Curator Watchlist
A warm, emotionally intelligent adaptation that blends period comfort with sharper themes of trauma, identity, gender, class, and belonging. It is especially rewarding for viewers who like literary adaptations with strong character work and a sincere, hopeful tone, though its heightened sentiment and occasionally… Read more
Where to watch: Buy
Sun
Created by: Moira Walley-Beckett
Starring: Amybeth McNulty, Geraldine James, R.H. Thomson
A coming-of-age story about an outsider who, against all odds and numerous challenges, fights for love and acceptance and for her place in the world. The series centers on a young orphaned girl in the late 1890s, who, after an abusive childhood spent in orphanages and the homes of strangers, is mistakenly sent to live with an elderly woman and her aging brother. Over time, 13-year-old Anne will transform their lives and eventually the small town in which they live with her unique spirit, fierce intellect and brilliant imagination.
Moira Walley-Beckett
Amybeth McNulty, Geraldine James, R.H. Thomson, Lucas Jade Zumann, Joanna Douglas
A warm, emotionally intelligent adaptation that blends period comfort with sharper themes of trauma, identity, gender, class, and belonging. It is especially rewarding for viewers who like literary adaptations with strong character work and a sincere, hopeful tone, though its heightened sentiment and occasionally modern sensibility may not suit purists.
Anne with an E is a lush, compassionate reimagining of Anne of Green Gables that leans into the emotional and social realities beneath the story’s pastoral charm. It gives Anne’s imagination real dramatic force while also making room for grief, abuse, prejudice, and the slow work of healing. The result is a series that feels both classic and contemporary, with a strong sense of place and a clear moral center.
Amybeth McNulty is the key to the show’s success: spirited, vulnerable, funny, and never merely precious. The supporting cast gives the world real texture, especially in the early seasons as Green Gables and Avonlea become a community shaped by Anne’s presence. The series is at its best when it balances whimsy with emotional honesty, and when it lets its quieter relationships breathe.
Across its three seasons, the show remains consistently watchable and often moving, though some viewers may find its later social-issue emphasis a little more overt than the gentler rhythms of the source material. Even so, it stands out as one of the more thoughtful family-period dramas of recent years, with enough heart and craft to make the cancellation feel premature.
A similarly warm, literary, character-centered period adaptation with strong emotional intelligence and a focus on sisterhood, growth, and domestic life.
A sweeping period drama with romance, community tensions, and a strong sense of place, balancing melodrama with social and emotional stakes.
Earnest, humane, and emotionally generous, with recurring themes of community, hardship, and resilience in a period setting.
A gentle, ensemble-driven historical drama that finds richness in small-town relationships, wit, and compassion.
A classic literary adaptation with strong romantic tension, class consciousness, and a polished period-drama sensibility.
A lush, emotionally accessible period series with a strong heroine, social mobility themes, and romantic intrigue.
For viewers who enjoy elegant period storytelling, ensemble dynamics, and the interplay of class, family, and social change.
A cozy, community-focused historical drama with warmth, nostalgia, and a strong sense of everyday life.
An especially close tonal cousin: rural warmth, moral clarity, and a child-centered world shaped by imagination and community.
The definitive earlier adaptation for viewers who want a more traditional, beloved take on the same material.
A family-friendly frontier period drama with earnest romance, community-building, and an optimistic tone.
A breezy, affectionate family series about eccentricity, adaptation, and the joys and frictions of unconventional domestic life.
coming of age, found family, identity, belonging, trauma and healing, imagination, class and gender, community
period drama, literary adaptation, family drama, coming-of-age, heartwarming, social issues, Victorian era, character-driven, emotional, hopeful