Curator Watchlist
A sharp, viciously funny, and emotionally bruising period satire that turns imperial Russia into a modern-feeling battlefield of ego, sex, power, and survival. It is especially rewarding if you like lavish production design, fast dialogue, and a show that swings between absurd comedy and genuine tragedy.
Where to watch: Buy
Fri
Created by: Tony McNamara
Starring: Elle Fanning, Nicholas Hoult, Phoebe Fox
A genre-bending, anti-historical ride through 18th century Russia following the rise of Catherine the Nothing to Catherine the Great and her explosive relationship with husband Peter, the emperor of Russia.
Tony McNamara
Elle Fanning, Nicholas Hoult, Phoebe Fox, Gwilym Lee, Adam Godley, Douglas Hodge, Belinda Bromilow, Bayo Gbadamosi
A sharp, viciously funny, and emotionally bruising period satire that turns imperial Russia into a modern-feeling battlefield of ego, sex, power, and survival. It is especially rewarding if you like lavish production design, fast dialogue, and a show that swings between absurd comedy and genuine tragedy.
The Great is one of the more distinctive period series of the last decade: knowingly anachronistic, gleefully profane, and often much sadder than its comic surface suggests. It uses Catherine and Peter’s marriage as a weaponized rom-com, then keeps widening the frame until the palace feels like a pressure cooker of vanity, ambition, and emotional damage.
The show’s biggest strength is its tone. Tony McNamara’s writing can be blistering, and Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult make the central relationship feel both ridiculous and genuinely dangerous. The costumes, sets, and visual flourishes are sumptuous, but the series is never just decorative; it’s always using style to underline the absurdity of power.
Season 1 is the cleanest entry point and the most immediately addictive. Season 2 deepens the emotional stakes and broadens the court politics, while Season 3 remains worthwhile but lands with the weight of a series that knows it may not get a tidy ending. Even so, it remains a very easy recommendation for viewers who like their history loud, nasty, and smart.
A sharp, female-driven period drama with bite, wit, and ruthless social maneuvering.
If the appeal is vicious power games, cruel humor, and emotional warfare, this is the modern benchmark.
Another period piece that uses modern sensibility, wit, and emotional sincerity to refresh history.
For viewers who want lush period excess, romance, and heightened drama with a glossy finish.
A more restrained but equally intelligent study of power, intimacy, and political survival in a royal court.
A more traditional companion piece for viewers interested in the same historical figure and imperial politics.
Opulent, sexually charged, and full of court intrigue with a similar appetite for scandal.
Lavish palace politics, erotic tension, and the spectacle of monarchy pushed to excess.
A sly, darkly comic period series about a woman clawing her way through a hostile power structure.
For the same mix of profane language, political maneuvering, and brutal human behavior in a historical setting.
A muscular, adult historical drama where politics, sex, and violence are inseparable.
Less comic, but similarly strong on institutional power, private misery, and the cost of rule.
power and corruption, marriage as warfare, female ambition, court politics, class and hierarchy, sexual politics, identity and self-invention, satire of empire
historical satire, dark comedy, period drama, prestige TV, court intrigue, anti-historical, bingeable, tonal blend, 18th century, female-led