Everything British Worth Streaming in May 2025

It's been a year since we first started seeing the streaming wars begin to take shape after a decade of upheaval, as the wheat started to separate from the chaff. Streaming's British offerings have been a microcosm of the larger overhaul of the business, and a window into the health of various platforms; Netflix's early success in 2014 was partly due to bringing over everything from BBC 2 wholesale, Disney+ officially stoped being a money losing proposition as British offerings like Doctor Who and everything on Hulu found itself under one app. Sadly, the converse is also true: Paramount+'s British series have dried up as the company prepares to be sold off; Peacock's U.K. offerings (with the sole exception of The Traitors) might as well not exist. 

However, the biggest alarm bells should be reserved for this month's lineup over at the little federation of niche streamers that reside under the AMC Networks umbrella. I've said multiple times that the only reason we don't hear more about AMC's troubles is that it's hard to notice a copse of trees falling when an entire mountain of content at Paramount is mid-avalanche next door. But after a year of AMC struggling to compete with BritBox's fast-growing library and endless lineup of new debuts from ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, and the BBC, there has been a slight collapse, with only Acorn TV managing to release a pair of new titles for Anglophiles, despite that being it's primary audience appeal. Meanwhile, it's other services, Sundance Now and friends, are quietly passing on new titles for the month.

However, that's not the most significant warning sign contained herein. Let's run down the May debuts and see who is losing titles and who is gaining them.

Harry Wild Season 4

The good news at the AMC Networks bunker is that Acorn TV is thriving with the titles it delivers. Its flagship show, Harry Wild, returns just in time to give the service a bump with a fourth round of mysteries-of-the-week to solve, Jane Seymour as the titular Harry, and Rohan Nedd as her sidekick, Fergus. Acorn even commissioned a companion series, Relative Secrets, in which the real Seymour hosts a series featuring real-life investigations into mysteries similar to those her counterpart solves every week. Harry Wild debuts with two episodes on Monday, May 5, 2025, followed by one episode a week into June, exclusively on Acorn TV. Relative Secrets will stream on Acorn TV and AMC+ and air on BBC America starting Wednesday, May 29, 2025. 

Boglands/Cra

Acorn TV has only one other new title debuting in May, a dual-language series filmed in both English and Irish Gaelic. The series was called Crá in the U.K. when it debuted on BBC Gaeilge and TG4, and though "Crá" translates to "Torment," the producers have retitled it Boglands for American audiences. The series stars Dónall Ó Héalai as Garda Conall Ó Súilleabháin, who arrives at a crime scene where a woman's body has been pulled from the marshes, only to realize it is his mother, Sabine, who has been missing for 15 years. Boglands debuts with two episodes on Monday, May 26, 2025, on Acorn TV, with one episode a week to follow through the end of June.

Bono: Stories of Surrender

We noted the Bono documentary, Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, when it debuted a few months back on Disney+, so it only seems fair that we also note the follow up, Bono: Stories of Surrender, a documentary film covering the one man show he's been performing (Stories of Surrender: An Evening of Words, Music and Some Mischief) based on the 2023 album of the same name. Apple TV+ is going all out for this film, premiering it at Cannes, and while Bono might not be a Beatle, one should expect Apple TV+ to treat this just like it does its Beatles fare. The documentary premieres on Apple TV+ on Tuesday, May 30, 2025.

Motherland Season 1-3

Regular readers of this site may recall Amandaland, the follow-up series to Motherland, a show that initially aired on Sundance back when streaming hadn't fully rolled out in early 2016. It was a decision that left the comedy stuck on Sundance Now for Seasons 2 and 3. At the time, we assumed Amandaland was destined for the same fate... until BritBox announced that it was acquiring all three seasons of Motherland from AMC Networks, rolling out the series one season at a time in May 2025. Amandaland is almost certainly bound to follow. (If we're lucky, more of Sundance Now will move to BritBox soon.) Motherland will arrive in batches on consecutive Fridays: Season 1 on May 2, Season 2 on May 9, and Season 3 on May 16, 2025.

TV BAFTAs 2025

The other half of the British Academy Film & Television Awards arrives as the TV season draws to a close at the end of May. Although the awards ceremony is still scheduled for a time slot on the calendar that aligns with a June-May eligibility period, the BAFTAs have long since adopted a calendar year structure. That means these awards will include nominations for Rivals, Slow Horses, The Responder, Mr. Bates vs the Post Office, and, for the final time, Shogun. The awards show, along with the red carpet, streams live on BritBox starting at 2 p.m. ET on Sunday, May 11, 2025.

Make It At Market Season 3

We aren't big into reality (pardon me, "unscripted") series here at Telly Visions, but we'd be remiss not to note the return of Make it at Market for Season 3. Like Beyond Paradise and Sister Boniface Mysteries, Make it at Market is a spinoff of one of the BBC's most popular series, in this case, The Repair Shop. The series, which teaches home crafters how to turn their passions for hands-on work into a business, has been nothing short of a smashing success, leading us to wonder why BritBox isn't bringing us The Great British Sewing Bee already. Make it at Market Season 3 debuts on Wednesday, May 21, 2025.

