Henry Cavill & Sam Neill’s 4-Part Historical Drama Is The Perfect Binge

Published Sep 30, 2026, 4:00 PM EDT After 18 months at Screen Rant, Guy became Classic TV Editor in September 2026, and specializes in leading features content about shows from decades gone by. Having written for and editing several TV, film and music publications, his areas of expertise include comedy, crime, historical drama, Westerns, and political thrillers. In terms of sheer entertainment, few TV dramas are as addictively bingeable as the one which gave Henry Cavill his first major screen role. Cavill is just one of many major stars lighting up this gloriously fanciful fictionalization of British history, alongside Natalie Dormer, Sarah Bolger, Joely Richardson, and the late great Sam Neill, Max von Sydow, and Peter O’Toole. It isn’t any of these names that fronts the show, however. Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers is at the head of its cast, playing arguably the most famous – and infamous – monarch in British history. The Tudors follows the reign of King Henry VIII, from the succession crisis that precipitated the English Reformation, through to his final years. Perhaps the show doesn’t quite stand up to Henry Cavill’s very best movies and TV shows, but it’s still an immensely enjoyable take on an epoch which still defines Britain and much of the Western world today. The Tudors can be forgiven the liberties it takes with history, given the exuberance and flair with which it approaches the second Henry Tudor’s life story. There’s a case for placing it among the best historical TV shows streaming today, particularly if you like your geopolitical machinations mixed with a healthy dose of highly personal melodrama. History buffs may scoff at the idea, but The Tudors doesn’t pretend to be perfect. Just like the king it profiles, the series trades nuance for sheer bloody-minded bombast, and wins out as a result. Showtime Series The Tudors Is Addictively Bingeable Despite Its Flaws Prime Video subscribers in the United States have the luxury of bingeing this frothy four-season historical epic across a long weekend. Meanwhile, it’s recently returned to Netflix in other regions, including parts of mainland Europe, where it’s spent some of the summer riding high in the streaming charts. While it isn’t necessarily a historical TV show for history lovers, The Tudors is a rollicking ride through the political and personal turmoil of Henry VIII’s rule over England, which more or less gets the major events broadly correct. It does so on one of Showtime’s biggest production budgets, too, immersing us fully in Merry Old England. Those relatively unfamiliar with the tales of Henry’s six wives, his excommunication by the Pope, his desperation for a rightful son and heir, and the military conflicts waged by England in the 1540s are in luck. This series covers all these things and more, with proper costumes, decent efforts at period set designs, brazen excess, and heightened melodrama to boot. The Tudors harnesses the talents of an exceptional ensemble cast dressed to the nines, with the likes of Sam Neill and Peter O’Toole delivering performances of scenery-chewing bravado. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is a force of nature in the central role, which Natalie Dormer steals the show throughout season 2. The Tudors Is More Historically Accurate Than It Seems It’s easy to dismiss The Tudors as simply a glorified soap opera in tights and corsets, but the series is actually a far better historical dramatization than many give it credit for. Beyond the broad strokes of early modern British history, it gets many of the key details about Henry VIII’s reign spot on. Henry’s rampant womanizing, his illegitimate children, his obsession with having a legitimate son to rule after him, and the manner in which he broke with the Catholic Church are all historically accurate facets of The Tudors. The scheming of various high-level courtiers and clergymen like Thomas Cromwell and Cardinal Wolsey very much reflect the real historical situation. What’s more, King Henry’s sister really did secretly marry his best friend Charles Brandon, played by Henry Cavill. On the other hand, there are various details that The Tudors gets wrong about the king, his family, and his court, often deliberately, for the purposes of its narrative. Ages don’t always make sense, Henry’s daughters are wrongly referred to as “princesses”, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers looks rather skinny and spritely compared to the real king in his later years. Nevertheless, for something that blends English history with big-budget fun, it doesn’t get much better than The Tudors. Release Date 2007 - 2010-00-00