20 Classic TV Miniseries

01 of 20

I, CLAUDIUS (1976)

I, Claudius | This BBC adaptation of Robert Graves' historical novels — which follows the stammering, limping Claudius (Derek Jacobi) as he survives three generations of intrigue, murder, — I, Claudius: Everett Collection

This BBC adaptation of Robert Graves' historical novels — which follows the stammering, limping Claudius (Derek Jacobi) as he survives three generations of intrigue, murder, decadence, and extreme family dysfunction to become emperor of Rome — may have marked the peak of the golden era of Masterpiece Theatre (from 1971's Upstairs Downstairs to 1981's Brideshead Revisited). It also put the lie to the notion that British drama was stuffy and dull — not with all the poisonings, stabbings, and incest going on. Don't forget the influence on The Sopranos, which borrowed Livia's name for Tony's lethal, manipulative mom. — Gary Susman

02 of 20

ROOTS (1977)

Roots | It's hard to believe today, in the multiculti, hip-hop-flavored universe we now share, but before Alex Haley's miniseries Roots: The Saga of an American Family — Everett Collection

It's hard to believe today, in the multiculti, hip-hop-flavored universe we now share, but before Alex Haley's miniseries Roots: The Saga of an American Family aired on ABC most of white society had no idea how to relate to their many black neighbors. Over the course of eight consecutive nights, the country sat enraptured by the story of Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton, then John Amos), a young West African warrior kidnapped from his tribe and sold into slavery, and his enduring struggle for freedom. For many black Americans, it was a revelation, a peek into a past they all shared but either never fully realized or never truly acknowledged. For white America, it pulled back the curtain on one of the longest, darkest periods in human history. After Roots, we were one step closer to bringing those two Americas together. — Marc Bernardin

03 of 20

SHOGUN (1980)

Shogun | Shipwrecked in early-17th-century Japan, English sailor Blackthorne (Richard Chamberlain) gets involved in intrigue among Portuguese merchants, Jesuit missionaries, and two rival warlords, Toronaga (Toshiro Mifune) — Shogun: Everett Collection

Shipwrecked in early-17th-century Japan, English sailor Blackthorne (Richard Chamberlain) gets involved in intrigue among Portuguese merchants, Jesuit missionaries, and two rival warlords, Toronaga (Toshiro Mifune) and Ishido (Nobuo Kaneko). He also has a taboo affair with a noblewoman, Lady Mariko (Yoko Shimada). With its scrupulous verisimilitude (for one thing, the Japanese characters speak in their own language, without subtitles), Shogun introduced many Americans to the richness of Japanese history and culture, and it cemented Chamberlain's reputation (two years after Centennial and three years before The Thorn Birds) as King of the Miniseries. — Gary Susman

04 of 20

BRIDESHEAD REVISITED (1981)

Brideshead Revisited, Anthony Andrews, ... | Oh, the costumes! The accents! The furniture! The stiff-upper-lip manners! In England between the two world wars, middle-class Charles (Jeremy Irons) falls in love, first — Everett Collection

Oh, the costumes! The accents! The furniture! The stiff-upper-lip manners! In England between the two world wars, middle-class Charles (Jeremy Irons) falls in love, first with patrician Sebastian (Anthony Andrews), then with his whole family, whose decline parallels Charles' rise. This adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel isn't just masterful acting and storytelling; it's also the height of travel porn for any of us colonials who have ever wished we could be British aristocrats. — Gary Susman

05 of 20

THE THORN BIRDS (1983)

The Thorn Birds, Rachel Ward, ... | In this adaptation of Colleen McCullogh's best-selling novel — surely the best romantic miniseries of all time — the life of Richard Chamberlain's ambitious priest — Everett Collection

In this adaptation of Colleen McCullogh's best-selling novel — surely the best romantic miniseries of all time — the life of Richard Chamberlain's ambitious priest intertwines with the lives of four generations of women on a prosperous Australian sheep ranch; especially the tempestuous Meggie (Rachel Ward), who harbors a lifelong crush on Chamberlain's Father Ralph. — Gary Susman

06 of 20

V (1983)

V | A seemingly benevolent race of alien visitors wins over the people of Earth by using Nazi-like techniques of propaganda and scapegoating. Having learned the horror — Photofest

A seemingly benevolent race of alien visitors wins over the people of Earth by using Nazi-like techniques of propaganda and scapegoating. Having learned the horror of the aliens' true appearance and their nefarious plans for humanity, a few Earthlings (led by Marc Singer) launch a guerrilla resistance movement. As a parable about it-can-happen-here fascism, V was far from subtle, but it carved a place for lavish and intelligent sci-fi on TV. ABC's V revamp — currently a ratings smash — is once again engaging a hungry-for-substance television audience. — Gary Susman

07 of 20

THE SINGING DETECTIVE (1986)

