Never mind family dramas, families *are* drama. It’s baked into the premise that we are all born into a collection of people with whom we will share bonds, rivalries, affection and resentment. The perfect ingredients for a TV show, in fact.
It’s not easy to define exactly what makes a ‘family drama’ other than the presence of a family in it, but the centrality of the family dynamic is what sets them apart from the other genres they may sit in. Which makes for an interestingly diverse set of offerings – so enjoy the best ten family dramas you can currently stream.
1. The Split (BBC iPlayer)
BBC/Sister Pictures/Steve Schofield
A legal drama, yes, but a family story too: one that’s ruthless in its dissection of the tensions within a marriage. Nicola Walker and Stephen Mangan work in high-level family law, which is a polite euphemism for “expensive divorce”.
Written by Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady), it follows the fortunes of three sisters brought up into the same business, one of whom – Walker – goes her own way when their mum decides not to step down after all. Affairs, trials, improprieties, successes and failures surround them over three seasons and a two-part special.
It’s funny and well-paced and superbly scripted, a brilliant anatomisation of the joy and aggravation of having siblings.
2. Trying (Apple TV)
Apple
Bittersweetness is inherent in the word ‘dramedy’ – inevitably there will be tears amid the laughter. Rafe Spall and Esther Smith bring their customary depth and charm to their roles as a couple who can’t conceive.
It’s a sensitive subject, but handled gracefully by creator Andy Wolton, who balances the sorrow and stress with comedy that lands naturally and warmly. Before long, the adoption process turns into a comedic engine, with all its bureaucratic absurdity and emotional complexity.
3. The Crown (Netflix)
Netflix
“Call that drama?” said the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Mountbatten-Windsors after taking in the collected works of Shakespeare. “We’ll give you drama.” And into the second half of the 20th century they lurched…
You already know what happened in the British royal family over the last seventy years – it’s in the history books, the newspapers and printed on at least one mug at the back of your kitchen cupboard. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun to speculate on the actual conversations, the machinations behind closed doors and the seething feuds that fuelled the tabloid stories.
Ongoing public discussion around the royal family in the light of recent events make seasons five and six of The Crown play a little differently, but Peter Morgan’s sweeping chronicle of the reign of Elizabeth II (played by Claire Foy, Olivia Colman and Imelda Staunton over the decades) is an addictive chronicle of what it might be like to live under the burden of such colossal privilege and scrutiny.
4. Ozark (Netflix)
Netflix
Just a normal family, moving to the hillbilly playground of the Ozark mountains to do some accountancy and escape their crushing debts by laundering money for mob. Marty (Jason Bateman) and Wendy (Laura Linney) have to navigate the law, the criminal underworld and their family loyalties in this dark, tense, and occasionally blackly funny thriller.
The question – which puts it in the same bracket as Breaking Bad – is how far they will go to survive, and what will be the moral cost to their existence?
5. Bad Sisters (Apple TV)
Apple TV+
“The Prick” is dead – as we learn in the very first scene, as JP Williams’ (Claes Bang) widow tries to push down her late husband’s post-mortem erection in his open coffin. We know the thoroughly unpleasant character suffered a violent death, but we don’t know which of the five Garvey sisters killed him.
The fiercely devoted sisters close ranks against the outside world and protect each other even as the (not entirely competent) insurance investigator Brian Gleeson circles around them in search of answers.
Writer and co-star Sharon Horgan is herself from a family of five siblings, so you’d better believe that the creator of Pulling and Catastrophe delivers a razor-sharp story of family life.
6. Shameless (Channel 4)
Channel 4
You couldn’t get a more wildly diverse family than the Gallaghers – irresponsible, alcoholic, semi-criminal patriarch Frank, maternal oldest sister Fiona, secret genius Lip, gay scoundrel Ian (we’re still not even half way through, but we’ll stop there).
This is the granddaddy of family dramas – an unapologetic portrait of chaotic, socially marginalised life on a Manchester estate. The need to survive the influence of their unreliable father is what bonds the siblings, and creator Paul Abbott transmutes his own horrific experiences as the child of dysfunction (his parents abandoned their eight children, leaving them to be brought up by Abbott’s pregnant, 17-year-old sister) into something warm, funny and genuinely joyful. Diamonds in a midden.
It’s also the show that first put stars like James McAvoy, Maxine Peake and Anne-Marie Duff in the spotlight.
7. The Sopranos (Now TV)
HBO
The Sopranos’ place as the kickstarter of the golden age of prestige TV is entirely earned: ambitious, epic, clever, poignant and extremely violent, it redefined what a TV drama could be. At the centre is James Gandolfini, titanic as the New Jersey mob boss juggling panic attacks, rival gangs, FBI scrutiny and his perpetually disappointed mother.
At its heart is a family drama that takes its cue from Roman history (poisonous matriarch Livia is named after the Emperor Tiberius’ equally charmless mother, for example). In turn funny, brutal, profound and unmissable, it’s a truly dynastic crime story.
8. Unforgivable (BBC iPlayer)
BBC
Jimmy McGovern’s harrowing, brilliant tale looks at the darkest imaginable side of family life: a family struggling with the aftermath of child sexual abuse. It’s an enormously complex and difficult subject, but McGovern is one of the few writers with the empathy and courage to handle it correctly.
Anna Friel stars as the mother of a boy who was abused by her brother. The child has to wait months for mental-health support; the uncle, fresh out of prison, has instant access to comparable help.
Balancing injustice with rage, repression and understanding, it raises uncomfortable questions about guilt, responsibility and ultimately – as its title implies – forgiveness. It deserves the many comparisons made to the more popular Adolescence.
9. The Dry (ITVX)
ITV
The Dry follows Shiv Sheridan (Roisin Gallagher), an alcoholic in recovery who returns home after her family’s grandmother dies. Organising the wake proves to be no easy task as all manner of secrets and resentments bubble to the surface, challenging Shiv’s fragile sobriety at every turn.
Moving and occasionally bleak – it is a dark comedy – it’s a terrific exploration of grief and self-discovery.
10. Breeders (NOW)
Sky
Not only starring Martin Freeman but co-written by him too (along with Chris Addison and Simon Blackwell), Breeders is based in part on their experience of parenthood. Paul (Freeman) is kind of a hardass as a father, because he hasn’t dealt with his own childhood repressions, and together with his wife, played by Daisy Haggard, must negotiate the struggles of raising a family.
Like all good family dramas, it glows warm beneath the occasionally cynical-seeming surface, and is funny, bursting with on-point observations about the realities of modern parenting.
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