Best tv shows like This Life
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A group of aspiring young lawyers sharing a shabby house in London, charting their careers and personal lives.
IMDB Rating: 8.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 45 min
Plot tags: touching, erotic, controversial, sitcom, sincere, serious, emotional, realistic
Best tv shows and movies like This Life (1996):
Similar in 86%
Mistresses (2008)
Plot Summary:
Follows the lives of four female friends and their involvement in an array of marital and extramarital relationships.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: sexy, erotic, serious, touching, witty, sensual, realistic
Similar in 82%
Secret Diary of a Call Girl (2007)
Plot Summary:
It's her business doing pleasure with you. A witty and provocative series based on the real-life adventures of a high-class escort. Juggling her own reality with her clients' fantasies can be difficult, but this savvy sweetheart knows every trick in the book, and she's doing it in style.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 30 min
Plot tags: erotic, serious, realistic, controversial, melancholic, cynical, entertaining, sitcom, sensual, sincere
Similar in 85%
Life of Lies (2013)
Plot Summary:
Mentir para vivir is a Mexican telenovela produced by Rosy Ocampo for Televisa. The telenovela is written by Maria Zarattini, who last wrote La Fuerza del Destino. Mayrín Villanueva and David Zepeda star as the protagonists, while Altair Jarabo, Leticia Perdigón and Diego Olivera star as the antagonists.
IMDB Rating: 8.4
IMDB Votes: 75
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 42 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, soap opera, telenovela
Similar in 77%
Red Roses (2006)
Plot Summary:
Rote Rosen is a German telenovela produced by Studio Hamburg Serienwerft Lüneburg and broadcast by Das Erste since November 6, 2006. The show is a complex telenovela, who tells one love story every season about women in their forties.
IMDB Rating: 3.0
IMDB Votes: 272
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 45 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, sentimental, captivating, serious, telenovela
Similar in 81%
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 85%
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 85%
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 90%
Life in Squares (2015)
Plot Summary:
A story of the close and often fraught relationship between sisters Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 832
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 171 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, captivating, emotional, costume drama, historical romance, stylized, period piece, period drama
Similar in 88%
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 76%
The Moth (1997)
Plot Summary:
This 1940s drama presents a story of class conflict and its influence on romance. Robert Bradley leaves the shipyards to work in his uncle's furniture business but soon finds himself at odds with the old man. So he becomes a servant for the destructive Thormans, and falls for the lady of the house, Sarah. But in 1913 this upstairs/downstairs romance can only lead to disaster.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 686
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 152 min
Plot tags: costume drama, sexy, historical drama, serious, realistic, period drama, tragic, hot
Similar in 90%
White Heat (2012)
Plot Summary:
A story about a group of seven London-based students from 1965 to the present day.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 709
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, stylized, family saga, saga
Similar in 81%
North Square (2000)
Plot Summary:
North Square is an award-winning British television drama series written by Peter Moffat and broadcast by Channel 4 at the end of 2000. Starring an ensemble cast, including Phil Davis, Rupert Penry-Jones, Helen McCrory and Kevin McKidd, the programme is set around the practice of a Leeds Legal Chambers. The series was filmed in and around the real life Park Square, Leeds. This is the area near the city where the majority of legal firms are concentrated. Despite gaining considerable critical acclaim the show failed to garner a substantial audience resulting in only the one series of ten episodes being produced. In Australia the series was broadcast in 2001 on ABC and repeated in 2004 after popular and critical acclaim. The full series was released on DVD for the first time by Acorn Media UK on 5 March 2012.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 310
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: tense, clever, realistic, suspenseful, humorous, semi serious
Similar in 76%
Casualty (1986)
Plot Summary:
Casualty, stylised as CASUAL+Y, is a British medical drama television series that airs weekly on BBC One, and the longest-running emergency medical drama television series in the world. Created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, it was first broadcast on 6 September 1986, and transmitted in the UK on BBC One. The original producer was Geraint Morris. The programme is based around the fictional Holby City Hospital and focuses on the staff and patients of the hospital's Accident and Emergency Department. The show has very few ties to its sister programme Holby City which began as a spin off from Casualty in 1999 and is set in the same hospital, but upstairs. The show's plots and characters occasionally crossover between the two programmes, but this is rare, and each show can easily be followed without having to watch the other. Casualty is shown weekly on a Saturday evening, which has been its time slot since the early 1990s.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: captivating, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, medical drama, soap opera, emotional, gloomy
