We’ve gathered up the period dramas that are newly included with your US Prime Video membership in December 2023, January and February 2024. We also include titles that can be watched for free with Freevee, no subscription needed.
Then, we share the historical / costume / period dramas that are newly available on Prime Video Add-On Channels, are available to rent, and movies and TV series in the genre that are being released to DVD this winter.
Check this list throughout the season; we’ll update all the sections (alphabetically) as more titles become available. If some of these titles look familiar, it’s because they were previously available with Prime Video, were pulled off, and now they are back.
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To watch the trailers for the movies and TV series on this list, read further descriptions and add them to your watchlist, just click on “Watch the TRAILER” and “Add to your WATCHLIST.” This is a US-based list, but if you live in Canada or the UK, you can also use our links to check availability in your country.
Finally, we list some newly added non-period movies and series like British shows and romances that you may also like, that are included with your Amazon Prime Video membership.
From British costume dramas to sweeping romantic epics, there’s a lot here by the end of the season; we hope this list helps you discover more period dramas to love.
The fall Prime Video list is here. Also see the list of Period Dramas New on Netflix Winter 2024.
Those who are new here should know that Willow and Thatch also has a special section for period dramas that have been added recently or are coming to different streaming services. See the “New to Streaming” drop-down menu at the top of the page.
Period Dramas Added in December 2023
Newly available historical, costume and period dramas (movies and TV series) that are included with your Prime Video membership, or can be watched for free with ads on Freevee (formerly IMDb TV).
This 3-episode BBC adaptation of DH Lawrence’s novel tells of the passions and fortunes of a Midlands farming family at the turn of the century. Ursula Brangwen, nearing the end of her schooldays, is strongly attracted to the son of a family friend. When he leaves to fight in the Boer War, Ursula forms a close attachment with her teacher, Winifred Inger.
Starring Imogen Stubbs, Clare Holman, Martin Wenner.
Rated 13+
Available December 9
In this 8-episode BBC adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s timeless novel, three young people experience life, love and loss against the epic backdrop of Russia’s wars with Napoleon. As Napoleon’s army advances on Russia the fortunes of five aristocratic families rise and fall, changing them forever. The young members of these families seek to find meaning in their lives.
Starring Paul Dano, Lily James, James Norton.
Rated TV-14
Available December 8
December 1: The Magnificent Seven (1960). December 9: The Adventures of Marco Polo (1938). December 12: Asteroid City (2023).
Our new-in-December Freevee picks: December 1: Nicholas Nickleby (2002). December 8: Lines of Wellington (2012). December 31: The Waltons (Season 1 – 9)
Period Dramas Added in January 2024
Newly available historical, costume and period dramas (movies and TV series) that are included with your Prime Video membership, or can be watched for free with ads on Freevee (formerly IMDb TV).
Harlem of the ’70s comes alive in this romantic story of pregnant Tish and her crusade to free her fiancé, Fonny. Young Tish embraces her pregnancy while she and her family set out to prove her childhood friend and lover innocent of a crime he didn’t commit. Based on the book by James Baldwin.
Starring KiKi Layne, Stephan James, Regina King, Teyonah Parris, Ethan Barrett.
Rated 18+
Available January 1
This feature film tells the love story set in 1930s England that follows 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain, and the fortunes of her eccentric family, struggling to survive in a decaying English castle.
Starring Romola Garai, Henry Thomas, Rose Byrne, Bill Nighy.
Rated R for brief nudity
Available January 21
This powerful historical drama depicts the epic battle for the throne in Tudor England between Elizabeth I and her Catholic cousin, Mary Stuart. During the sixteenth century, the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots engages in over two decades of religious and political conflict with her cousin, the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I of England, amidst political intrigue in her native land. Nominated for 5 Oscars.
Starring Vanessa Redgrave, Glenda Jackson, Patrick McGoohan, Timothy Dalton.
Rated PG-13
Available January 1
Biography of children’s author Beatrix Potter, including how she overcame a domineering mother and the chauvinism of Victorian England to become a best-selling author.
