Top 10 TV Shows: Historical
The highest-graded historical TV shows we have reviewed, best first.
ShōgunA prestige epic that trusts subtitles, silence and its Japanese cast, and is enormously better for it.Read the review
Mad MenA drama about the impossibility of becoming someone else, shot like an ad and paced like a novel.
East of EdenFlorence Pugh's Cathy Ames anchors a handsome Steinbeck that finally gives Lee the dignity the book owed him.
The AmericansTwo Soviet spies raise a family in Reagan's Washington, and the marriage is more frightening than the espionage.
DeadwoodMilch's iambic profanity applied to the founding of a town, and it never got its third act.
When They See UsFour parts that give five wrongly convicted boys their names back, anchored by a Jharrel Jerome performance that is almost too painful to watch.
The Last DanceTen hours of Michael Jordan settling old scores, cut so well that its partiality becomes part of the drama rather than a reason to dismiss it.
Kingdom (2019 Series)Joseon court politics and a plague of the starving dead fit so well together that the zombies become the argument, not the gimmick.
The CrownThe most expensive workplace drama ever made, about a woman who is not allowed to say what she thinks.
Show Me a HeroSix episodes about council votes, court orders and 200 units of public housing that add up to one of HBO's most gripping political dramas.
