In the same way that true-crime stories give a real-world edge to the crime-thriller genre, historical dramas pull from specific eras and events of the actual past to add even more depth and immersion to a TV show.
And these three Prime Video miniseries surely do that. All of these historical dramas captivatingly transport viewers to a given period in history — from Soviet Russia to post-Civil War America — all while offering up compelling storytelling and high production value in a tidy, fast-paced miniseries package.
Whether you want to spend time in 1920s Moscow with Ewan McGregor or in the 19th-century Appalachian Mountains with Kevin Costner, here are three historical drama miniseries on Prime Video that you can binge in one weekend.
'A Small Light'
This eight-part bio-drama tells the true story of Miep Gies — portrayed by Bel Powley, who earned Critics' Choice and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for her moving lead performance — a 20-year-old Dutch secretary who helped hide Anne Frank (Billie Boullet), her family (played by Liev Schreiber, Amira Casar and Ashley Brooke), and other Jewish refugees from the Nazis during World War II after the German invasion of the Netherlands. Miep would later go on to preserve Anne's now-famous diary.
Praised for its balance of historical realism and emotional heft, "A Small Light" achieved that TV rarity: a perfect 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where critics praised the wartime series as "a sensitive portrait of heroism in the face of all-encompassing tragedy."
Stream "A Small Light" on Prime Video now
'A Gentleman in Moscow'
An adaptation of Amor Towles’s internationally best-selling novel, this 2024 British series stars Emmy winner Ewan McGregor as the titular (albeit fictional) gentleman, Count Alexander Rostov, an aristocrat who is sentenced to house arrest by a Bolshevik tribunal following the October Revolution and spends those decades confined inside the grand Hotel Metropol in Moscow.
Over the eight-part historical drama, we watch as the Count's confinement surprisingly opens him up to meeting some lifelong companions, including the hotel staff, visiting actress Anna Urbanova (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and the young Sofia (Beau Gadsdon), the daughter of Rostov's childhood friend, whom he adopts when her mother disappears into the Soviet system.
Stream "A Gentleman in Moscow" on Prime Video now
'Hatfields & McCoys'
Kevin Costner's always been a bit of a history buff, particularly when it comes to the American West — just look at "Dances with Wolves," "Wyatt Earp," "Yellowstone," and "Horizon: An American Saga" as proof. This 2012 History Channel miniseries continues that proclivity: The six-hour, three-episode epic chronicles the decades-spanning, post-Civil War feud between two Appalachian clans, the Hatfields (led by Costner as William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield) and the McCoys (with Bill Paxton as his rival, Randolph "Randall" McCoy).
"Hatfields & McCoys" received a whopping 16 Emmy nominations and five wins, including for Costner's gritty, commanding lead performance as well as a supporting-actor trophy for Tom Berenger, as Confederate guerrilla Jim Vance.
Rent/buy "Hatfields & McCoys" on Prime Video now
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