Best tv shows like The Luminaries
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
The 19th-century tale of love, murder and revenge as men and women travel across the world to make their fortunes on the wild West Coast of New Zealand's South Island.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Adventure, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK, New Zealand
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: tense, disturbing, suspense, ironic, costume drama, historical drama, neo western, period drama, beautiful
Best tv shows and movies like The Luminaries (2020):
Similar in 88%
The Onedin Line (1971)
Plot Summary:
The Onedin Line is a BBC television drama series which ran from 1971 to 1980. The series was created by Cyril Abraham. The series is set in Liverpool from 1860 to 1886 and deals with the rise of a shipping line, the Onedin Line, named after its owner James Onedin. Around this central theme are the lives of his family, most notably his brother and partner, shop owner Robert, and his sister Elizabeth, giving insight into the lifestyle and customs at the time, not only at sea, but also ashore. The series also illustrates some of the changes in business and shipping, such as from wooden to steel ships and from sailing ships to steam ships. It shows the role that ships played in affairs like international politics, uprisings and the slave trade.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Adventure, Drama, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: costume drama, retro, period piece, period drama
Similar in 83%
The Moonstone (2016)
Plot Summary:
Charismatic adventurer Franklin Blake is on the most important quest of his life - to solve the disappearance of the priceless Moonstone and win back Rachel Verinder, his one true love.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 647
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 45 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, disturbing, detective, costume drama, period drama
Similar in 79%
Treasure Quest: Snake Island (2015)
Plot Summary:
Hidden somewhere off the southeastern coast of Brazil could lie hundreds of millions of dollars-worth of lost Incan gold. One team of treasure hunters has a new theory on where the treasure lies - a remote spot home to 1,000s of deadly vipers.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 426
Genere: Adventure
Country: USA
Duration: 40 min
Plot tags: light, feel good, captivating, entertaining, realistic
Similar in 85%
Jamaica Inn (2014)
Plot Summary:
Set in 1820 against the forbidding backdrop of windswept Cornish moors, the story follows the journey of young and spirited Mary who is forced to live with her Aunt Patience after the death of her mother. Mary arrives at the isolated Jamaica Inn to discover her Aunt is a shell of the carefree woman she remembers from her childhood, and instead finds a drudge who is firmly under the spell of her domineering husband Joss. The Inn has no guests - the rooms are locked and kept for storage - but it soon becomes clear that it’s a cover, as Joss is the leader of a smuggling ring, and Jamaica Inn the hub of his ‘free’ trade.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 177 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, suspenseful, tense, bleak, realistic, costume drama, historical drama, period piece, period drama
Similar in 84%
The Woman in White (2018)
Plot Summary:
The lives of two half-sisters and their drawing master get caught up in a deadly conspiracy revolving around a mentally ill woman dressed all in white.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: gothic, psychological, disturbing, psychological thriller, historical drama, period drama
Similar in 82%
The Essex Serpent (2022)
Plot Summary:
London widow Cora Seaborne moves to Essex to investigate reports of a mythical serpent. She forms an unlikely bond with the village vicar, but when tragedy strikes, locals accuse her of attracting the creature.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 288 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, disturbing, gothic, spiritual, costume drama, period drama, beautiful
Similar in 79%
The Crimson Petal and the White (2011)
Plot Summary:
Follow Sugar into the underbelly of Victorian London seething with vitality, sexuality, ambition and emotion.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 274 min
Plot tags: costume drama, historical drama, serious, captivating, realistic, stylized, sexual, psychological thriller, rough, grim
Similar in 90%
Dickensian (2015)
Plot Summary:
Dickensian intertwines the realm of fictional characters in Charles Dickens’ novels—including Scrooge, Fagin and Miss Havisham—in half-hour episodes, as their lives intertwine in 19th century London. The Old Curiosity Shop sits next door to The Three Cripples Pub, while Fagin’s Den is hidden down a murky alley off a bustling Victorian street.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Adventure, Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: costume drama, period piece, atmospheric, serious, captivating, stylized, historical drama, controversial, period drama
Similar in 89%
Death and Nightingales (2018)
Plot Summary:
An epic tale of love, betrayal, deception, and revenge set in the beautiful, haunting countryside of Fermanagh in the North of Ireland in 1885.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 58 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, suspense, costume drama, historical drama, period drama
Similar in 90%
The Barchester Chronicles (1982)
Plot Summary:
When a crusade against the Church of England's practice of self-enrichment misfires, scandal taints the cosy community of Barchester when their local church becomes the object of a scathing, investigative report.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 385 min
Plot tags: costume drama, historical drama, period drama
Similar in 75%
The Long Song (2018)
Plot Summary:
Set during the final days of slavery in 19th century Jamaica, we follow the trials, tribulations and survival of plantation slave July and her odious mistress Caroline.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing, costume drama, historical drama, period drama
Similar in 81%
The North Water (2021)
Plot Summary:
Henry Drax is a harpooner and brutish killer whose amorality has been shaped to fit the harshness of his world, who will set sail on a whaling expedition to the Arctic with Patrick Sumner, a disgraced ex-army surgeon who signs up as the ship’s doctor. Hoping to escape the horrors of his past, Sumner finds himself on an ill-fated journey with a murderous psychopath. In search of redemption, his story becomes a harsh struggle for survival in the Arctic wasteland.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 16000
Genere: Adventure, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK, Canada
Duration: 300 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, disturbing, psychological, suspense, suspenseful, anime, existential, nautical, historical drama
