The best period dramas on Netflix

Director Paul Thomas Anderson

Cast Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps, Lesley Manville 

Wait, what’s PTA doing here? Although he's not the first name that springs to mind when you think of the trappings of this genre, Phantom Thread is, technically, filled with the lusty looks, gorgeous gowns and era specificity (in this case, London high society in the ’50s) that make it hum – albeit with a sensibility and love-as-poison metaphor that feels in line with the director's work. This portrait of a complicated genius that turns into one about an equally complex couple catches leads Day-Lewis and Krieps, as well as composer Jonny Greenwood, in top form. 

Creator Peter Morgan  

Cast Claire Foy, Matt Smith, Vanessa Kirby 

This Emmy juggernaut (it nabbed two dozen over its run, including one for initial star Foy) bowed out a few years back and tapped into viewers' apparently unquenchable thirst for drama about the royal family. The series kicked off in postwar England, following Elizabeth as she rose to power and depicting all the pomp and circumstance (that wedding) but also a whole lot of frosty (and intricately costumed) people in dimly-lit rooms talking about duty. 

Creator Heidi Thomas

Cast Helen George, Charlotte Ritchie, Jenny Agutter

Director Sofia Coppola 

Cast Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Judy Davis 

Well before Bridgerton dropped covers of modern pop hits to heighten the mood, Coppola turned to the likes of The Strokes’ ‘What Ever Happened?’ – and some great ’80s British music – to tap into the mindset of a lavish and much-maligned teenage queen. As a follow-up to the writer-director’s Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette couldn’t help but feel like a bit of a headscratcher twenty years back. Today, this tale of youthful extravagance is beloved in certain circles, no doubt inspiring plenty of champagne-fuelled, gowns-welcome watch parties.  

Director Clint Bentley 

Cast Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Nathaniel Arcand

There aren't any costume balls here, but Train Dreams is about as specific a period drama as you could ask for, a devastating but beautiful look at the life of one quiet and gentle railroad worker in Washington (played by a typically great Edgerton) from the 1890s through the late 1960s. Bentley's presentation is almost hypnotic, aided in no small part by some stirring music from The National's Bryce Dessner. 

Creators Scott Frank, Allan Scott

Cast Anya Taylor-Joy, Bill Camp, Moses Ingram

For a brief moment during the pandemic, this stylish miniseries, which was co-created by screenwriting legends Scott Frank (Out of Sight) and Allan Scott (Don't Look Now), made chess– and, honestly, perhaps even whatever those little green pills were – seem pretty damn enticing. Steeped in the 1950s and '60s (think cool cars, needle drops, dresses and mod eyeliner), the story centers on Anya Taylor-Joys’ genius of an orphan as she makes her mark in a competitive gaming world dominated by dudes. 

Creator Zoe Kazan 

Cast Florence Pugh, Christopher Abbott, Mike Faist

Speaking of gorgeously shot American landscapes (actually New Zealand, and courtesy here of cinematographers Stuart Dryburgh and Sam Chiplin), Zoe Kazan’s recent take on John Steinbeck’s family saga (the film version of which her grandfather, Elia, helmed in the '50s) is full of them. Led by a fantastic trio of actors and spiked with shocks of violence, it's a sharply executed, decades-spanning epic about the myths we tell ourselves to get by. 

Creator Mike Makowsky 

Cast Michael Shannon, Matthew Macfadyen, Betty Gilpin

There is a lot of drama and tragedy in Death by Lightning – it's about the shooting of President James A Garfield (Shannon) in 1881, after all – but it wouldn't be inaccurate to label it a historical comedy. This four-parter, in which bearded men in stiff suits yell ‘motherfucker’ at one another while trying to ram through their political agendas, can be quite funny as it chronicles Macfadyen's Charles J Guiteau, a delusional loser who believes he’s just one brush with power away from becoming important.

Creator Julian Fellowes 

Cast Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, Jim Carter 

After penning Robert Altman’s fantastic Gosford Park and before bringing The Gilded Age to HBO, Fellowes welcomed us into the aristocratic world of the Crawleys (and their titular, enviable Yorkshire mansion) during the 1910s and ’20s. Now, the six seasons of the show (a hit in the States for, of all places, PBS) aren't on Netflix. But the series' followup films – Downton Abbey, Downton Abbey: A New Era and Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale – indeed are, which means you can get your upstairs-downstairs drama fix.  

Creator Steven Zaillian 

Cast Andrew Scott, Dakota Fanning, Johnny Flynn

Robert Elswit’s sublime black-and-white cinematography is likely the first thing that stands out in writer-director Zaillian's telling of Patricia Highsmith's famed thriller. But just about everything works in this tale of a con man (Andrew Scott’s Tom Ripley) bouncing around the Amalfi Coast and throughout Europe in the 1960s, from the empty locales and costumes to the lead performance and sheer confidence to show the sweaty steps (so many steps!) involved in reaching the high life.