Death Valley

It's already May, and yet Death Valley, BritBox's answer to Only Murders in the Building, still does not have a release date. The Welsh-set series features Timothy Spall as British national treasure John Chapel of the stage and screen, who once played DCI Caesar in a long-running procedural. But when DS Janie Mallowan (Gwyneth Keyworth) is desperate to solve a case (any case) and keep her job, it turns out a TV detective might be exactly what she needs. May TBD.

Welcome to Wrexham Season 4

Soccer fans will already have heard that Wrexham AFC has gone full Cinderella story, landing the team's third promotion in three straight years, moving them out of the 5th tier, where it had been mired since the turn of the century, to EFL League Two, to EFL League One, and now to the Championship League, a place the team hasn’t been since 1980. Welcome to Wrexham's fourth season, which now has a permanent spot airing in May, just after the season ends, will cover all the drama it took to get there. Welcome to Wrexham Season 4 debuts with two episodes on Thursday, May 15, 2025, on FX at 9 p.m. ET, and streaming the next day on Hulu. The series will continue with one episode a week through the end of June.

Nine Perfect Strangers Season 2

Nicole Kidman and her weirdo Australian-set series Nine Perfect Strangers is back on Hulu for a second season. Season 1 was based on the 2018 novel of the same name by Australian writer Liane Moriarty. When (like Big Little Lies) the series proved so popular, the network wanted more, Kidman took all the lessons of the BLL Season 2 debacle and made Nine Perfect Strangers an anthology series. This season will bring nine new strangers (including Lena Olin, Mark Strong, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, and Henry Golding) to a wellness retreat, this time set in the Australian Alps, where Kidman will torture them in ways different from Season 1. Two episodes debut Wednesday, May 21, 2025, with one a week to follow into July.

Britain & The Blitz

Once again, Netflix manages to have at least one documentary on British history worth checking out, even if you have already seen numerous World War II documentaries. Britain & the Blitz brings the immersive feel and first-person accounts in color, among other features. The documentary premieres on Monday, May 5, 2025. 

Dept. Q

Netflix's reliance on British shows is nowhere near the levels of 2014, but even though the number of U.K. produced series has shrunk, those that remain seem to be the biggest hits of the year. (See also The Gentlemen, The Diplomat, and Black Doves.) Department Q (or "Dept. Q" as Netflix is now styling it) hopes to add to the list, with Matthew Goode starring as DCI Carl Morck. Goode is joined by an all-star cast in an English language adaptation of Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen's ten-book series set in Scotland instead of Norway. All episodes of the show's first season debut on Monday, May 29, 2025.

Netflix's TUDUM

Listen, I know the Tudum name is godawful — someone too high up came up with it thinking they were being clever, naming the in-house answer to San Diego ComicCon after the sound that plays before every show, and no one could talk them out of it. (It's as if HBO held an event every year called Hisssss-Awwwwwwww.) However, after years of putting the event on YouTube, literally handing all those eyeballs to one of Netflix's most significant competitors (YouTube = owned by Google!), the company finally wised up and but their variety show of plugs for shows coming in the second half of the year on their own platform. To preview what's coming in British fare, the marketing ploy streams live on Wednesday, May 31, 2025. 

The network that airs and streams Murdoch Mysteries months before it hits Acorn TV has a new addition: Return to Paradise, the second spinoff of Death in Paradise. Unlike Beyond Paradise, which solves crimes within a commutable distance of London, this one is just as far-flung as its parent series, located in the beautiful Dolphin's Cove in Australia. It's also less of a direct spinoff than Beyond Paradise, which stars Kris Marshall, one of Death in Paradise's many ex-leads. This "close cousin" series features Aussie actor Anna Samson, who returns to the last place she wants to be: home. Since it is still a linear-based network, Ovation will premiere the series on Friday, May 2, 2025, at 7 p.m. ET, and stream the episode the next day on the Ovation app, with one episode a week to follow through mid-June. 

Black Bag

Technically, Black Bag is an American-made movie about British spies in the U.S. and directed by Steven Soderbergh. However, the all-British cast makes it worth catching now that it's on streaming. The roster includes Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, and Pierce Brosnan; the plot involves British intelligence officer George Woodhouse investigating the leak of a top-secret software program code-named Severus with the top suspect being his wife. The film debuts on Peacock on Friday, May 2, 2025.

Eurovision 2025

If it's May, it's time once again for Eurovision, the WWE's music-based international cousin, where the acts stand in for the countries they represent, and the European population gets to vote based on how they feel about the current political climate while dancing to some of the finest Europop club beats to be found. The 2025 edition will be extra fun, as the designated country everyone hates isn't Israel this time: it's us Americans, who the European Broadcast Union was angling to join the competition... until November 2024 anyway. As always, the Eurovision schedule features two semi-finals on Tuesday, May 13 and Thursday, May 15, followed by the Grand Final on Saturday, May 17, 2025. All three start at 3 p.m. ET.