NoBadPicks

Shows Like The Way We Live Now

If you loved The Way We Live Now'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

Daniel Deronda
7.6

Daniel Deronda

2002

Daniel Deronda is a British television serial drama adapted by Andrew Davies from the George Eliot novel of the same name. The serial was directed by Tom Hooper, produced by Louis Marks, and was first broadcast in three parts on BBC One from 23 November to 7 December 2002. The serial starred Hugh Dancy as Daniel Deronda, Romola Garai as Gwendolen Harleth, Hugh Bonneville as Henleigh Grandcourt, and Jodhi May as Mirah Lapidoth. Co-production funding came from WGBH Boston. Louis Marks originally wanted to make a film adaptation of the novel but abandoned the project after a lengthy and fruitless casting process. The drama took a further five years to make it to television screens. Filming ran for 11 weeks from May to August on locations in England, Scotland and Malta. The serial was Marks' final television production before his death in 2010.

Desperate Romantics
7.4

Desperate Romantics

2009

Six-part drama series set in and among the alleys, galleries and flesh-houses of 19th-century industrial London, following the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a vagabond group of English painters, poets and critics.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles
7.5

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

2008

The story of Tess Durbeyfield, a low-born country girl whose family find they have noble connections.

The Essex Serpent
6.6

The Essex Serpent

2022

London widow Cora Seaborne moves to Essex to investigate reports of a mythical serpent. She forms a surprising bond of science and skepticism with the local vicar—but when tragedy strikes, locals accuse her of attracting the creature.

Pride and Prejudice
8.2

Pride and Prejudice

1995

Set in England in the early 19th century, Pride and Prejudice tells the story of Mr and Mrs Bennet's five unmarried daughters after the rich and eligible Mr Bingley and his status-conscious friend, Mr Darcy, have moved into their neighbourhood. While Bingley takes an immediate liking to the eldest Bennet daughter, Jane, Darcy has difficulty adapting to local society and repeatedly clashes with the second-eldest Bennet daughter, Elizabeth.

Victoria
7.3

Victoria

2016

The story of Queen Victoria, who came to the throne at a time of great economic turbulence and resurgent republicanism – and died 64 years later the head of the largest empire the world had ever seen, having revitalised the throne’s public image and become “grandmother of Europe”.

Strike
7.2

Strike

2017

A war veteran turned private detective operates out of a tiny office in London’s Denmark Street. Although wounded both physically and psychologically, his unique insight and background as a military police investigator prove crucial in solving complex crimes that have baffled the police. Based on the bestselling novels written by J.K. Rowling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

North & South
8.1

North & South

2004

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...

More Shows Like The Way We Live Now

Emma
7.6

Emma

2009

Emma Woodhouse is a congenial young lady who delights in meddling in other people’s affairs. She is perpetually trying to unite men and women who are utterly wrong for each other. Despite her interest in romance, Emma is clueless about her own feelings, and her relationship with gentle Mr. Knightley.

The Crimson Petal and the White
7.0

The Crimson Petal and the White

2011

Follow Sugar into the underbelly of Victorian London seething with vitality, sexuality, ambition and emotion.

Cranford
8.2

Cranford

2007

A rich and comic drama about the people of Cranford, a small Cheshire town on the cusp of change in the 1840s. Adapted from the novels by Elizabeth Gaskell.

The Frankenstein Chronicles
7.0

The Frankenstein Chronicles

2015

Inspector John Marlott investigates a series of crimes in 19th century London, which may have been committed by a scientist intent on re-animating the dead.

Dickensian
7.4

Dickensian

2015

Dickensian intertwines the realm of fictional characters in Charles Dickens’ novels—including Scrooge, Fagin and Miss Havisham—in half-hour episodes, as their lives intertwine in 19th century London. The Old Curiosity Shop sits next door to The Three Cripples Pub, while Fagin’s Den is hidden down a murky alley off a bustling Victorian street.

Little Dorrit
7.8

Little Dorrit

2008

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.

The Buccaneers
6.9

The Buccaneers

2023

A group of fun-loving American girls burst onto the scene in tightly corseted 1870s London, kicking off an Anglo-American culture clash. Sent to secure husbands and status, the buccaneers' hearts are set on much more than that.

Tipping the Velvet
6.9

Tipping the Velvet

2002

A tempestuous tale of love and life as a naïve girl discovers both romance and pain in the hidden, decadent world of bohemian London in the 1890s. Nan Astley embarks on a voyage of emotional and sexual discovery with Kitty Butler, a music hall male impersonator.

The Paradise
7.3

The Paradise

2012

An intoxicating love story set in England's first department store in the 1870s. The Paradise revolves around the lives of the people who live and work in the store, each bound in their own way by the power of the world they live in, and the pasts that follow them there. A love story, mystery, and social comedy all in one.

The Casual Vacancy
6.1

The Casual Vacancy

2015

The citizens of the small British town of Pagford fight for the spot on the parish council after Barry Fairbrother dies.

Dracula
7.0

Dracula

2020

Transylvania, 1897. The blood-drinking Count Dracula is drawing his plans against Victorian London. And be warned: the dead travel fast.

Taboo
7.9

Taboo

2017

Adventurer James Keziah Delaney returns to London from Africa in 1814 along with fourteen stolen diamonds to seek vengeance after the death of his father.

Why These Shows Are Similar

These recommendations share core qualities with The Way We Live Now (2001): 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 The Way We Live Now.

See full details for The Way We Live Now (2001)

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