assistant Kim all have their own issues to deal with.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 550
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, realistic
Similar in 89%
Dancing on the Edge (2013)
Plot Summary:
A black jazz band becomes entangled in the aristocratic world of 1930s London as they seek fame and fortune.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration:
Plot tags: atmospheric, realistic, captivating, tense, erotic, sensual, serious, stylized, period drama
Similar in 87%
Anna Karenina (2000)
Plot Summary:
To help her brother mend his failing marriage, young Russian beauty Anna Karenina - who's married to eminent nobleman Alexei Karenin - leaves St. Petersburg for Moscow, where she meets the dashing Count Vronsky. They soon fall madly in love, but the scandal of their illicit affair and Alexei's vengeance give rise to tragedy in this faithful adaptation of author Leo Tolstoy's immortal novel.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 598
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 360 min
Plot tags: touching, captivating, emotional, realistic, serious, historical romance, epic, gloomy, period drama
Similar in 76%
Flambards (1979)
Plot Summary:
In the early 1900s in England, young Christina is orphaned and goes to live with her Uncle Russell, who owns the country estate of Flambards, and has two sons. Mark, the elder, is a wastrel, a roue and, like his father, loves to hunt. The younger son, William, lives to fly aeroplanes. Christina finds herself struggling with the ideas of classism as she falls in love with country life, the hunt, and one of her cousins. But after their impulsive marriage, when her husband is called away by the First World War, Christina must keep Flambards afloat by herself.
IMDB Rating: 8.3
IMDB Votes: 477
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 780 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, period drama
Similar in 75%
A Dance to the Music of Time (1997)
Plot Summary:
Anthony Powell's 12 volume novel sequence "A Dance to the Music of Time" has been dramatised for television.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 507
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 416 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, stylized, period drama
Similar in 86%
Lilies (2007)
Plot Summary:
Lilies is a British period-drama television series, written by Heidi Thomas, which ran for one eight-episode series in early 2007 on BBC One. The show's tagline was "Liverpool, 1920. Three girls on the edge of womanhood, a world on the brink of change." Due to lower than expected ratings, the BBC did not commission a second series.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 801
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, sincere, retro, period piece, historical drama, sexual, sexy, period drama
Similar in 77%
The Outcast (2015)
Plot Summary:
Set in post-war Britain, ten year-old Lewis Aldridge is grief-stricken as he struggles to cope with the death of his beloved mother. Left under the care of his emotionally distant father Gilbert, whom he barely knows and who quickly remarries, Lewis is forced to bury his feelings.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 179 min
Plot tags: touching, captivating, atmospheric, psychological, serious, realistic, gloomy, period drama
Similar in 85%
Holby City (1999)
Plot Summary:
Drama series about life on the wards of Holby City Hospital, following the highs and lows of the staff and patients.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, captivating, realistic, serious, medical drama, emotional, gloomy
Similar in 81%
Breathless (2013)
Plot Summary:
Hospital drama set in London during the early 1960s, following the staff of a busy gynecology ward at a time when abortion is illegal and the contraceptive pill is only just becoming available to married women.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration:
Plot tags: serious, realistic, stylized, captivating, period piece, sweet, medical drama, touching, period drama
Similar in 76%
The Royal (2003)
Plot Summary:
Follows the staff and patients of a Yorkshire cottage hospital in the 60s, embroiled in tangled love lives and bitter power struggles.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: medical drama, captivating, realistic, emotional, psychological, sincere, touching, serious, gloomy, period drama
Similar in 88%
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 87%
Upstairs Downstairs (2010)
Plot Summary:
Set in 1936, the show takes viewers, old and new, back to the lavish world of Belgravia, London. A new set of occupants reside at 165 Eaton Place and viewers see how external and internal influences of the tumultuous pre-war period shape and mould the lives of this wealthy family and their servants..
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: realistic, historical drama, stylized, costume drama, period piece, retro, social, serious, touching, period drama
Similar in 75%
Love in a Cold Climate (2001)
Plot Summary:
Adaptation of Nancy Mitford's novel.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 916
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, stylized, historical drama, costume drama, witty, period drama
Similar in 84%
Prisoners Wives (2012)
Plot Summary:
Behind every prisoner, there's a wife, girlfriend or mother doing time on the outside. For some it's a nightmare, for others a liberation. Prisoners' Wives - it's time to tell their stories.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, touching, serious, psychological, captivating, tense, detective
Similar in 84%
Behaving Badly (1989)
Plot Summary:
Behaving Badly is a 1989 British television serial directed by David Tucker. The teleplay by Catherine Heath and Moira Williams is based on Heath's novel of the same name. It was initially broadcast by Channel 4. The series was released on DVD in 2005. The plot focuses on Bridget Mayor, a middle-aged housewife and part-time teacher who is forced to re-evaluate her life when her husband of twenty years abandons her for a younger woman.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 160
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: realistic, semi serious, dark comedy
Similar in 78%
32 Brinkburn Street (2011)
Plot Summary:
Drama moving between the lives, loves and lies of two generations of the same family who live at 32 Brinkburn Street in 1931 and 2011.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 95
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 45 min
Plot tags: realistic, captivating, serious, sentimental, suspense, period drama
Similar in 87%
From There to Here (2014)
Plot Summary:
Created by Peter Bowker, From There To Here is set in the aftermath of the 1996 Arndale bombing and follows Daniel Cotton, a Manchester family man who is torn between the life he wants and the life he could have. The story spans the four years that changed Manchester and the country forever; from Footballs Coming Home in 1996, to New Labour sweeping to power in 1997, and finally to the hangover after the Millennium celebrations of 2000. Against the feel-good backdrop of Euro 96, it maps the emotional shockwaves generated by that bomb in the lives of two parallel families from different sides of the tracks.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 575
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, touching, captivating, realistic
Similar in 79%
To Serve Them All My Days (1980)
Plot Summary:
David Powlett-Jones has just returned to England from the trenches of WWI. He was injured and shell-shocked and, after a spell in hospital he gets a job teaching in a boys boarding school in S.W. England. He is not at all sure he can do the job, but the avuncular headmaster has faith in him. David, although well educated, is just a humble lad from the Welsh valleys at heart and has to fit himself and his ideas into the heart of the English establishment.