The Singing Detective (Movie - 1986), Michael Gambon | A British mystery writer — a certain Philip Marlow — suffers from acute psoriasis and arthritis while the torch song ''I've Got You Under My

A British mystery writer — a certain Philip Marlow — suffers from acute psoriasis and arthritis while the torch song ''I've Got You Under My Skin'' plays in his head? This is the stuff of TV legend: When The Singing Detective first aired in the U.S. in 1988, the British writer Dennis Potter's six-part BBC miniseries blew minds — a hallucinatory combination of hospital drama, mystery story, and music-hall razzle-dazzle, all of which may or may not be taking place entirely in the frazzled head of bed-bound Marlow, played with splenetic passion by Michael Gambon. — Ken Tucker

08 of 20

TRAFFIK (1989)

Traffik | Three interlocking tales outline the worldwide heroin trade: a Pakistani poppy farmer (Jamal Shah), a drug kingpin (Knut Hinz) and his wife (Lindsay Duncan), and — Everett Collection

Three interlocking tales outline the worldwide heroin trade: a Pakistani poppy farmer (Jamal Shah), a drug kingpin (Knut Hinz) and his wife (Lindsay Duncan), and the family of the British antidrug minister (Bill Paterson), including his addict daughter (Julia Ormond). Though it inspired Steven Soderbergh's Oscar-winning Americanized feature film in 2000, this production, by Britain's Channel 4, is longer, richer, and more morally ambiguous. — Gary Susman

09 of 20

LONESOME DOVE (1989)

Lonesome Dove, Robert Duvall, ... | When the miniseries premiered in February 1989, no one, least of all its network, expected it to be such a hit. Westerns had been out — Landov

When the miniseries premiered in February 1989, no one, least of all its network, expected it to be such a hit. Westerns had been out of fashion for decades, and Dove offered stars no brighter than Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones — first-rate actors, but second-rate audience draws. Add to all this the waning popularity of miniseries as a whole, and Dove seemed doomed. But a marvelous combination of factors — the excellence of the cast (which also included Danny Glover, Rick Schroder, Robert Urich, Diane Lane, and Anjelica Huston); the cliché-busting nature of Larry McMurtry's source novel; the elegant, spare direction of Simon Wincer — assured an audience of millions that the Western was not dead. — Ken Tucker

10 of 20

TALES OF THE CITY (1993)

The boardinghouse run by Anna Madrigal (Olympia Dukakis) is the point of entry for Midwestern émigrée Mary Ann Singleton (Laura Linney) into the pansexual, pre-AIDS carnival of San Francisco in the 1970s. Based on Armistead Maupin's newspaper column and novel, the series is a time capsule that treats its characters with humor, respect, and a sexual frankness (there's some brief nudity) that was uncommon for PBS in 1993 and would be politically impossible there today. No wonder the two sequels — More Tales of the City (1998) and Further Tales of the City (2001) — aired on Showtime. — Gary Susman

11 of 20

THE STAND (1994)

The Stand, Rob Lowe, ... | Stephen King's 1978 magnum opus — about the world left behind when a killer virus decimates the population, and how the survivors prepare for the — Everett Collection

Stephen King's 1978 magnum opus — about the world left behind when a killer virus decimates the population, and how the survivors prepare for the ultimate war between good and evil — made for a large, sprawling, positively engrossing eight hours of television. With a cast that included Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Miguel Ferrer, Ruby Dee, and Jamey Sheridan as the evil-incarnate Randall Flagg. — Marc Bernardin

12 of 20

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (1995)

Pride and Prejudice (TV - 1996), Colin Firth, ... — Everett Collection

If there is a dreamy, bookish young woman in your life (or a gentleman with a fondness for the type) who has yet to rejoice in the wit and beauty of the BBC production of Jane Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice, the oversight must be remedied immediately. The five-hour adaptation — yes, meticulous in its attention to period detail; yes, lovingly respectful of the text; oh, yes!...with that eye-popping scene of Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy stripping down for an impromptu swim — is meant for a luxurious Sunday afternoon of swooning on the sofa, preferably with a cat (borrow one from the neighbors if you need to) and a bottle of chardonnay. — Karen Valby

13 of 20

FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON (1998)

Tom Hanks' love for the great black yonder knows no bounds, and he channeled every erg of it into this 12-part odyssey, tracing the history of man's baby-steps into space. Earnest, straight as a NASA ruler, and positively triumphant, Moon set a pretty high bar for HBO's long-form programming. — Marc Bernardin

14 of 20

THE CORNER (2000)

The Corner, Khandi Alexander, ... | The people who tuned into David Simon's essential HBO series The Wire not knowing what to expect clearly never saw his previous inner-city cycle, The — Photofest

