Even if you don’t think you don’t like period dramas, you’ll be swept up in this gorgeous adaptation of Gill Hornby’s 2020 novel. 

Keeley Hawes takes the lead as Cassandra Austen (the sister of novelist Jane) who famously burnt most of her sister’s letters, and this four-part series set in 1840 imagines why she might have done it. It’s a story replete with wit a great cast (that also includes Rose Leslie and Jessica Hynes), heartbreak and is above all a celebration of sisterhood.

Watch now on BBC iPlayer 

Set at the end of World War One, this punchy new feminist drama sees a generation of men returning from war, expecting their women to get back in the kitchen after holding down the fort. Only they don’t want to.

Julianne Nicholson (Mare of Easttown) plays single mother Kate Galloway, who starts a Soho nightclub after falling on hard times and she meets all of life along the was y.    

Watch now on BBC iPlayer 

One morning Claire (Rebecca Hall) starts hearing a mysterious low humming noise that no one else around her can. No one believes her, and it starts impacting her sleep and mental health until she discovers one of her students (Ollie West) can hear the same thing, and they strike up an intimate friendship. 

Based on a book by Jordan Tannahill this is a quietly thrilling look at conspiracy culture, disbelief and the desire for community and connection. 

Watch The Listeners on BBC iPlayer

Set during the second world war, this drama – now two series deep – is based on a true story about the formation of the SAS (Special Air Service). 

Jack O’Connell, Connor Swindells and Alfie Allen play a trio of bolshy and often badly behaved soldiers as they attempt to liberate the city of Tobruk from enemy capture, while their bosses are more concerned with parties and protocol.

Created by Peaky Blinders’ Steven Knight, it’s hyper-masculine but deeply enjoyable – as we’ve come to expect. 

Watch SAS Rogue Heroes on BBC iPlayer

At the heart of the eight-part Bafta-nominated series is Barrington (Barry) Walker (played by the brilliant Lennie James), a businessman and a family man. But for 50 years he’s been hiding a deep secret: he’s been having a relationship with his best friend Maurice (Ariyon Bakare) ever since they were teenagers in Antigua. His wife Carmel (Sharon D Clarke) has long believed he’s had affairs, but she thinks it’s women who have caught his eye. 

Barry reaches a point where he feels he needs to stop living a lie, leave Carmel and move in with Maurice, but his lover doesn’t believe him as he’s heard it all before. Will he ever follow his heart? It’s time to find out, and your own heart might break a little in the process. 

Watch Loverman on BBC iPlayer

Series one of this twisty legal thriller explored privilege and social justice via the death of a young woman at university. The second instalment, another original story, focuses on climate activism and cultural division. 

Marcus Calderwood (Barney Fishwick) has been left for dead in a hit-and-run accident, but just before he’s about to take his last breaths he identifies his killer: police officer Justin Mitchell (Michael Socha). 

Through five episodes we watch as the case plays out to public outrage, but can justice ever be served when tensions run so high? 

Watch Showtrial on BBC iPlayer

Gritty, raw and harrowing, The Responder stars Martin Freeman as Chris Carson, a highly stressed first responder working the night shift in Liverpool. Throughout his career, Chris finds himself confronted with a number of moral dilemmas and personal traumas. 

Freeman said of the project: “There are a few times in your life, if you’re lucky, when people connect with something you’ve made in a way that goes beyond your dreams or what you could have wished for. I really believed in the show and felt it was a very good piece of work. It’s one of the most successful things I’ve worked on and I knew within reading the first five pages that I wanted to play this character.”

Tune in for a gripping, moving drama, and stick around for Martin Freeman’s amazing Scouse accent.

Watch The Responder on BBC iPlayer

Peep Show star David Mitchell takes the lead in this charming new crime series. 

He plays John Taylor, aka Ludwig, a puzzle setter extraordinaire and a bit of a loner. When his twin brother goes missing he steps into his shoes as a police detective to work out what happened to him – and ends up solving some murders along the way. Motherland’s Anna Maxwell Martin also stars.