Starring Renee Zellweger, Ewan McGregor, Emily Watson.
Rated PG
Available January 21
In 1947 in a Sussex village, a retired Sherlock Holmes lives languidly with his housekeeper and her young son. While battling the beginnings of dementia, Holmes is haunted by a 30-year old case and the memory of a mysterious woman.
Starring Ian McKellen, Laura Linney, Hiroyuki Sanada.
Rated PG
Available January 26
With some money in her pocket after the death of her husband, Mrs. Laura Henderson buys a theater and hires the irascible theater manager Vivian Van Damm to run the business, despite bad blood between the two. Henderson has a hit on her hands when she decides to add beautiful nude women to the stage shows at her Windmill Theatre. Though they are touched by tragedy, Henderson and her company bravely keep the theater active during the 1940-’41 Blitz of London.
Starring Judi Dench, Bob Hoskins, Kelly Reilly, Will Young.
Rated R for nudity and brief language
Available January 21
Simone Veil’s life story through the pivotal events of Twentieth Century. An intimate and epic portrait of an extraordinary woman who eminently challenged and transformed her era defending a humanist message still keenly relevant today.
Starring Elsa Zylberstein, Rebecca Marder, Olivier Gourmet, Elodie Bouchez.
Rated 18+
Available January 18
In early 20th-century rural Scotland, young Chris Guthrie dreams of becoming a teacher but is held back by a brutal, religious father and her love of the land. But her new marriage and whole way of life are threatened by the outbreak of World War I, encroaching on her world. An epic story of love, loss and the land that inspired it all.
Starring Agyness Deyn, Peter Mullan, Kevin Guthrie, Tom Duncan.
Rated R for sexuality, nudity and some violence
Available January 15
In this playful new Spanish-language series, Diego de la Vega is the chosen one to become the new Zorro. He encounters obstacles in his quest for truth and justice while trying to regain the affection of his beloved Lolita. As the new Zorro, Diego strives to become the hero of the repressed in the multicultural and changing 19th century California.
Starring Miguel Bernardeau, Renata Notni, Dalia Xiuhcoatl.
Rated 13+
Available January 19
January 1: 42 (2013), Chaplin (1993), Judgment At Nuremberg (1961), Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013), The Eagle (2011), Valkyrie (2008). January 16: The Last King (2016). January 21: The Rainbow (1989), Lizzie (2018), The Three Musketeers (2011), Lady Macbeth (2017), The Reader (2009), Miss Julie (2014), Dorian Gray (2010), Kon-Tiki (2013), Yves Saint Laurent (2014), and the partially period-set The Red Violin (1999) and Woman in Gold (2015). January 22: The Private Life of Samuel Pepys (2003), Byron (2003), Dickensian (Season 1), Ivanhoe (1997), The Musketeers (Seasons 1 – 3), Bleak Old Shop of Stuff (Season 1), Crime and Punishment (2002). January 23: The documentary The Private Lives of The Tudors (Season 1). January 25: Little House on the Prairie (Seasons 1 – 9), The Imitation Game (2014). January 29: Stratton Castle: The Tale of Jessie Golden Heart (2020).
For a limited time, watch the first episode of Monsieur Spade (Season 1) for free: Twenty years after the events of the novel The Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade has retired in the small town of Bozouls in the South of France. It’s 1963, the war has ended, and in a very short time, so, too, will Spade’s tranquility.
Our new-in-January Freevee picks: Helene (2020); A story of renowned Finnish painter Helene Schjerfbeck, and the love affair between her and a younger art critic Einar Reuter, and The Second Sun (2019): Two lost souls meet one cold night in Post-war Manhattan. Before dawn deep rooted secrets will be revealed.
