The 10 U.K. Series That Need to Come to America in 2025

There are plenty of things to complain about in the streaming era. Too many series are canceled before they ever get the chance to find an audience. Seasons are shorter than ever, with substantial multi-year gaps in between episodes. Finding what you want to watch is challenging, and being a fan of British television generally means you have to divide your time (and money) between what often feels like an endless list of platforms and providers. But there's also never been a better time to be an Anglophile, if only because we've got access to an order of magnitude more content than we ever did before. 

In Ye Olden Times, when it came to shows that crossed the pond, British TV fans were often limited to whatever prestige dramas made their way to PBS's Masterpiece and the occasional genre series scooped up by a cable network like SYFY. (Doctor Who fans, in particular, likely remember struggling through poorly edited, commercial-ridden episodes aired months after their original broadcast in the early days of the modern reboot. A time!) So, if nothing else, we owe the rise of streaming a debt simply for bringing so much more of the British content we love to American shores and putting most of it at our fingertips. (Or Apple TV remotes.) 

We're positively spoiled for choice now, with popular procedurals, posh period pieces, and day-and-date broadcasts of some of the U.K.'s biggest shows. (Whovians have come a long way, is what I'm saying.) But even with more British television available to us than ever before, there are still a few egregious outliers that haven't managed to make their way to America yet and which U.S. fans (read: me) are chomping at the bit for the chance to see. These are the shows that absolutely need to find a way to cross the pond in 2025.

If there's one title on this list that it seems particularly impossible to believe doesn't already have an American distributor, it's King & Conqueror. A lavish eight-part drama about Harold Godwinson, the last of the Anglo-Saxon kings, and William the Conqueror, who defeated him at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and reshaped England as a result, it's a story that seemingly has it all. 

Boasting a prestige feel and an all-star cast that includes original Grantchester hot vicar James Norton as Harold and Game of Thrones alum Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as William, King & Conqueror aims to broaden our understanding of this pivotal moment in history through the events that led up to it. And there's plenty of drama to go around — a complicated succession crisis over who will inherit Edward the Confessor's throne, an interconnected family dynasty at war with itself, a shipwreck, a Viking invasion, and more. 

Everything about this show screams Showtime or Netflix, and the only real surprise is that no streamer has snapped it up yet.

The dystopian BBC drama The Way is perhaps the one title on this list that's the least likely to cross the pond anytime soon, no matter how much some of us (read: me) would like it to. It's not because the series is so offbeat and strange (which it is) but because it's so firmly tied to a specific location. The four-part drama, which marks the television directorial debut of Good Omens star Michael Sheen, is a story that's specifically Welsh and deliberately tied to the actor's hometown of Port Talbot, in south Wales. 

One part political thriller, one part dark fairytale, and one part dystopian horror story, The Way follows a Port Talbot family forced to flee their home when their Welsh community is gripped by civil unrest. Following the death of a teen at the local steelworks and the self-immolation of his father as an act of protest, lockdowns and riots give rise to a militarized border between England and Wales that makes crossing between the two impossible. 

The Driscolls must find a way to escape, all while wrestling with interfamily issues and the cultural question of what it means to leave a place that is so indelibly a part of one's personal identity. The series is a weird, ambitious mishmash of genres and themes. Though it may not be for everyone, its unconventional story makes it undoubtedly one of the more original dramas the BBC released this year.

Due to its very Welsh sensibilities, this one's perfect for BritBox.

One of the most popular trends in British mysteries these days is the crime drama that follows people with seemingly normal jobs who also help solve murders on the side. From vicars (Grantchester) and restaurant owners (Whitstable Pearl) to book publishers (Magpie Murders), these stories are full of everyday people who use the unique perspectives offered by their day jobs to help the police with their cases. 

The latest addition to this pantheon is Bookish, an Alibi series that appears so tailor-made for PBS that it's genuinely shocking to learn that it doesn't have an American broadcast home yet. The drama follows the perfectly named Gabriel Book, a gay bookshop owner in post-war London who uses his love of reading — and his easy access to a wide variety of research information — to fight crime.

The series stars Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss as Book alongside Bridgerton's Polly Walker as the wife who helps keep his sexuality a secret, and like many other recent period mysteries (Miss Scarlet, Vienna Blood), it uses its unique premise and setting to explore the unconventional, frequently marginalized characters that conventional crime dramas so often ignore. 

Masterpiece, PBS, BritBox, are you listening?

A rags to riches story from the creators of the popular new PBS take on All Creatures Great & Small, The Hardacres is basically targeted like a laser at viewers who have helped that show become so popular. If it feels as though both these series could likely co-exist in the same shared universe...well, that's probably not an accident.

Based on CL Skelton's novels, the series follows the story of the titular Hardacres, a down-on-their-luck rural family thrust into extraordinary circumstances when a radical new business idea suddenly makes them rich beyond their wildest dreams. With a sprawling cast of characters and a vibe that the producers describe as a “working-class Downton Abbey," it's the perfect mix of heartwarming and heartfelt, and we'll need a lot more of it in 2025 and beyond. 

This show probably belongs on PBS, maybe in the 10 p.m. slot following All Creatures now that Vienna Blood is over? We have no idea why this isn't happening already.

Former Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith has had a fascinating career since leaving the TARDIS back in 2013. Tackling roles that run the gamut from prestige (the first Prince Phillip in Netflix's The Crown) to the deeply ridiculous (whatever Morbius was), he's proven he can do pretty much anything. These days he's most frequently associated with his role as the controversial Daemon Targaryen on HBO's Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon, but the problematic dragon rider is not the only morally gray figure on his docket for 2025.