Similar in 86%
The Mystery of Edwin Drood (2012)
Plot Summary:
An exploration of Charles Dickens's unfinished work in which the mystery of the murder of Edwin Drood is examined.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: tense, atmospheric, serious, captivating, psychological, historical drama, realistic, stylized, fairy tale, period drama
Similar in 87%
Vanity Fair (2018)
Plot Summary:
An adaptation of the 1848 novel by William Makepeace Thackeray.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: stylized, atmospheric, costume drama, period piece, historical drama, witty, period drama
Similar in 82%
He Knew He Was Right (2004)
Plot Summary:
He Knew He Was Right was a 2004 BBC TV adaptation of the Anthony Trollope novel He Knew He Was Right. The mini-series portrays the failure of a marriage caused by the unreasonable jealousy of a husband exacerbated by the stubbornness of a wilful wife.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 240 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, stylized, historical drama, period piece, costume drama, romantic drama, period drama
Similar in 81%
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 83%
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 80%
The Ruby in the Smoke (2006)
Plot Summary:
In Victorian England, Sally Lockhart receives an anonymous note sending her on a mysterious quest. Her father has recently died and feeling suffocated living with her elderly aunt moves in with newfound friends, a photographer and his sister. She is soon made aware that the mysterious Mrs. Holland is out to kill her. In the end, she realizes the solution to the mystery is rooted in events that occurred long ago when she lived with her father in India and a recurring dream she has had ever since.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 955
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: tense, enigmatic, captivating, suspense, disturbing, detective, costume drama, period drama, weird
Similar in 90%
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 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 83%
Death Comes to Pemberley (2013)
Plot Summary:
Elizabeth and Darcy, now six years married and with two young sons, are preparing for the lavish annual ball at their magnificent Pemberley home. The unannounced arrival of Elizabeths wayward sister Lydia, however, brings an abrupt and shocking halt to proceedings when she stumbles out of her chaise screaming that her husband Wickham has been murdered. Darcy leads a search party out to the woodlands, and when they discover the blood-smeared corpse, not of Wickham, but his traveling companion, suspicion is at once aroused. The dramatic and unnerving events of the evening have shattered the peace, both of the Darcys and of Pemberley, and as the family becomes caught up in the ensuing murder investigation, a mysterious web of secrets and deceit will threaten all that the Darcys hold dear.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: costume drama, period piece, tense, serious, realistic, heartbreaking, detective, historical drama, disturbing, touching
Similar in 85%
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 88%
The Buccaneers (1995)
Plot Summary:
Four American girls go to England to find husbands.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Adventure, Drama, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 212 min
Plot tags: period piece, costume drama, romantic drama, historical drama, spooky, clever, realistic, stylized, semi serious, witty
Similar in 84%
The Musketeers (2014)
Plot Summary:
Set in 17th century Paris, musketeers Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan are members of an elite band of soldiers who fight for what is just. They are heroes in the truest and most abiding sense – men that can be trusted and believed in to do the right thing, regardless of personal risk.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 24000
Genere: Adventure, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 55 min
Plot tags: exciting, historical drama, costume drama, realistic, serious, tension, suspense, period piece, epic, stylized
Similar in 90%
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: The Murder at Road Hill House (2011)
Plot Summary:
In 1860 Scotland Yard's 'Prince of Sleuths' Jack Whicher is sent to rural Wiltshire to investigate the murder of three-year-old Saville Kent,snatched from his bed at night and killed.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, suspenseful, stylized, historical drama, detective, serious, realistic, factual, period drama
Similar in 84%
Little Women (2017)
Plot Summary:
Set against the backdrop of the American 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, and while their father is away at war, the girls navigate what it means to be a young woman: from sibling rivalry and first love, to loss and marriage.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA, Ireland
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: costume drama, sentimental, romantic, uplifting, touching, feel good, sweet, period piece, historical drama, period drama
Similar in 81%
Taboo (2017)
Plot Summary:
Adventurer James Keziah Delaney returns to London from Africa in 1814 along with fourteen stolen diamonds to seek vengeance after the death of his father.
IMDB Rating: 8.3
IMDB Votes: 147000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 59 min
Plot tags: serious, suspenseful, disturbing, stylized, rough, realistic, captivating, costume drama, tension, period piece
Similar in 79%
The Alienist (2018)
Plot Summary:
Crime reporter, John Moore, meets with psychologist, Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, to investigate a serial killer in New York during the late 19th century.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 59000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: exciting, tense, suspenseful, detective, costume drama, psychological thriller, suspense, captivating, psychological, atmospheric
Similar in 88%
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 85%
Black Sails (2014)
Plot Summary:
The pirate adventures of Captain Flint and his men twenty years prior to Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic “Treasure Island.” Flint, the most brilliant and most feared pirate captain of his day, takes on a fast-talking young addition to his crew who goes by the name John Silver. Threatened with extinction on all sides, they fight for the survival of New Providence Island, the most notorious criminal haven of its day – a debauched paradise teeming with pirates, prostitutes, thieves and fortune seekers, a place defined by both its enlightened ideals and its stunning brutality.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 111000
Genere: Action, Adventure, Drama
Country: South Africa, USA
Duration: 56 min
Plot tags: exciting, stylized, suspense, historical drama, costume drama, erotic, epic, realistic, serious, rough