Shows Like This Is England '88
If you loved This Is England '88's Drama storytelling, these series deliver a similar experience — chosen for tone, narrative quality, and viewer satisfaction. Each includes where to stream it now.
★ Top Picks
Little Dorrit
Amy Dorrit spends her days earning money for the family and looking after her proud father who is a long term inmate of Marshalsea debtors' prison in London. Amy and her family's world is transformed when her employer's son, Arthur Clennam, returns from overseas to solve his family's mysterious legacy and discovers that their lives are interlinked.
Rivals
It is 1986 and Britain is booming. "Rivals" dives headfirst into the cutthroat world of TV where hair-dos are big and ambitions are even bigger. Deals are brokered in boardrooms, as well as bedrooms. Nobody can be sure who will come out on top. With every man and woman out only for themselves, can true love really blossom?
North & South
Margaret Hale is a southerner from a country vicarage newly settled in the industrial northern town of Milton. In the shock of her move, she misjudges charismatic cotton mill-owner John Thornton, whose strength of purpose and passion are a match for her own pride and willfulness. When the workers of Milton call a strike, Margaret takes their side, and the two are brought into deeper conflict. As events spiral out of control, Margaret - to her surprise - begins to fall in love with Thornton...
Sanditon
The spirited and impulsive Charlotte Heywood moves from her rural home to Sanditon, a fishing village attempting to reinvent itself as a seaside resort.
One Tree Hill
In Tree Hill, North Carolina two half brothers share a last name and nothing else. Brooding, blue-collar Lucas is a talented street-side basketball player, but his skills are appreciated only by his friends at the river court. Popular, affluent Nathan basks in the hero-worship of the town, as the star of his high school team. And both boys are the son of former college ball player Dan Scott whose long ago choice to abandon Lucas and his mother Karen, will haunt him long into his life with wife Deb and their son Nathan.
Heartbreak High
The ins and outs of the classroom lives of a group of students who attend the fictional Hartley High School in Sydney.
This Is England '86
It's 1986 - the year Maradona ends England's World Cup dreams in Mexico; the year Top Gun is the highest grossing film; the year over 3.4 million Brits are unemployed and the year Shaun is leaving school.
More Shows Like This Is England '88
Girl Taken
Follow the story of twin sisters Lily and Abby, whose lives are shattered when Lily is abducted from their quiet rural English town by beloved local teacher Rick Hansen. After years of abuse in captivity, Lily escapes - only to discover that freedom brings its own challenges.
Des
The story of one of the most infamous cases in UK criminal history, that of serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Told through the prism of three men, the series explores the personal and professional consequences of coming into contact with a man like Nilsen.
Red Oaks
A coming-of-age comedy set in the "go-go" 80s that is equal parts hijinks and heartfelt about a college student enjoying a last hurrah before summer comes to an end--and the future begins. David Myers, an assistant tennis pro at the Red Oaks Country Club in suburban New Jersey in 1985, is both reeling from his father's heart attack and conflicted about what major to declare in the fall. While there, he meets a colorful cast of misfit co-workers and wealthy club members including an alluring art student named Skye and her corporate raider father Getty.
Freaks and Geeks
High school mathlete Lindsay Weir rebels and begins hanging out with a crowd of burnouts (the "freaks"), while her brother Sam Weir navigates a different part of the social universe with his nerdy friends (the "geeks").
Bel-Air
The journey of a book smart teen whose life is forever transformed when he moves from the streets of west Philadelphia to live with his relatives in one of LA’s wealthiest suburbs.
Blood & Water
After crossing paths at a party, a Cape Town teen sets out to prove whether a private-school swimming star is her sister who was abducted at birth.
Step Up
Twins Tal and Janelle relocate from Ohio to Atlanta, where at their new school High Water is always a beat.
Pretty Little Liars
Based on the Pretty Little Liars series of young adult novels by Sara Shepard, the series follows the lives of four girls — Spencer, Hanna, Aria, and Emily — whose clique falls apart after the disappearance of their queen bee, Alison. One year later, they begin receiving messages from someone using the name "A" who threatens to expose their secrets — including long-hidden ones they thought only Alison knew.
The Carrie Diaries
Before she was a fashion icon, before her column in the New York Star, before Mr. Big, Carrie Bradshaw was an innocent 16-year-old girl living in suburban Connecticut.
Tracker
Lone-wolf survivalist Colter Shaw roams the country as a “reward seeker,” using his expert tracking skills to help private citizens and law enforcement solve all manner of mysteries while contending with his own fractured family.
Poldark
Britain is in the grip of a chilling recession... falling wages, rising prices, civil unrest - only the bankers are smiling. It's 1783 and Ross Poldark returns from the American War of Independence to his beloved Cornwall to find his world in ruins: his father dead, the family mine long since closed, his house wrecked and his sweetheart pledged to marry his cousin. But Ross finds that hope and love can be found when you are least expecting it in the wild but beautiful Cornish landscape.
Why These Shows Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with This Is England '88 (2011): Drama themes, similar pacing, and comparable production quality. NoBadPicks uses TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface series most likely to resonate with fans of This Is England '88.
See full details for This Is England '88 (2011)