Watch Ludwig on BBC iPlayer

Watch This Town on BBC iPlayer

Jenna Coleman is magnetic in this dark new BBC thriller that turns the typical crime drama on its head. 

She plays Detective Constable Ember Manning, who has recently been widowed and is investigating an arson attack at a local boathouse. But she is soon working out how that connects to the pregnancy of a local teenager and the disappearance years ago of another young girl. It’s a unique look at consent and power dynamics, all wrapped up in a twisty wool cloak.  

Watch The Jetty on BBC iPlayer

Another tense police procedural to add to your watchlist, this gritty Bafta-nominated thriller is set in modern-day Belfast. Series one follows a group of rookie cops who join the force and learn the job as a violent drug-fuelled crime wave crosses the city. 

Season two picks up after a devastating finale with the officers back on patrol and the gangland feud showing no signs of abating. 

Watch Blue Lights on BBC iPlayer

A new series inspired by Sir Ian Rankin’s famous novels, Rebus follows Edinburgh’s favourite brooding detective, John Rebus. Richard Rankin of Outlander fame steps into the role made famous by Ken Stott in the 2000 series. Here, we get to see Rebus as a younger man – but rest assured, he is just as troubled an antihero as ever.

Watch Rebus on BBC iPlayer

Deeply moving, often joyful and important this musical drama is about Gabriel (Sion Daniel Young) and Andy (Fra Fee). The pair have been together for either years and we join as they start the process to adoption. 

We follow their differing attitudes to the experience – Gabe a performance artist is scared and stressed, and Andy, an accountant, is taking it in his stride – and learn about the knotty, rich lives they each had that got them there.  

Watch Lost Boys And Fairies on iPlayer

Prepare to have your heart broken and stitched back together on repeat with this adaptation of Adam Kay’s 2017 memoir about working in the NHS. 

It stars Ben Whishaw as Kay, a doctor working in obstetrics and gynaecology. And the series pulls no punches in its depiction of the toll it takes - whether through tiredness, lack of pay, bullying, or destroying your mental health - but is laced throughout with humour and wit. 

One Day star Ambika Mod also stars as junior doctor Shruti, under Adam’s care (care that is often sorely lacking). 

Watch One Day on BBC iPlayer

Series one of The Tourist begins with Jamie Dornan’s character in a ferocious car chase in the Australian outback. Before we know it, bang! He’s been run off the road and wakes up in hospital with no memory of who he is. 

Cue a touching friendship developing between him and his probation officer, Helen (Danielle Macdonald), as he is hunted by shadowy people from his past. Series two picks up 14 months later and continues with the exhilarating chases, as Dornan’s character discovers more more about who he really is.

Watch The Tourist on BBC iPlayer

This four-part series based on a true story isn’t an easy watch but it is a compelling story told with quiet power. 

Timothy Spall plays Peter Farquhar a retired teacher who befriends and then enters into a relationship with a handsome and evil young churchwarden Ben (Éanna Hardwicke) after living his life in the closet. After Peter dies (having changed his will in Ben’s favour) Ben moves onto his neighbour Ann Moore-Martin (Anne Reid) and murders her too. You won’t be able to look away from this Bafta-winning limited series. 

Watch The Sixth Commandment on iPlayer

The brainchild of actor, writer and director Michaela Coel, this groundbreaking show follows Arabella, who is grappling with the after-effects of being sexually assaulted.

Based on Coel’s own experience, it’s a clever, powerful exploration of consent in the modern age and universally well-reviewed. Including Adele, who described it, on Instagram, as  “the best thing I’ve seen on British TV for yeaaaarssss!! It’s wholesome, uncomfortable, hilarious but terribly sad and then awkward… and then it makes you cough a bit for no reason and also makes you go put the kettle on, for no reason.” 

