BBC

2016 · 1 Season · BBC · Documentary / Nature

Planet Earth II took everything that made the original a landmark and elevated it with a decade of advances in camera technology, storytelling technique, and willingness to confront environmental realities. The iguana-vs-snakes sequence alone became one of the most-watched wildlife moments in internet history, and the series is packed with footage that reaches that level of drama. David Attenborough's narration remains the gold standard. At just six episodes, it's a tighter, more focused production than its predecessor, trading breadth for depth and coming away stronger for it. This is the finest nature documentary series ever produced.

2006 · 1 Season · BBC · Documentary / Nature

Planet Earth set a new benchmark for nature documentary filmmaking when it aired in 2006, and nothing produced before it had captured the natural world with such scale and beauty. David Attenborough's narration provides the steady, authoritative thread that ties together eleven episodes spanning every major habitat on Earth. The cinematography pushed technical boundaries that changed what audiences expected from wildlife footage. Some episodes are stronger than others, and the environmental messaging is lighter than later BBC productions would attempt. As a pure visual and educational experience, Planet Earth remains one of the finest documentary series ever broadcast.

2017 · 1 Season · BBC · Documentary / Nature

Blue Planet II brought the same revolutionary approach of Planet Earth II to the world's oceans, capturing marine life with footage that frequently defies belief. The series is credited with sparking a genuine shift in public attitudes toward ocean plastic pollution, a rare instance of a television program producing measurable real-world impact. David Attenborough's narration remains the finest in the genre, and the production team spent four years filming in every ocean to deliver sequences that had never been captured before. Some segments feel familiar to viewers of previous BBC ocean documentaries, but the overall achievement is extraordinary.

2014 · 3 Seasons · BBC One · Crime Drama

Happy Valley is one of the greatest crime dramas ever made, a show that earned that status through Sarah Lancashire's ferocious performance and Sally Wainwright's writing, which treats every character as deserving of complexity regardless of their moral position. The Yorkshire setting is integral to the storytelling, the tension is almost unbearable at times, and the final season delivers a conclusion so satisfying it should be studied by every show struggling to stick its landing. This is essential television.

2014 · 9 Seasons · BBC Two · Anthology

Inside No. 9 is the finest anthology series Britain has produced, a show where every episode is a self-contained thirty-minute masterclass in twist endings, genre subversion, and the kind of writing that makes you immediately want to rewatch what you just saw. Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton create worlds that are by turns hilarious, horrifying, and heartbreaking, often within the same episode. Over nine seasons, the hit rate is staggeringly high for a show that reinvents itself every single week.

2016 · 2 Seasons · BBC Three / Amazon Prime Video · Comedy-Drama

Twelve episodes. That's all Phoebe Waller-Bridge needed to build one of the most celebrated comedies of the past decade. Fleabag is sharp, filthy, surprisingly devastating, and smart enough to know exactly when to end. Its humor won't land for everyone, and its world is narrow in ways that matter. But the writing is so precise and the performances so committed that the whole thing feels like a magic trick, a show that makes you laugh until it quietly breaks your heart. It walked away at the peak, which is the hardest thing any show can do and the reason people are still talking about it.

2016 · 1 Season · BBC One · Spy Thriller

The Night Manager is a glamorous, perfectly cast spy thriller that proves John le Carre's slow-burn espionage can work as prestige television event programming. Tom Hiddleston is magnetic as the undercover operative, Hugh Laurie is terrifying as the arms dealer, and the six-episode structure means not a single scene is wasted. The show trades some of le Carre's moral complexity for visual spectacle, but the result is one of the most stylish and gripping limited series of the decade.

2012 · 6 Seasons · BBC One · Police Thriller

Line of Duty is one of the most gripping police thrillers ever produced, a show that makes internal investigations feel more dangerous than any criminal underworld. Jed Mercurio's writing generates tension through interrogation scenes that rival any action sequence, and the central trio of Adrian Dunbar, Vicky McClure, and Martin Compston became the beating heart of British television for a decade. The final season's resolution divided the nation, but the journey to get there is some of the most compulsively watchable drama the BBC has ever broadcast.

2015 · 5 Seasons · BBC Two / Netflix · Historical Drama / Action / Adventure

The Last Kingdom is a lean, propulsive historical epic that delivers five seasons of excellent sword-and-shield action, compelling identity drama, and one of the genre's most charismatic protagonists in Alexander Dreymon's Uhtred.

2012 · 13 Seasons · BBC One · Period Drama

A beautifully crafted period drama that combines genuine warmth with unflinching portrayals of poverty and social change in postwar London, proving that television doesn't need antiheroes or violence to be powerful.

2018 · 1 Season · BBC One · Political Drama

A Very English Scandal packs an astonishing true story into three perfectly calibrated episodes, tracing the downfall of Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe with a blend of dark comedy and genuine outrage that only Russell T Davies could balance this precisely. Hugh Grant delivers what many consider the finest dramatic performance of his career as Thorpe, and Ben Whishaw is quietly devastating as Norman Scott, the man Thorpe tried to silence. The show is furious about the injustice at its core but expresses that fury with wit, elegance, and impeccable restraint.

2010 · 5 Seasons · BBC One · Crime Drama

Luther is Idris Elba at his most commanding, a show built around a performance so magnetic that it elevates every scene, even when the scripts don't quite deserve it. The cat-and-mouse dynamic with Ruth Wilson's Alice Morgan is one of the best antagonist relationships in crime television, and London has never looked more menacing. Later seasons can't maintain the quality of the first two, and the show's relationship with realism is flexible at best, but Elba's DCI Luther is one of the defining detective performances of the century.

