For our fellow bingers wondering how they’ll get their royal, historical or family drama fix until 2022 when Season 5 reportedly premieres, never fear. You can keep calm and binge on with these 16 other shows like The Crown:
1. Catherine the Great
Helen Mirren is no stranger to playing royalty. The actress, who won an Academy Award for portraying Queen Elizabeth II, played yet another female leader, Russian empress Catherine the Great, in this HBO historical miniseries that follows the end of Catherine II’s reign and her affair with Russian military leader Grigory Potemkin.
2. The Windsors
This British soap opera, streaming on Netflix, is a hilarious parody of the Queen’s family, including Prince Charles, Camilla, Prince William, Kate Middleton, Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, Princess Eugenie, Princess Beatrice and more. The comedy appears to be a hit with the actual British royals. TheDaily Mail’s royal correspondent Rebecca English tweeted in 2020, “It’s very popular at the palace too.”
3. Victoria
4. Versailles
The Anglo-French drama depicts the reign of the Sun King a.k.a France’s King Louis XIV (George Blagden), who transformed his father’s former hunting lodge into the Palace of Versailles, a gilded prison.
5. Downton Abbey
The British drama, which ran for six seasons and spawned a movie, centers on the (fictional) aristocratic Crawley family and their servants in the early twentieth century. Harry Potter alum Dame Maggie Smith won a Golden Globe and multiple Emmys for her portrayal of Violet Crawley. The cast also includes Michelle Dockery, Hugh Bonneville, Lily James and Dan Stevens.
6. The Tudors
The Tudors chronicles the reign of England’s infamous King Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and his marriages…history refresher: this is the King who is known for having had six wives, including Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon.
7. Succession
If you thought the Windsors have a lot of drama going on in their family, ahem Prince Andrew and Megxit, wait until you meet the Roys. Rather than inheriting the throne, members of the wealthy family are vying in this HBO Emmy Award-winning series to take over patriarch Logan Roy’s company, Waystar Royco, a global media conglomerate.
8. The Royals
Elizabeth Hurley played Queen Helena in E!’s first original scripted series. While the soap opera, from the creator of One Tree Hill, is about British royals, it’s a fictional, scandalous family, not actually Queen Elizabeth’s!
9. Wolf Hall
The historical drama, adapted from Hilary Mantel’s novels, tells the story of King Henry VIII’s adviser Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance). Claire Foy, who played Queen Elizabeth in The Crown’s first two seasons, takes on the role of Anne Boleyn in this six-episode series, while Damian Lewis plays Henry VIII.
10. The White Queen
The White Queen is set during England’s Wars of the Roses and told from the perspective of three women, Margaret Beaufort (Amanda Hale), Anne Neville (Faye Marsay) and Elizabeth Woodville (Rebecca Ferguson), who laid claim to the English throne. The Starz 10-episode series is an adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s historical novels The White Queen, The Red Queen and The Kingmaker’s Daughter.
11.The White Princess
The Starz original limited series, based on the novel of the same name by Philippa Gregory, was the sequel to The White Queen. The eight-episode historical drama begins as The War of the Roses is coming to an end. Per Starz, “An uneasy peace is achieved when former King Richard III is defeated at the Battle of Bosworth, and the victor, Henry Tudor, soon-to-be King Henry VII (Jacob Collins-Levy), is married to Lizzie—a princess from a rival house and Richard III’s former lover.”
12. The Spanish Princess
Starz’s Tudor period drama is the followup to The White Queen and The White Princess. The Spanish Princess centers on Catherine of Aragon (Charlotte Hope), a princess of Spain who was promised the English throne when she was a child. Following her husband Prince Arthur’s death shorty after their wedding, Catherine sets her sights on his younger brother, the future King Henry VIII.
13. The Royal House of Windsor
The Royal House of Windsor, available on Netflix, traces the history of the Windsor dynasty. From Edward VIII’s abdication to Princess Diana and Prince Charles’ marriage, this documentary series is a must-watch for royal fans!
14. Outlander
Starz’s widely popular period drama is based on the historical books written by Diana Gabaldon. Season 1 of Outlander, which premiered in 2014, saw a married World War II nurse named Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe) mysteriously transported to 18th century Scotland, where she finds romance with a Scottish Highlander named Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan).
15. Reign
From the network that brought us Gossip Girl, The CW’s historical drama Reign is about young Mary, Queen of Scots (Adelaide Kane). The series ran for four seasons and even scored a People’s Choice Award for Favorite New TV Drama in 2014. Although Reign came to an end in 2017, it is currently streaming on Netflix.
16. Poldark
Next, why The Crown will never cover Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s royal exit!