For Freevee family viewing, try the BBC series Five Children and It (1991), a dramatisation of E Nesbit’s children’s novel. While playing in a sand pit, a group of siblings discover a sand fairy, thousands of years old and with the power to grant wishes, and Leonardo (Seasons 1 & 2): Following a teenage Leonardo da Vinci and set against the breath-taking backdrop of 15th century Florence, this series is far from a typical period drama. Bursting with mystery, adventure, comedy, and even a slowly unfolding love triangle, the show charts the exploits of history’s most dynamic group of teens: streetwise Mac, painter Lisa, rich kid Lorenzo, and a young Leonardo da Vinci.
Period Dramas Added in February 2024
Newly available historical, costume and period dramas (movies and TV series) that are included with your Prime Video membership, or can be watched for free with ads on Freevee (formerly IMDb TV).
A 6-episode BBC series. A ribald and rowdy romp through the mansions and taverns of Georgian England. Henry Fielding’s fallen hero bed-hops his way out of a good home and almost into a hangman’s noose, via a series of misadventures and misunderstandings.
Starring Max Beesley, Samantha Morton, Benjamin Whitlow.
Rated TV-14
Available February 1
A 1940s-set BBC whodunnit based on the novel by Ngaio Marsh. The aristocratic detective Chief Inspector Alleyn and his assistants investigate a series of crimes, the detective moving casually through the world of high society.
Starring Patrick Malahide, William Simons, Belinda Lang, Michael Elwyn.
Rated TV-14
Available February 1
A 6-episode BBC series. Aden 1965. This is the story of a British army unit quashing a Yemeni fight for independence in the Middle East and the women and children who were there with them.
Starring Jessie Buckley, Jeremy Neumark Jones, Tom Glynn-Carney, Stephan Campbell Moore.
Rated TV-14
Available February 1
In this British romantic period drama from Jane Austen, Fanny, born into a poor family, is sent away to live with wealthy uncle Sir Thomas, his wife and their four children, where she’ll be brought up for a proper introduction to society. She is treated unfavorably by her relatives, except for her cousin Edmund, whom she grows fond of. However, Fanny’s life is thrown into disarray with the arrival of worldly Mary Crawford and her brother Henry.
Starring Frances O’Connor, Jonny Lee Miller, Harold Pinter, Lindsay Duncan, Alessandro Nivola.
Rated PG-13
Available February 1
In this Oscar-winning film set beginning in the 1930s, no one expects much from Christy Brown, a boy with cerebral palsy born into a working-class Irish family. Though Christy is a spastic quadriplegic and essentially paralyzed, a miraculous event occurs when, at the age of 5, he demonstrates control of his left foot by using chalk to scrawl a word on the floor. With the help of his steely mother — and no shortage of grit and determination — Christy overcomes his infirmity to become a painter, poet and author.
Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Brenda Fricker, Declan Croghan, Hugh O’Conor.
Rated R for profanity
Available February 1
Set in the 1960s, this British medical drama follows the staff and patients of St. Aidan’s Royal Free Hospital.
Starring Wendy Craig, Robert Daws, Amy Robbins.
Rated 16+
Available February 12
An Oscar-nominated film set in rural Louisiana during the Depression, this heartfelt story tells of a sharecropper family struggling to overcome adversity. After stealing to feed his family, Nathan is sent to a prison camp. In their fight for survival, his determined wife and their eldest son hold the family together. Once the boy becomes an adult, he searches for his father but instead discovers manhood.
Starring Cicley Tyson, Paul Winfeld, Kevin Hooks.
Rated G
Available February 4
Emmy Award®-winning writer Andrew Davies brings Jane Austen’s unfinished last novel vividly to life. The once-sleepy fishing village of Sanditon is transforming into a fashionable spa resort full of intrigues and dalliances. Changing alongside it is the impulsive and unconventional Charlotte Heywood, who journeys to discover herself–and find love on her own terms. 8 episodes, shown on PBS Masterpiece.
Starring Rose Williams, Theo James, Kris Marshall.
Rated TV-14
Available February 1 for a limited time
A 6-episode BBC series set in Britain, 1958. Relations with Russia are charged with suspicion and fear. As a Russian émigré, businessman Samuel Petrukin is determined to integrate his young family into the establishment. But are his glamorous, upper-class new friends all they seem?