2018 · 1 Season · BBC One · Political Thriller

Bodyguard is six episodes of white-knuckle tension built around Richard Madden's extraordinary performance as a war veteran assigned to protect a politician he despises. Jed Mercurio's plotting is relentless, the twists are genuinely shocking, and the show's depiction of PTSD and political manipulation gives it substance beneath the thriller mechanics. The conspiracy elements become somewhat convoluted toward the end, but the ride is so thrilling that most viewers won't care until after the credits roll.

2005 · 15 Seasons · BBC One · Science Fiction / Adventure

Doctor Who's 2005 revival took a beloved but low-budget science fiction institution and turned it into a modern television powerhouse, proving that a show about a time-traveling alien could make you laugh, cry, and hide behind the sofa all in the same episode. At its best, under showrunners Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat, it produced some of the finest sci-fi television of its generation, with David Tennant and Matt Smith delivering performances that defined the role for a new audience. The show's quality varies wildly depending on who's running it, and certain eras tested even the most devoted fans with inconsistent writing and questionable creative choices. But that inconsistency is baked into the show's DNA, and the regeneration concept means there's always another version of Doctor Who around the corner.

2013 · 6 Seasons · BBC · Crime / Drama

Peaky Blinders delivers an intoxicating blend of period crime drama and modern swagger, anchored by Cillian Murphy's magnetic performance as Tommy Shelby. The first three seasons build a world that's impossible to look away from, full of sharp writing, striking visuals, and a soundtrack that shouldn't work in a 1920s setting but absolutely does. Later seasons lose focus and lean too heavily on style over substance, with the final stretch testing the patience of even devoted fans. It remains a show worth watching for its highs, which are considerable, even if it doesn't sustain that level across its full run.

2015 · 5 Seasons · BBC One · Historical Drama / Romance

Poldark blends stunning Cornish landscapes with a compelling central performance from Aidan Turner, delivering a richly satisfying period drama that occasionally struggles with the demands of adapting its extensive source material.

2013 · 3 Seasons · BBC Two · Crime Thriller

The Fall is a hypnotic cat-and-mouse thriller built on Gillian Anderson's magnetic performance as DSI Stella Gibson and Jamie Dornan's unsettling portrayal of a serial killer hiding behind a family man facade. The Belfast setting and the show's willingness to spend time inside the killer's domestic life give it a creeping dread that more conventional crime dramas can't match. A third season that doesn't quite stick the landing prevents it from reaching the heights of its extraordinary first two seasons, but the journey there is some of the most compelling thriller television of the 2010s.

2019 · 3 Seasons · BBC / HBO · Fantasy / Drama

His Dark Materials is a respectful and emotionally grounded adaptation of Philip Pullman's trilogy that succeeds most when its young lead and its magnificent villain share the screen.

2019 · 2 Seasons · BBC Three / Showtime · Dark Comedy

Back to Life is a sharp, compassionate dark comedy about a woman returning to her small coastal hometown after eighteen years in prison for a crime that everyone in town remembers. Daisy Haggard is tremendous in the lead role, and the show's ability to balance genuine mystery with social comedy and emotional depth makes it one of the most quietly accomplished British comedies of recent years. The question of what actually happened that night drives the plot, but the real story is about whether anyone truly gets a second chance.

2022 · 1 Season · BBC Two · Western, Drama

The English is a visually stunning revisionist western anchored by Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer as unlikely partners crossing the 1890s American frontier on parallel quests for justice. Hugo Blick's writing swings for the fences with a complex, non-linear narrative that ties personal revenge to the larger crimes of westward expansion. The ambition sometimes outruns the clarity, with a plot structure that confuses as often as it illuminates. But the performances, the frontier vistas, and the show's willingness to reckon with the violence beneath the western myth make it a compelling, if demanding, six hours of television.

2010 · 4 Seasons · BBC One · Crime / Mystery Drama

Sherlock's first two seasons are some of the best mystery television ever produced, driven by Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman's magnetic chemistry and a visual style that made deduction feel electric. The modern London setting, feature-length episode format, and sharp writing created something that felt refreshingly original when it premiered in 2010. But the show's trajectory is a cautionary tale about what happens when style overtakes substance. Seasons three and four shifted focus from clever mysteries to melodramatic personal stakes, culminating in a final season that many fans consider a betrayal of what made the show work. It's a brilliant half of a series attached to a disappointing half, and that split makes it hard to recommend without heavy caveats.

2017 · 1 Season · BBC One / FX · Drama / Thriller

Taboo is a dark, atmospheric period thriller that lives and dies by Tom Hardy's commanding performance as a man who terrifies empires. The Regency-era London setting is rendered with grimy beauty, and the show builds tension through mood and mystery rather than action. It demands patience and rewards it inconsistently, with some episodes delivering genuinely gripping drama and others losing momentum in murky plotting. The dialogue can be hard to follow, literally and figuratively, and the pacing tests even devoted viewers. But when Hardy is on screen, fully inhabiting a character who seems to operate by rules no one else understands, the show generates a pull that's hard to shake.

2022 · 1 Season · BBC Three / Hulu · Drama

Conversations with Friends is a faithful adaptation of Sally Rooney's debut novel that captures the quiet emotional complexity of its source material but struggles to generate the dramatic momentum that television demands. The performances are subtle and the Dublin setting is beautifully rendered, but the show's commitment to interiority over incident leaves many viewers feeling that the conversations are more interesting on the page than on the screen.