The actor will next be seen in the Sky Original series The Death of Bunny Munro, an adaptation of the Nick Cave novel of the same name. Smith stars as the titular Bunny Munro, a middle-aged alcoholic, sex addict, and door-to-door beauty product salesman who finds himself forced to care for his young son after his wife's suicide. The pair embark on a wild road trip across south England as they each struggle to process their grief in very different ways. 

The six-part series is described as a "darkly comic and unflinching modern-day parable," features an array of memorable, occasionally sleazy supporting characters, and seems tailor-made for a U.S. network like Paramount+ or Showtime. 

Thanks to whatever is going on over at Paramount+'s U.K. division these days, it's currently impossible to watch a fair amount of its original series. The streamer's international division canceled most of its programming back in February of this year, pulled most of its existing series off the service, and largely abandoned them. While it has since inexplicably started making new series — Curfew and The Crow Girl among them — the fate of previous programs like One Night, The Serial Killer's Wife, and Castaways remains up in the air.

Period thriller The Doll Factory is among those series that have seemingly vanished forever, no longer available to stream internationally and without a distribution home across the pond. Based on the novel by Elizabeth Macneal, it's a twisty tale of obsession, desire, and art in Victorian England. The story follows two sisters who make a living painting mourning dolls, a taxidermist with a shop full of wonders, and a painter in search of a muse. It's the sort of dark, creepy story we see often in contemporary drama but very rarely in a period-set piece, and it deserves a chance to find a larger audience than its previously brief life offered. 

The Doll Factory was initially made for Paramount+/Showtime, which means it'd do well on HBO and better on Netflix.

Though you likely haven't heard of some of the other series on this list, you're virtually guaranteed to be unfamiliar with The Red King, a crime drama from the U.K. network Alibi that mixes the familiar trappings of a traditional police procedural with a serious dash of folk horror. It's one of the weirder offerings on this list, but its willingness to do something different makes it worthy of a broader audience. 

The six-part series stars Anjli Mohindra (The Lazarus Project) as  DS Grace Narayan, a by-the-book detective posted to the fictitious island of St. Jory off the coast of Wales. It's a generally typical village, except for the fact that it's also home to a century-old pagan cult known as the True Way, which still celebrates festivals in ritual masks and is rumored to have once made frequent use of an open mineshaft in the center of town as part of their ceremonies. Things take a dark turn when a local boy goes missing, and none of the villagers seem all that fussed about tracking him down. If you think all this sounds a bit like The Wicker Man, you're not wrong. 

This one is a bit too odd for most (I can't see PBS touching it with a ten-foot pole; more's the pity). It's the sort of show that goes unnoticed on Sundance and AMC+, so perhaps we'd better hope Acorn TV wants it.

If the title The Gallows Pole sounds particularly familiar, it's probably because this is the second year in a row that this drama has appeared on our "U.K. shows that need to come to America ASAP" list. The three-part drama originally aired on the BBC in May 2023, but as 2024 draws to a close, U.S. viewers still seem no closer to seeing it for themselves. 

Based on the novel by Benjamin Myers, the historical drama stars Sophie McShera (Downton Abbey) and Michael Sochi (Being Human) and tells the story of a band of counterfeiters known as the Cragg Vale Coiners at the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Desperate to feed their families, the group began producing debased gold coins in their desperate Yorkshire town and perpetrated one of the biggest frauds in British history. 

Basically.... How has this not ended up on, say, AcornTV or HBO? 

For those of us who were longtime fans of the BBC adventure series Merlin, the chance to see its former star thriving is always a welcome one. Colin Morgan, who played the titular young wizard, has had an eclectic career since leaving Camelot behind, playing controversial and morally gray characters in everything from We Hunt Together and The Fall to The Killing Kind. 

He most recently appeared in the BBC drama Dead & Buried, a bonkers psychological thriller that certainly sounds as though it deserves to be seen by more people. The four-part series stars Annabel Scholey (The Sixth Commandment) as Cathy, a woman who is still haunted by the murder of her brother 20 years before. But when she runs into his killer, Michael McAllister (Morgan), in the shops one random Sunday, she learns he's been released from prison early and immediately vows revenge.

As Cathy stalks Michael and becomes increasingly dark and unhinged, the series poses questions about who we're meant to sympathize with and root for—the woman still grieving a lost loved one or the man who tried his best to atone for the wrong he once did.

This is a total BritBox show. Come through, please.

Given that creator Steven Knight is pretty much as close as you can get to a sure thing in the entertainment industry these days — outside of the juggernaut that is gangland drama Peaky Blinders, he's also responsible for bringing us Rogue Heroes, The Veil, a gritty Great Expectations featuring Olivia Colman, and the darkest take on A Christmas Carol that's probably ever been produced. It seems impossible for Knight to have a show that doesn't have a U.S. home after all of that. And yet! 

On paper, the idea behind This Town can seem a bit less accessible than some of Knight's other shows. (Though this is the same man who made a gang of small-time Birmingham gun runners into television icons.) Set in the early 1980s, the show follows four young people drawn into the world of ska and two-tone music, and its story of music as a catalyst of change during a time of social unrest is reportedly very near and dear to its creator's heart. Alongside its four leads, the cast also includes familiar faces like Nicholas Pinnock (Marcella) and Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey), who even sings. Don't we deserve to see that?

Does this show belong on FX? You betcha. Unfortunately, we have better odds that all episodes will get dumped with little fanfare and less warning on Hulu on a random Wednesday.