Starring Toby Stephens, Keeley Hawes, Linus Roache.
Rated TV-14
Available February 1
A vibrant and outrageously fun tale of love and life set in the hidden, decadent world of bohemian London in the 1890s. This 3-episode miniseries from BBC is a tempestuous love story between Victorian women, based on the same-titled novel by Sarah Waters and adapted for TV by Andrew Davies.
Starring Rachael Stirling, Keeley Hawes, Jodhi May.
Rated TV-MA
Available February 4
February 1: White Mischief (1988), Fiddler on the Roof (1971), A Scandal in Paris (1946), Quigley Down Under (1990), The Alamo (1960), The Bounty (1984), The Elephant Man (1980), The Great Train Robbery (1979). February 6: Surrounded (2023), My Week with Marilyn (2011). February 15: Crusoe (Season 1), The Amazing Mr. Blunden (1972), Mail Order Bride (2008). February 19: The Two Faces of January (2014). February 21: For The Greater Glory (2012). February 28: Victoria (Season 1), The Redemption of Henry Myers (2014).
Also available February 1, is the period-inspired Hallmark movie Unleashing Mr. Darcy (2016).
For a limited time, watch the first episode of The Confessions of Frannie Langton. Read our REVIEW.
Our new-in-February Freevee picks: February 1: Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1982), A Soldier’s Story (1984), Birthright Outlaw (2023), The Current War (2017).
Also for a limited time, watch the first episodes of Season 1 of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Doctor Finlay, and Agatha Christie’s Marple.
Period Dramas New to Prime Video Channels
This section contains period dramas added in December 2023, January and February 2024 (movies and TV series) that are included with add-on Prime Video Channels. If you don’t already subscribe to the channel, click “Add to your WATCHLIST” to sign up for a free trial.
AcornTV: Doctor Finlay (Season 4): As the delightful Scottish period drama comes to a close, Dr. Finlay and his colleagues contend with everything from an abandoned baby to a deathbed murder confession. Add to your WATCHLIST Available January 15
AcornTV: Monsieur Spade (Season 1): Starring and executive produced by Golden Globe®, SAG® and BAFTA® Award-winner Clive Owen (The Knick) as the hard-boiled private detective Sam Spade, “Monsieur Spade” centers around the infamous protagonist of American writer Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 classic novel The Maltese Falcon. Sam Spade has retired in the small town of Bozouls in the South of France. It’s 1963, the war has ended, and in a very short time, so, too, will Spade’s tranquility. Add to your WATCHLIST Available January 14
BritBox: Father Brown (Season 11): In the beautiful Cotswolds, our charismatic clergyman sleuth has plenty of investigations to keep him busy, including a real-life crime at a crime writing festival a deadly village rivalry. Meanwhile, Chief Inspector Sullivan and Mrs Devine have grown closer – something that hasn’t escaped the notice of Father Brown and Brenda. Add to your WATCHLIST Available January 5
MGM+: Belgravia: The Next Chapter (Season 1): Belgravia, 1871. When Lord Frederick Trenchard meets Clara Dunn, their courtship is full of passion. But after they marry, the scandalous world of high society and a long-buried family secret threaten to unravel their happiness. Read more about it. Add to your WATCHLIST Available January 14
PBS Masterpiece: Agatha Christie: Lucy Worsley on the Mystery Queen: Lucy Worsley turns her historian’s powers of investigation onto the mysterious figure of Agatha Christie, who defined the detective genre for over a century. But the real woman behind the literary persona has long remained an enigma. For the first time Agatha Christie and her art are forensically examined, providing a unique portrait of a society in flux. Read more about it. Add to your WATCHLIST Available December 17
PBS Masterpiece: All Creatures Great and Small (Season 4): Spring 1940. With Europe at war and Tristan away serving, Siegfried and James bring in some extra hands to help around the practice: highly efficient bookkeeper Miss Harbottle, and student vet Richard Carmody. Happily married Helen and James begin to think about their future despite the looming possibility that James could be called up to serve. Read more about it. Add to your WATCHLIST Available January 7 – Full bingable series by February 18th.
