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While waiting for ENDEAVOUR Season 7, here are 15 PBS Period Dramas that are currently (as of August 3, 2020) available on Amazon Prime Video. As always, the status can change. But for now, these are 15 terrific period dramas on Amazon Prime Video.

PBS Period Dramas on Amazon Prime Video

#1. The Railway Children with Jemima Rooper, Jenny Agutter, Richard Attenborough

This family-friendly movie aired on Masterpiece Theatre in 2000. The story, based on the E. Nesbit novel, tells of 3 children whose lives are dramatically changed when they move with their mother to a cottage by the railway.

#2. The Bletchley Circle

Set in Post War London, four ordinary women (including Rachael Stirling and Anne Maxwell Martin), team up to investigate a string of grisly murders.

#3. Les Miserables with Dominic West, Lilly Collins, David Oyelowo [Only Available until August 31st]

In the time leading up to the French Revolution, a convict Jean Valjean (Dominic West) tries his hardest to bury his past in good works and faith. His nemesis, Inspector Javert (David Oyelowo), however, won’t let him alone.

#4. Poldark with Aidan Turner

Poldark is a 2015-2020 PBS remake of the beloved 1975 series that’s been hailed as the British Gone with the Wind. Based on the Winston Graham novels, Captain Ross Poldark has returned from the American Revolutionary War to right wrongs and nurse his broken heart.

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#5. The Durrells in Corfu with Keeley Hawes (Spooks, Wives and Daughters)

Impoverished widow (Keeley Hawes) uproots her family and decides to start over again in Corfu in the 1930s. The series is based on the books by Naturalist Gerald Durrell.

#6. Grantchester with James Norton, Robson Green

In a similar yet darker vein to Father Brown, Granchester follows a vicar who has a knack for solving crimes. In this series, the vicar(s) become good friends with a veteran cop whom he partners with on numerous cases in their 1950s English village.

#7. Endeavour Seasons 1-6 with Shaun Evans, Roger Allam (Les Miserables: Original London Cast)

Endeavour is a prequel to the beloved Inspector Morse (John Thaw) and Inspector Lewis (Kevin Whately). As a young policeman on the force in Oxford, Endeavour Morse uses his love for opera and the classics to help solve the daunting cases he and Inspector Thursday (Roger Allam, Javert from Les Miserables the Musical).

#8. Victoria with Jenna Coleman (Doctor Who)

Jenna Coleman (Doctor Who) stars as a young Queen Victoria in this Masterpiece favorite. The show begins as she is still a princess living with her mother at Kensington Palace, includes a fanciful romance with Prime Minister Melbourne (Rufus Sewell), and chronicles her life with Albert. The (oftentimes fictional) servants are also given ample screen time.

#9. Home Fires with Samantha Bond (Emma, Downton Abbey) and Francesca Annis (Wives and Daughters, Reckless)

Set in a rural city in England during World War Two, the women are left behind and must adapt quickly to the pressures of their new “roles” and the world that is rapidly changing around them.

#10. Indian Summers with Julie Walters (Harry Potter, Mamma Mia)

Mamma Mia‘s Julie Walters stars in this period drama about the 1930s British summer scenes in the Himalayan Mountains. The show explores the paradox of the British summers and real life in the streets of India for the native citizens.

#11. Little Women with Emily Watson and Angela Lansbury

Louisa May Alcott’s beloved novel is told over the course of three episodes with an excellent and fresh cast of young actresses in the roles of the March sisters and featuring the legendary Angela Lansbury (Murder, She Wrote) as Aunt March.

#12. Downton Abbey with Hugh Bonneville (Mansfield Park)

Downton Abbey, the most famous of PBS Period Dramas, set in the Yorkshire countryside between 1912 and 1926, is an upstairs-downstairs drama about the Crawley family and their servants in the post-Edwardian era.

#13. To Walk Invisible: The Bronte Sisters

To Walk Invisible The Brontë Sisters follows the Brontë sisters in the eventful three-year period that saw them rise from ordinary, unmarried women, taking care of the household and their widowed father, to the secret authors of the world’s most sensational literature.

#14. Mercy Street

Inspired by real events, Mercy Street takes viewers beyond the battlefield and into the lives of a distinctive cast of characters — doctors, nurses, contraband laborers, and Southern loyalists — realizing the chaotic world of Union-occupied Alexandria, Virginia and the Mansion House Hospital during the early years of the American Civil War.

#15. Howards End with Hayley Atwell (Cinderella, Captain America) and Matthew MacFadyen (Pride and Prejudice, Spooks)

Often considered E.M. Forster’s masterpiece, Howards End is the story of two independent and unconventional sisters and the men in their lives seeking love and meaning as they navigate an ever-changing world.

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