Shows Like
Shows Like The Crown for Historical Drama Obsessives
By Jordan A. · · 5 min read
The Crown ran on Netflix from 2016 to 2023, six seasons and around sixty episodes, created by Peter Morgan. It won twenty four Primetime Emmys. The choice that defined it was recasting every two seasons as the timeline moved, so Elizabeth II was played by Claire Foy, then Olivia Colman, then Imelda Staunton, and the show never pretended the same face could carry fifty years.
What people actually came back for was smaller than the costumes. It's a series about institutions, and about the specific misery of a job you cannot resign from. The best episodes are two people in a room where nobody says the thing they mean, and the tension comes entirely from protocol. Aberfan, the Michael Fagan episode, the Margaret and Peter Townsend material. Those work because of restraint, not scale.
So the useful follow ups are shows about power inside a system, whether that system is a Tudor court, a Danish parliament, or a Manhattan drawing room. Costume budget matters less than whether the writers understand procedure. Here are eight that do, with a note on where each one is streaming if we could confirm it this month.
Court politics, played straight
Wolf Hall is the best of these and it isn't a close contest. Peter Kosminsky directed six episodes for BBC Two in 2015 from Hilary Mantel's novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, with Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell, Damian Lewis as Henry VIII and Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn, a year before Foy played Elizabeth. It won the BAFTA for best drama series and Rylance won for best actor. The sequel series, Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, arrived in November 2024. Rylance plays almost everything with his face, so it rewards attention and punishes second screening. It's on PBS Masterpiece as of August 2026.
Victoria ran on ITV from 2016 to 2019, three series and twenty five episodes, created and written by Daisy Goodwin, with Jenna Coleman as Victoria and Tom Hughes as Albert. It aired in the US on PBS under Masterpiece. It's warmer and more romantic than The Crown and less interested in the machinery of government, which makes it easier company and less rewarding. If the Philip and Elizabeth marriage was your favorite thread, this is the closest match.
The Great is the opposite approach. Tony McNamara created it for Hulu, three seasons and thirty episodes from 2020 to 2023, with Elle Fanning as Catherine and Nicholas Hoult as Peter. It labels itself an occasionally true story and then, from the second season finale onward, an almost entirely untrue one. It is filthy, very funny, and completely uninterested in accuracy. Hulu cancelled it in August 2023 and it does not get a proper ending. It's on Hulu as of August 2026.
Institutions without a crown
Borgen is the Danish series that does what The Crown does with a parliament instead of a palace. Adam Price created it with Jeppe Gjervig Gram and Tobias Lindholm, running on DR from 2010 to 2013, with Sidse Babett Knudsen as Birgitte Nyborg, an accidental prime minister. Three ten episode seasons, then a fourth of eight, Power and Glory, on Netflix in 2022 with Nyborg as foreign minister. It is subtitled and it takes coalition arithmetic seriously, which is either the appeal or the obstacle.
Mrs. America is nine episodes from 2020 on FX on Hulu, created by Dahvi Waller, about the fight over the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. Cate Blanchett plays Phyllis Schlafly, with Rose Byrne as Gloria Steinem, Uzo Aduba as Shirley Chisholm and Margo Martindale as Bella Abzug. Aduba won the Emmy for supporting actress from the show's ten nominations. Like The Crown it gives its antagonist real intelligence and real reasons, which makes it much harder to watch comfortably.
A Very English Scandal is three episodes from 2018, written by Russell T Davies and directed by Stephen Frears, about the Liberal MP Jeremy Thorpe and the case that ended him. Hugh Grant plays Thorpe and Ben Whishaw plays Norman Scott. It's the funniest thing on this list and also the angriest, and at three hours total it's the easiest to finish. It aired on BBC One in the UK and on Amazon in the US.
The house, the money, the servants
Downton Abbey is Julian Fellowes's ITV series, six series and fifty two episodes from 2010 to 2015, which aired in the US on PBS. It is the show The Crown's producers were competing with and it works on completely different fuel: gentleness, plot volume, and Maggie Smith. Three films followed, in 2019, 2022 and 2025. Nobody would call the later series rigorous, but the first two are better than their reputation among people who never watched them.
The Gilded Age is Fellowes again, on HBO since 2022, three seasons and twenty five episodes so far with a fourth ordered in July 2025. Carrie Coon, Christine Baranski and Cynthia Nixon fight over 1880s New York social position while Denee Benton's storyline follows the Black press of the period. It is slower to start than Downton and considerably better once the money plots kick in. It's on HBO Max as of August 2026.
How to pick tonight
Wolf Hall if you want the best writing and can give it your full attention. Borgen if what you loved was watching someone govern. A Very English Scandal if you have one evening and want to finish something. Downton Abbey or The Gilded Age when you want the house, the clothes and a plot that keeps moving. The Great only if you're prepared for it to be rude.
If none of that narrows it down, our TV recommendation tool works from the shows you've already finished.
Topics covered: the-crown, historical, british, drama, wolf-hall, borgen, downton-abbey, period-drama
About the author
Jordan A., Founder, BingeNext
Jordan A. is the founder of BingeNext and writes every guide on this site. He built the recommendation engine after one too many nights lost to the streaming menu, and he still tests every pick the hard way: by watching it.