Watch I May Destroy You on BBC iPlayer

Holly Jackson’s bestselling 2019 YA novel gets the BBC treatment in this fun and twisty six-part series. Wednesday star Emma Myers plays Pip a smart sensible student, destined for Cambridge. 

But when she starts investigating the presumed death of an older student at her school, in the quest to get extra points for her UCAS form, she gets drawn deeper and deeper into her disappearance. 

Watch A Good Girls Guide To Murder on BBC iPlayer

Set in Sligo, Ireland (and, later, Dublin), Normal People traces the passionate, complex horny and awkward relationship between Marianne  Daisy Edgar Jones) and Connell Waldron (Paul Mescal) from secondary school through to their university years. Based on the book by Sally Rooney, it’s the show that got us through the first lockdown that we’re still thinking about

Watch Normal People on BBC iPlayer

Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen brings us five beautiful hour-length films intended as love letters to Black resilience and triumph in London’s West Indian community from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Each film centres on a different story. There’s Mangrove, starring Letitia Wright, the true story of the clash between the Mangrove Nine and the police which led to a landmark trial at the Old Bailey. Education, meanwhile, is inspired by McQueen’s own secondary school experience, where he realised that the educational structure was fraught with racial bias.

Watch Small Axe on BBC iPlayer now 

Written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, this Bafta and Emmy award-winning series follows the tumultuous relationship between MI5 agent Eve Polastri (played by Sandra Oh) and trained assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer). 

It’s visually stunning, uniquely smart and funny and packed with excellent accents. It might be time for a rewatch. 

Watch Killing Eve on BBC iPlayer now

Line of Duty is one of the BBC’s biggest dramas, with 13.1 million viewers watching the finale of series six when we learnt the identity of the mysterious H. 

Written by Jed Mercurio, it’s all about the inner workings of intra-police anti-corruption unit AC-12, led by DS Steve Arnott (played by Martin Compston), with Vicky McClure starring as Detective Inspector Kate Fleming. 

It’s been four long years, surely we deserve a seventh series now, Jed! 

Watch Line of Duty on BBC iPlayer now

An adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s dystopian book series, it follows a developing romance between teenagers Callum McGregor (Jack Rowan) and Persephone Hadley (Masali Baduza) in a world where their different races cause constant threat. It’s a tale of families clashing, wider social fragmentation and how love ultimately wins. 

Watch Noughts + Crosses on BBC iPlayer now

Even if you don’t know a thing about hedge funds or stocks and shares you’ll be swept up by this razor-sharp series set in the high-stakes world of investment banking

It stars Myha’la, Marisa Abela, David Jonsson and Harry Lawtey as young graduates at Pierpoint where they have to navigate power games, multi-million dollar deals, complex relationships, and wild nights out 

Watch Industry on BBC iPlayer now

 From the outside it looks Dr Gemma Foster (Suranne Jones) has the perfect life, with her handsome husband, beautiful house and great job. 

But when she suspects her husband is having an affair with Kate (Jodie Comer), her life begins to unravel. Suranne Jones won a Bafta for this compelling revenge drama that sadly finished after series two.

Watch Doctor Foster on BBC iPlayer now

Idris Elba plays self-destructive detective John Luther, who’s more like those he’s trying to catch than he’d probably like to admit. So much so, he ends up befriending murderer Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson) in series one, with the aim of them solving crimes together.

While the series drew to a close after five seasons, feature film Luther: The Fallen Sun continues the story of our favourite gruff detective. 

Watch Luther on BBC iPlayer now

Inspired by the 1983 Brink’s Mat robbery, six-part series The Gold follows the journey of the men who end up with millions of pounds’ worth of gold bullion, and the police officers attempting to hunt them down.

The series stars Jack Lowden (Slow Horses), and Charlotte Spencer as the only female detective on an all-male team. The police squad see the heisters slip through their fingers time and again, but will they catch them in the end? 