PBS Masterpiece: Bad Apples (Season 1): In 1970s Finland, student activist Onerva is sent to a psychiatric institution against her will. Are the women sent to this island there to be silenced, or are they actually mentally ill? As Onerva grapples with her own sanity, her treatment begins to blur her perception of reality. From Walter Presents, in Finnish with English subtitles. Add to your WATCHLIST Available January 26
PBS Masterpiece: Funny Woman (Season 1): It’s the height of the swinging 60s and Barbara Parker has just been crowned Miss Blackpool – but she’s certain there has to be more to life than being a beauty queen in a seaside town. With the bright lights of London calling, Barbara packs her bags and heads off to the city where she looks to take on the male-dominated world of comedy by storm. Add to your WATCHLIST Available January 7th
PBS Masterpiece: Hotel Europa (Season 1): Based on actual events that helped shape Germany between the wars, this is the dramatic chronicle of a hotel frequented by Charlie Chaplin, Konrad Adenauer, and Adolf Hitler. From Walter Presents, in German with English subtitles. Add to your WATCHLIST Available December 8
PBS Masterpiece: In Flanders Field (Season 1): 15-year-old Marie dreams of becoming a doctor, but becomes a nurse at the front line. When the Germans occupy their home, she must find a balance between her world and her family. From Walter Presents, in Dutch with English subtitles. Add to your WATCHLIST Available February 16
PBS Masterpiece: Inspector Ricciardi (Season 2): In 1930s Naples, police commissioner Luigi Alfredo Ricciardi possesses a unique talent. He can see the ghosts of people who have died violent deaths and listen to their final thoughts. Shrouded in an air of mystery that drive most away, he never laughs and his heart beats for two women. From Walter Presents, in Italian with English subtitles. Add to your WATCHLIST Available January 19
PBS Masterpiece: Love and Sacrifice (Season 4): From the last year of the Belle Époque, throughout the inferno of World War One, the series protagonists will live out their passions with staggering intensity, just like the epic nature of this extraordinary time. Set against the striking backdrop of the Carrara marble quarries, this is the story of Brando and his revolt to improve working conditions across Italy. Will love blind him from his mission, or embolden him to push further? From Walter Presents, in Italian with English subtitles. Add to your WATCHLIST Available February 9
PBS Masterpiece: Miss Friman’s War (Season 2): Dagmar returns to Sweden a headstrong suffragette. When she is exposed to further injustices around her, she realizes what her mission in life is: to open Swedish Homes, a co-op grocery store for women, run by women. In Season 2, the labor movement is in full swing, buy working women are left out. Miss Friman and the others are challenging prostitution laws that protect men and victimize women on the streets. Opinions and romances begin to clash with old friendships. From Walter Presents, in Swedish with English subtitles. Add to your WATCHLIST Available December 15th
PBS Masterpiece: Miss Scarlet and the Duke (Season 4): Miss Eliza Scarlet has taken over the business of Nash & Sons (not that he has any sons) and while things are not going entirely smoothly, help comes from some familiar sources. Outside of work, her relationship with William Wellington, aka the Duke, builds towards a looming decision that will shape both their lives. Read more about it. Add to your WATCHLIST Available January 7 – Full bingable series by February 11th.
PBS Masterpiece: Sisi Austrian Empress (Season 2): An heir to the throne at last! But what should be a joyous moment for Sisi and Franz is soon overshadowed by the threat of a new war in Europe. Sisi tries her best to be there for her husband and her people. But when she travels to Hungary on a political mission and rediscovers the light-heartedness of her childhood, the allure of Count Andrassy starts to become increasingly hard resist… Add to your WATCHLIST Available February 2
New Period Dramas to Rent
This section contains period dramas added in December 2023, January and February 2024 (movies and TV series) that are newly available to rent on Prime Video, or have had a significant price drop. Click on the titles for trailers and descriptions, and to add films to to your watchlist.