The people who tuned into David Simon's essential HBO series The Wire not knowing what to expect clearly never saw his previous inner-city cycle, The Corner. Based on Simon's book, cowritten by David Mills (ER, NYPD Blue), and directed with unfussy skill by Charles S. Dutton, The Corner documented the downfall of the Boyd family (played by T.K. Carter, Khandi Alexander, and Sean Nelson) into an abyss of drug use, tragedy, and despair. — Marc Bernardin

15 of 20

BAND OF BROTHERS (2001)

Band of Brothers | Executive-produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, the 10-episode Band of Brothers follows those men, those boys as they made history happen. The soldiers of — HBO

Executive-produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, the 10-episode Band of Brothers follows those men, those boys as they made history happen. The soldiers of Easy Company, a unit of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, jumped into the fire at Normandy, cut the hedges in Holland, endured the frozen hell of the Battle of the Bulge, and captured Hitler's Eagle's Nest. Though it loses focus when it strays from tracing Dick Winters (Damian Lewis) as he climbs up the chain of command, it's still a moving document of men under fire. If the interviews with the old Easy veterans don't put a lump in your throat, you need to have your throat checked. — Marc Bernardin

16 of 20

ANGELS IN AMERICA (2003)

Angels in America, Al Pacino, ... | During the dark, early days of the AIDS epidemic, various New Yorkers — among them, an AIDS patient (Justin Kirk) whose boyfriend (Ben Shenkman) has

During the dark, early days of the AIDS epidemic, various New Yorkers — among them, an AIDS patient (Justin Kirk) whose boyfriend (Ben Shenkman) has left him; a woman (Mary-Louise Parker) unhappily married to a closeted gay husband (Patrick Wilson); and real-life Republican power broker Roy Cohn (Al Pacino) — wrestle with big issues, including religion, sexuality, mortality, and American political history. An embarrassment of dramatic riches, Angels won Emmys and Golden Globes for seemingly everyone involved, including director Mike Nichols and playwright Tony Kushner. — Gary Susman

17 of 20

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (2003)

Battlestar Galactica | The four hours that kicked off a science-fiction revolution. Taking his cues from both Glen A. Larson's late-'70s TV series — about the remnants of — Everett Collection

The four hours that kicked off a science-fiction revolution. Taking his cues from both Glen A. Larson's late-'70s TV series — about the remnants of the human race desperately searching for Earth while being chased by the robotic Cylons — and America's post-9/11 anxieties, executive producer Ronald D. Moore concocted a show about human rights, religious conflict, genocide, and blowing the frak out of spaceships. Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell led a nimble cast of newcomers and veterans to an unjust zero Emmy nominations. Stupid Emmys. — Marc Bernardin

18 of 20

BLEAK HOUSE (2006)

Bleak House, Gillian Anderson | Gillian Anderson, carrying herself like an ornate, decrepit angel, drops the temperature 20 degrees each time she appears on screen in this Dickens adaptation. As — BBC

Gillian Anderson, carrying herself like an ornate, decrepit angel, drops the temperature 20 degrees each time she appears on screen in this Dickens adaptation. As the mournful lady of Bleak House, she has a secret — just like everyone trapped in the famously never-ending lawsuit of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce. The seven-hour miniseries gives the tale room to sprawl, as it must — past the crackling bones of bitter Smallweed (Phil Davis), around and around the courts and dance halls of Victorian London, and into the whispery, moaning homes where smallpox lives. Big, bawdy, mucky, stinky, full of false courtesy and genuine spite, Bleak House is absolutely, thrillingly Dickensian. — Gillian Flynn

19 of 20

JEKYLL (2007)

James Nesbitt | Made for the BBC, this haunting, evocative mini follows Dr. Jackman (James Nesbitt) who is fully aware of his curse — of the other, savage — BBC

Made for the BBC, this haunting, evocative mini follows Dr. Jackman (James Nesbitt) who is fully aware of his curse — of the other, savage version of himself that takes over from time to bloody time. Jackman's erected his life around it — restraining chair, video surveillance, lockdown bunker — and just as he hires a psych intern (a pre-Bionic Woman Michelle Ryan), his life spins off its carefully balanced axis. Written by Doctor Who mastermind Steven Moffit, Jekyll is the smartest take on an old horror tale to come down the pike in many a full moon. — Marc Bernardin

20 of 20

JOHN ADAMS (2008)

Laura Linney, Paul Giamatti | HBO knows its way around four-square Americana entertainment and their massive, masterful look at the life of the United States' second president. Paul Giamatti won — Kent Eanes

HBO knows its way around four-square Americana entertainment and their massive, masterful look at the life of the United States' second president. Paul Giamatti won both an Emmy and a Golden Globe (two of the many, many awards John Adams took down) as the title character: statesman, lawyer, and husband — to Laura Linney's Abigail. If only history came alive as vibrantly as this more often. — Marc Bernardin