Watch The Gold on BBC iPlayer now

In a story as old as time, detective Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) works with his right hand man, John H. Watson (Martin Freeman), to somehow solve the most curious of crimes together. 

Created by Mark Gattis and Steven Moffatt it gives a wildly witty and inventive spin to the famed inhabitants of 221b Baker Street.  

Watch Sherlock on BBC iPlayer now  

Following a powerhouse cast of family lawyers led by Nicola Walker, this sparky series explores messy relationships, deep emotional conflict, and complex family dynamics both personally and professionally. 

Watch The Split on BBC iPlayer now

Expect laughter, tears and every other emotion in between when you step into the lives of midwives living in the East End of London in the 1950s and 1960s. 

Narrated by Vanessa Redgrave, the show follows a group of nurses from their first days as midwives to mastering the vocation as they navigate a rapidly changing world around them. 

Underestimate this show at your peril. 

Watch Call The Midwife on BBC iPlayer now

If you’ve never watched this literary classic about Elizabeth Bennet and her family’s efforts to marry her to a rich husband, the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth is the perfect time. 

Jennifer Ehle brings a sharp, witty edge to Elizabeth, who meets Mr Darcy (a brooding and vulnerable Colin Firth) at a ball, and they take an instant dislike to each other. For a while. 

The series cleverly nails the balance between romance and social satire, capturing Jane Austen’s sharp observations on love, class, and family.

Watch Pride and Prejudice on iPlayer now 

This brilliantly dark drama by Sally Wainwright is set in a small village in West Yorkshire, and centres on a strong-willed police sergeant, Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire), eight years after her teenage daughter, Becky, was raped and killed.

Cawood is trying to come to terms with this as her daughter’s rapist, Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton), is released from prison after serving time for drug charges, leading to her obsessively trying to find and catch him across three stressful series. A true masterpiece.  

Watch Happy Valley on BBC iPlayer now

A compelling mystery thriller focused on a missing boy. In 2006, Tony Hughes (James Nesbitt) and wife Emily (played by Frances O’Connor) go on holiday to northern France with their son, Oliver. While they’re watching the World Cup, Oliver goes missing.

The boy’s father enlists a French detective, Julien Baptiste (more on him later), to work on finding his son after the police close the case. But the journey to find Oliver is a difficult one. 

Watch The Missing on BBC iPlayer now

When 26-year-old Ivy Moxam (Jodie Comer) unexpectedly appears after being kidnapped and missing for 13 years, the police and her family have a lot of questions. 

As she tries to adjust to her freedom, the police realise there’s something about her story that doesn’t seem to add up. 

Watch Thirteen on BBC iPlayer now

Another dark psychological thriller – this time set in Belfast, Northern Ireland – The Fall lets us into the life and mental state of serial killer Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan) and the female detective brought in to catch him, Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson). You’ll be engrossed by the parallels between the two.

Watch The Fall on BBC iPlayer now

This spin-off of The Missing follows French detective Julien Baptiste (played by Tchéky Karyo) unable to forget a case from his past. 

Series one follows as he comes out of retirement to help the Dutch police find a missing sex worker in Amsterdam where he gets caught up in the criminal underworld. 

The following series sees more travel, this time to Budapest to help the British Ambassador track down her missing family. 

Watch Baptiste on BBC iPlayer

When strangers Janet (Daisy Haggard) and Samuel (Paterson Joseph) discover a stash of cocaine in a washed-up boat, they decide to sell it and split the cash. They soon find themselves on the run from the law and notorious gangster, The Tailor.

Boat Story is a brilliantly dark comedy and a thrilling watch. Coming from the writers behind The Missing, Baptiste, and The Tourist, we were hooked on every episode of this six-part voyage.