FEUD (Season 2): “Capote Vs. The Swans” tells the story of acclaimed writer Truman Capote, once a confidante to society’s most elite women, whom he nicknamed “the swans.” However, his act of betrayal effectively destroyed those relationships, banished him from high society and sent him into a spiral of self-destruction from which he would ultimately never recover. Add to your WATCHLIST
Monsieur Spade (Season 1): Twenty years after the events of the novel The Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade has retired in the small town of Bozouls in the South of France. It’s 1963, the war has ended, and in a very short time, so, too, will Spade’s tranquility. Add to your WATCHLIST
Poor Things (2024): The incredible tale of Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), a young woman brought back to life by a brilliant and unorthodox scientist. Seeking the worldliness she is lacking, Bella runs off on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, Bella grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation. Add to your WATCHLIST
The Road Dance (2023): In a small Scottish village at the dawn of World War I, Kirsty (Hermione Corfield) yearns for adventure and another life across the ocean. When the village hosts a road dance for departing soldiers, the sense of community is soon shattered by an unspeakable incident that changes Kirsty’s life forever. Add to your WATCHLIST
Separate But Equal (Season 1): Based on the ground-breaking Brown vs. the Board of Education case in 1954, SEPARATE BUT EQUAL follows a young Thurgood Marshall, the lawyer who argued the racially-charged lawsuit before the Supreme Court. Add to your WATCHLIST
Vikings Valhalla (Season 2): Enemies — old and new — await Freydis, Leif and Harald as they scatter to the far corners of the globe in pursuit of power and new worlds to conquer. Add to your WATCHLIST
New Period Drama DVD Releases
This section contains a selection of historical, costume, and period dramas and other titles of interest that are being released this season to DVD and Blu-ray.
A Haunting in Venice (2023): Kenneth Branagh stars as celebrated sleuth Hercule Poirot in this terrifying mystery set after World War II. Retired and living in Venice, Italy, Poirot reluctantly attends a seance where a murdered guest thrusts the detective into a sinister, shadowy world. Read our REVIEW Available HERE
Little Bird (2023): In 1968, five-year-old Bezhig Little Bird was forcibly removed from Long Pine Reserve and adopted into a Jewish family in Montreal, and renamed Esther Rosenblum. Eighteen years later, she embarks on a journey to unravel her history. Read more about it. Available HERE
The Road Dance (2023): Based on the novel by John MacKay, this powerful drama from the UK focuses on Kirsty Macleod (Hermione Corfield), a young woman living a hardscrabble life on the Outer Hebrides in the early part of the 20th century. Kirsty is left forever changed when she falls victim to a violent sexual assault, just as the man (Will Fletcher) she loves is about to leave to serve during World War I. Mark Gatiss, Morven Christie, Ali Fumiko Whitney co-star. Available HERE
Other Shows You May Also Like
This section contains a curated list of movies and TV series newly included on Prime, that are NOT period dramas. We think fans of period and costume dramas will enjoy them just the same. Follow the links to watch the trailers. You may also like:
Available in December: December 1: 7th Heaven (1997), Candy Cane Lane (2023), Little Man Tate (1991), Made of Honor (2008). December 14: Breath of Life (2023). December 21: Gigolò per caso (2023).
Available in January: January 1: Notting Hill (1999), 1984 (1985), It’s A Wonderful Life (1947), Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009), Forrest Gump (1994), One Fine Morning (2022), Pitch Perfect (2012), To Sir, With Love (1967). January 16: Burn After Reading (2008).
Available in February: February 1: Annie Hall (1977), A Chorus Line (1985), Eat Pray Love (2010), Get Out (2017), In The Cut (2003), Red Rocket (2021), Sarafina! (1992), The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1977). February 2: Mr & Mrs Smith (2024). February 7: Home Again (2017). February 12: Father Ted (Seasons 1 – 3), Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets (2021).
If you enjoyed this post, be sure to see The Period Films List, with the best British period dramas, historical and costume movies and TV series sorted by era.