IMDB Rating: 8.5
IMDB Votes: 661
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 673 min
Plot tags: historical drama, clever, touching, serious, realistic, talky, period drama
Similar in 86%
Mama Flora's Family (1998)
Plot Summary:
Based on Alex Haley's novel about a black matriarch in the early 20th century, this dramatic miniseries spotlights the struggle for social change. Cicely Tyson stars as Mama Flora, a woman determined to free her children from the bonds of prejudice.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 607
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 175 min
Plot tags: sincere, uplifting, epic, serious, captivating, realistic, black cinema
Similar in 83%
The Royals (2015)
Plot Summary:
Drama about a fictional British Royal family set in modern day London, who inhabit a world of opulence and regal tradition that caters to any and every desire, but one that also comes with a price tag of duty, destiny and intense public scrutiny.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 42 min
Plot tags: captivating, sentimental, serious, realistic, soap opera
Similar in 81%
Call the Midwife (2012)
Plot Summary:
Drama following the lives of a group of midwives working in the poverty-stricken East End of London during the 1950s, based on the best-selling memoirs of Jennifer Worth.
IMDB Rating: 8.6
IMDB Votes: 30000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, realistic, stylized, period piece, costume drama, suspenseful, historical drama, retro, medical drama
Similar in 76%
Mrs Wilson (2018)
Plot Summary:
Alison Wilson thinks she is happily married until her husband Alec dies and a woman turns up on her doorstep claiming that she is the real Mrs. Wilson. Alison is determined to prove the validity of her own marriage - and her husband's love for her - but is instead led into a world of disturbing secrets. Based on the remarkable story of Ruth Wilson's grandparents.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Biography, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 56 min
Plot tags: captivating, realistic, psychological, tense, atmospheric, slasher, period drama
Similar in 79%
The Halcyon (2017)
Plot Summary:
The story of a bustling and glamorous five star hotel at the centre of London society and a world at war.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: costume drama, realistic, disturbing, psychological, thought provoking, captivating, anime, historical drama, period drama, interesting
Similar in 83%
Land Girls (2009)
Plot Summary:
The lives, loves and highs and lows of four members of the Women's Land Army working at the Hoxley Estate during World War II.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 225 min
Plot tags: realistic, captivating, costume drama, historical drama, psychological, atmospheric, serious, period drama
Similar in 83%
The Village (2013)
Plot Summary:
The Village is a BBC TV series written by Peter Moffat. The drama is set in a Derbyshire village in the 20th century. The first series of what Moffat hopes will become a 42-hour TV drama was broadcast in spring 2013 and covered the years 1914 to 1920. A second series has been confirmed for 2014 which will continue the story into the 1920s. Future series would be set in the Second World War, post-war Austerity Britain, and so on. The Village tells the story of life in a Derbyshire village through the eyes of a central character, Bert Middleton. Bert has been portrayed as a boy by Bill Jones, as a teen by Alfie Stewart, and as an old man by David Ryall. John Simm plays Bert's father John Middleton, an alcoholic Peak District farmer, and Maxine Peake plays Bert's mother, Grace. Peake is a preferred actress of the writer, who has called her "the best actress of her generation", and she has featured in two previous Moffat series, Criminal Justice and Silk. Writer Peter Moffat has spoken of wanting to create 'a British Heimat', alluding to Edgar Reitz's epic German saga Heimat, which followed one extended family in a region of Rhineland from 1919 to 1982. Unlike Downton Abbey, this version of history is a working-class history—"domestics are expected to face the walls when the master walks by".
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, captivating, rough, costume drama, dark, grim, historical drama, stylized, epic
Similar in 85%
South Riding (2011)
Plot Summary:
Andrew Davies sparkling adaption of Winifred Holtby's acclaimed novel. Insightful, warm and full of memorable characters, South Riding tells a fraught love story and paints a panaromic portrait of a Yorkshire community in the long aftermath of the First World War.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration:
Plot tags: touching, captivating, emotional, realistic, historical drama, period piece, costume drama, serious, stylized, period drama
Similar in 90%
Skin (2008)
Plot Summary:
Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK, South Africa
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, captivating, emotional, contemplative, depressing, serious, realistic
Similar in 78%
White Teeth (2002)
Plot Summary:
An adaptation of Zadie Smith's bestseller concerning the lives of two families from as far back as the 1800s and India to late 1990s Willesden.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 770
Genere: Drama, Comedy
Country: UK
Duration: 240 min
Plot tags: touching, humorous, realistic, semi serious, multicultural