11 TV Series Based on English-Class Favorites, Ranked

This man-hunting-man series makes the unsurprising but uninspired choice to move the action from the desert Caribbean island of Richard Connell’s short story to a big American city. Christoph Waltz plays a bad guy as deliciously as he always does, but otherwise, Most Dangerous Game is a most generic action thriller.

Though its cast members aren’t all household names — Armand Assante and Greta Scacchi are deeper cuts in our cultural consciousness — and its special effects look dated now — even with the mastery of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop — this take on a millennia-old Homer epic showed filmmaking ambition rarely seen on TV in the ’90s.

Buried in television’s annals is this short-lived Fox series — which, unlike other adaptations, extrapolates on the literary source material. Picking up where the 1983 movie left off, the series continues the class warfare between the working-class Greasers and the wealthier Socs but also presents a heartwarming tale about family.

Even if we wondered what in the Charles Dickens happened to the classic story we remembered, we have to give props to this unsettlingly atmospheric miniseries. As the orphan Pip (Fionn Whitehead) becomes a pawn for the spinster Miss Havisham (Olivia Colman), the series offers more chills than the typical BBC period piece.

Perhaps overshadowed by the 2019 big-screen adaptation of the same Louisa May Alcott story, this BBC–PBS collaboration nevertheless offered viewers another warm-hearted depiction of the March sisters’ journeys into adulthood. And the presence of Angela Lansbury as Aunt March was certainly a Christmas present for us all.

If some Victor Hugo buffs dreamed a dream of a Les Misérables adaptation without musical numbers, this six-episode series was the answer. It’s a lavish, faithful production, even if the very British Dominic West, David Oyelowo, Josh O’Connor, and Olivia Colman all play French folks facing varying fates amid a revolution.

As proven by the many Emmy wins and nominations for its creative team, this small-screen take of Charlotte Brontë’s romantic story is a top-notch production. Ruth Wilson gave a breakout performance as the lead character, a governess who becomes quite indispensable for Mr. Rochester (Toby Stephens), her employer.

With an all-star cast — including Paul Dano, Tuppence Middleton, Lily James, Brian Cox, Gillian Anderson, James Norton, and many other familiar faces — Leo Tolstoy’s epic about Russian aristocracy post-French invasion gets a definitive six-part adaptation with this series that’s just as epic as the book is long.

The catch of this miniseries (and its Joseph Heller source material) is that anyone trying to avoid combat duty through an insanity plea is obviously sane. And so Yossarian (Christopher Abbott), Scheisskopf (George Clooney), and their fellow WWII fighters go around in circles in a darkly funny satire about the madness of war.

For many Jane Austen fans, there’s no Mr. Darcy more romantic than Colin Firth’s and no Elizabeth Bennet more endearing than Jennifer Ehle’s. Andrew Davies — the screenwriter behind this miniseries, the aforementioned Les Misérables and War & Peace, and the original House of Cards— is a master of adaptation.

Based on a Margaret Atwood story that’s even more relevant now than when the book came out in 1985, this Emmy-winning Hulu production stars Elisabeth Moss and others as childbearing “handmaids” enslaved in a society where women don’t have control over their bodies. It’s excruciating to watch and irresponsible to ignore.