Similar in 83%
Peak Practice (1993)
Plot Summary:
Peak Practice is a British drama series about a GP surgery in Cardale — a small fictional town in the Derbyshire Peak District — and the doctors who worked there. It ran on ITV from 10 May 1993 to 30 January 2002 and was one of their most successful series at the time. It originally starred Kevin Whately as Dr Jack Kerruish, Amanda Burton as Dr Beth Glover and Simon Shepherd as Dr Will Preston, though the roster of doctors would change many times over the course of the series. Cardale was based on the Staffordshire village of Longnor for the final series, but was previously based in the Derbyshire village of Crich, although certain scenes were filmed at other nearby Derbyshire towns and villages, most notably Matlock, Belper and Ashover.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 495
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: medical drama, touching, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 78%
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 89%
Doctors (2000)
Plot Summary:
Set in the fictional Midlands town of Letherbridge, defined as being close to the city of Birmingham, this soap opera follows the staff and families of a doctor's surgery.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 30 min
Plot tags: medical drama, touching, captivating, sentimental, serious, emotional, realistic, soap opera
Similar in 86%
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 83%
A Passionate Woman (2010)
Plot Summary:
1950's, Leeds: Betty (Billie Piper) is a wife and mother, whose life is changed forever after falling hopelessly and dangerously in love with her charismatic Polish neighbour, Alex Crazenovski, better known as Craze . Against her principles, she soon abandons herself to a world of untapped thrills and passion, a world that has been so desperately missing from her own conventional and claustrophobic marriage. But 30 years later, an older Betty (Sue Johnston) comes to realise that her compulsive passion of the past and its consequences have created ripples that spill far into the future, finally reaching crisis point on her beloved son s wedding day.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 309
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sincere, atmospheric, thought provoking, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy, period drama
Similar in 75%
The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)
Plot Summary:
The Buddha of Suburbia is a 1993 British four-part television serial, directed by Roger Michell. Based on the novel of the same name by Hanif Kureishi, the programme starred Naveen Andrews as the main character, Karim Amir. The programme's music was written and performed by David Bowie. Karim Amir is a mixed-race 17-year-old who lives in a South London suburb during the 1970s. With an English mother and a Pakistani father, Karim is uncertain of his cultural identity. As his father becomes a kind of spiritual guru to the surrounding middle-class neighbours, Karim begins to explore his cultural roots with hopes that he will achieve sexual and racial self-realisation.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 516
Genere: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 222 min
Plot tags: erotic, controversial, sentimental, sincere, serious, realistic, witty, talky, semi serious
Similar in 80%
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 78%
Judging Amy (1999)
Plot Summary:
Judging Amy is an American television drama that was telecast from September 19, 1999, through May 3, 2005, on CBS-TV. This TV series starred Amy Brenneman and Tyne Daly. Its main character is a judge who serves in a family court, and in addition to the family-related cases that she adjudicates, many episodes of the show focus on her own experiences as a divorced mother, and on the experiences of her mother, a social worker who works in the field of child welfare. This series was based on the life experiences of Brenneman's mother.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, realistic, touching, serious
Similar in 82%
The Impostor (2014)
Plot Summary:
La Impostora, is a Spanish-language telenovela presumably to be produced by United States-based television network Telemundo Studios, Miami.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 91
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration:
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, sentimental, psychological, captivating, serious, telenovela
Similar in 90%
C.P.W. (1995)
Plot Summary:
Central Park West is an American prime time television soap opera that ran from September 1995 to June 1996 on CBS. The series was created and executive produced by Melrose Place's Darren Star. As the title suggests, CPW was set in New York, in the affluent Central Park West area of Manhattan. Actresses Mariel Hemingway, Lauren Hutton, and Raquel Welch portrayed three of the central characters on the show. The program represented CBS's attempt to reestablish itself after a disastrous 1994-95 television season where the network lost a heavy amount of established affiliates due to affiliation switches related to Fox acquiring NFC football rights, and an attempt by the network to attract younger viewers. It was the network's most-promoted new show in many years with a promotional campaign exclusively produced to appeal to younger viewers, and attempted to recapture the network's past nighttime soap glory from the years of Dallas and Knots Landing. The series was not successful and was removed from CBS' schedule mid-season, returning some months later with new additions made to the cast. The retooling was not enough to save the show, which was canceled in June 1996. The failure of the series returned the network quickly back to their traditional broadcasting focus and repairing relations between both the network's new affiliates and their older stations which were frustrated by the network's moves in programming rights and programming within the Laurence Tisch era, which would end shortly thereafter with Westinghouse's purchase of CBS Corporation in 1995.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 368
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, soap opera
Similar in 80%
Banana (2015)
Plot Summary:
Witty, heartfelt and unique interlinked stories covering different aspects of LGBT life, featuring the most exciting emerging talent.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 25 min
Plot tags: realistic, sentimental, psychological, captivating, erotic, controversial, sensual, sincere, touching, serious
Similar in 81%
Canterbury's Law (2008)
Plot Summary:
Elizabeth Canterbury is a force of nature. An attorney on the rise, she puts her career on the line to take on risky and unpopular cases, even when they take a toll on her personal life. Elizabeth and her law professor husband, Matt Furey, haunted by the unsolved disappearance of their young son, struggle to distance themselves from the tragedy and put their relationship back together. But those goals become elusive whenever Elizabeth's work provides a stark reminder of the justice absent in their own lives.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 644
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration:
Plot tags: realistic, captivating, psychological, atmospheric, serious, suspenseful
Similar in 76%
The House of Eliott (1991)
Plot Summary:
The House of Eliott is a British television series produced and broadcast by the BBC in three series between 1991 and 1994. The series starred Stella Gonet and Louise Lombard as two sisters in 1920s London who establish a dressmaking business and eventually their own haute couture fashion house. It was created by Jean Marsh and Eileen Atkins, who had previously devised Upstairs, Downstairs. The series was written by several writers including Jill Hyem, Peter Buckman, Deborah Cook and Ginnie Hole.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, costume drama, sincere, captivating, historical drama, period piece, period drama
Similar in 86%
The Deep End (2010)
Plot Summary:
The Deep End is an American television series created by David Hemingson and produced by 20th Century Fox Television for the ABC television network. Starring Mehcad Brooks, Matt Long, Tina Majorino, Clancy Brown, and Billy Zane, the show follows five first-year associate attorneys from diverse backgrounds as they learn how to cope with the challenges of working at one of the most prestigious law firms in Los Angeles.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 788
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: realistic, semi serious, psychological, atmospheric, captivating, humorous, stylized
Similar in 89%
L.A. Law (1986)
Plot Summary:
L.A. Law is an American television legal drama series that ran for eight seasons on NBC from September 15, 1986, to May 19, 1994. Created by Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher, it contained many of Bochco's trademark features including a large number of parallel storylines, social drama and off-the-wall humor. It reflected the social and cultural ideologies of the 1980s and early 1990s, and many of the cases featured on the show dealt with hot-topic issues such as abortion, racism, gay rights, homophobia, sexual harassment, AIDS, and domestic violence. The series often also reflected social tensions between the wealthy senior lawyer protagonists and their less well-paid junior staff. The show was popular with audiences and critics, and won 15 Emmy Awards throughout its run, four of which were for Outstanding Drama Series.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 46 min
Plot tags: realistic, stylized, clever, serious, thrilling, detective, telenovela
Similar in 90%
Silk (2011)
Plot Summary:
Silk is a British television drama series produced by the BBC and first shown in 2011. Written by Peter Moffat, the series follows a set of barristers, and what they do to attain the rank of Queen's Counsel, known as "taking silk.".
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: clever, serious, captivating, realistic, dramatic, costume drama, fast
Similar in 83%
Philly (2001)
Plot Summary:
Philly is an American television series created by Steven Bochco that focused on criminal defense attorney Kathleen Maguire. It lasted a full season and was canceled due to low ratings. The final episode was advertised heavily as the series finale, a move not commonly used in network promotion, for a series lasting only one season. The complete series is not on DVD, but is viewable on Netflix in HD and 5.1 Surround Sound. The series briefly aired in syndication on Universal HD in 2008.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 409
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, sentimental, captivating, realistic, contemplative