Watch Boat Story BBC iPlayer

“The deeper you go, the darker it gets,” so reads the synopsis for this stressful drama. “When a sailor is found dead on submarine HMS Vigil, DCI Silva uncovers a conspiracy.” Starring Suranne Jones Silva is on a mission to uncover what actually went on underwater, but with closed doors seemingly at every turn of her investigation, it proves harder (and more sinister) to uncover the truth. 

And as if that wasn’t stressful enough, series two sees Silva investigating a murder at a military base and her relationship with DS Longacre (Rose Leslie) facing fresh challenges.

Watch Vigil on BBC iPlayer

A compelling and prescient historical drama that provides crucial context on one of Britain’s most vilified women, Margaret, Duchess of Argyll.

 Claire Foy is excellent as Margaret, a socialite who was vilified and sexually shamed when her affairs were made public by her husband (Paul Bettany) to secure a divorce. 

Watch A Very British Scandal on BBC iPlayer now

This factual drama is based on the real-life victims of Stephen Port, also known as the ‘Grindr serial killer’, who murdered  Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Jack Taylor between 2014 and 2015. 

Starring Stephen Merchant, as Port and Sheridan Smith it goes beneath the headlines to focus on the families and friends left behind and their fight to uncover the truth about what happened to their lost sons, brothers and loved ones in the face of a now widely condemned police investigation.

Watch Four Lives on BBC iPlayer now

You’d think going to university with your childhood best friend would be a wonderful thing. But as Holly (Synnøve Karlsen) and Georgia (Aisling Franciosi) soon find out, it’s anything but.

Living in the same halls, taking the same classes and frequenting the same haunts, the girls meet an enigmatic ‘clique’ with Professor Jude McDermid at its helm. The clique is all about parties and living a fast-paced social life, with money never being a problem. It all seems fun – until it really isn’t. Prepare for dark twists and not to trust anyone throughout the first series, with Clique’s second season providing thought-provoking discussions on patriarchy, rape and lad culture.

Watch Clique on BBC iPlayer now

The gritty family drama captivated viewers when it initially premiered back in 2013. Since then, we’ve seen the Birmingham-based drama go from strength to strength, treating us to its fair share of blood, violence and surprise twists.

Cillian Murphy is utterly endearing as Tommy Shelby and as he battles rival gangs, PTSD from the war and his own life problems, he also racks up an impressive amount of enemies as figurehead of the Shelby clan. If you like edge-of-your-seat dramas, this one’s for you.

Watch Peaky Blinders on BBC iPlayer now

It’s impossible to look away from Ruth Wilson in this menacing gothic thriller. She plays Lorna Brady who is sent to a home when she falls pregnant at 15, and her baby is then taken away. 

Years later we see her, deeply traumatised and damaged, her hope raised when she receives a note to say someone knows what happened to her baby. The next morning, after a failed meeting with the note writer, she wakes to find a dead body in her house with no memory of where it came from, so she hides the corpse in her wall. 

Watch The Woman In The Wall on BBC iPlayer

Tolstoy’s epic 1,440-page novel from 1867 gets the BBC period drama treatment. And what a treatment it is. 

Set in the early 19th century it centres on the aristocracy while Napoleon is invading the country. It stars James Norton as cynical Prince Andrei, Paul Dano as Pierre Bezukhov a newcomer to Russian society and Lily James as Natasha Rostova, and we follow their fortunes and misfortunes, loves and losses. 

Watch War and Peace on BBC iPlayer

Series one of this claustrophobic and searing drama by Jimmy McGovern, stars two powerhouse actors at the top of their game. Sean Bean is Mark a gentle and quiet man who we meet as he begins a four-year stint in prison and must learn what it takes to survive while Stephen Graham plays Eric McNally a prison officer of 22 years who is blackmailed into working for a powerful prisoner to keep his family safe. 

Series two, set in the female prison, is no less of a gut punch with Jodie Whittaker playing a struggling single mother who meets Kelsey (Bella Ramsey) a pregnant young heroin addict and Abi (Tamara Lawrence) who is in for life. 

Watch Time on BBC iPlayer now