Since July 2021, BBC Studios has (re)released 60 telefilm titles from its library on Prime Video, including ones starring Sir Anthony Hopkins and Dame Helen Mirren.
If you ever find yourself wanting something to watch but don’t feel like committing to multiple episodes, here are 60 titles from across the pond whose average length is an hour and a half.
Some of the titles originally aired in the UK as episodes in BBC anthology series Bookmark, Performance, and Screen Two, while others were standalone TV movies, miniseries that have been reformatted as movies, and even a feature film. Many are adaptations, most are original stories, and all are dramas of some sort — contemporary, period, historical, mystery-crime, romance, action, thriller, horror, biopic, docudrama, dramedy. The oldest is from 1977, the most recent from 2017. A number of them have been shown before in the US on linear TV or streaming.
The Adventures of Robert Louis Stevenson — docudrama starring Ewen Bremner (Trainspotting)
All Things Bright and Beautiful — period drama starring Tom Wilkinson (The Full Monty), Gabriel Byrne (The Usual Suspects)
Babs — biopic starring Jaime Winstone (Mad Dogs) and Samantha Spiro (Sex Education) as actress Dame Barbara Windsor
Bad Boy Blues — drama starring Clive Owen (Closer), Maynard Eziashi (Mister Johnson), Christopher Fulford (A Confession)
Bambino Mio — historical drama starring Julie Walters (Harry Potter)
Black Easter — mystery drama starring Trevor Eve (Waking the Dead)
Blackeyes — drama miniseries turned into a movie; stars Michael Gough (Batman), Gina Bellman (Coupling)
Bliss — drama starring Douglas Hodge (Penny Dreadful)
Blue/Orange — drama starring Brian Cox (Succession), John Simm (Life on Mars), Shaun Parkes (The Accident)
Bluestocking Crimes: Don’t Leave Me This Way — mystery drama starring Janet McTeer, Imelda Staunton; adapted from Joan Smith’s novel Don’t Leave Me This Way
Bookmark: Selected Exits — biopic starring Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs) as Welsh writer, dramatist, raconteur, and TV personality Gwyn Thomas; based on Thomas’s autobiography A Few Selected Exits
Born Equal — drama starring Colin Firth (The King’s Speech), Robert Carlyle (Cobra), Anne-Marie Duff (The Salisbury Poisonings), Emilia Fox (Silent Witness), David Oyelowo (Selma), Nikki Amuka-Bird (Luther)
Born Kicking — drama starring Eve Barker (The New Adventures of Robin Hood), Denis Lawson (New Tricks)
Brazen Hussies — dramedy starring Julie Walters (National Treasure), Robert Lindsay (My Family), Alun Armstrong (New Tricks)
Breakout — mystery drama starring Neil Dudgeon (Midsomer Murders), Samantha Bond (Downton Abbey)
A Breed of Heroes — drama starring Nicholas Farrell (37 Days), Samuel West (All Creatures Great and Small)
Bright Hair — mystery-suspense drama starring Emilia Fox (Silent Witness), James Purefoy (Injustice)
Burton and Taylor — biopic starring Dominic West (The Crown) as Richard Burton and Helena Bonham Carter (The Crown) as Elizabeth Taylor
Care — drama starring Steve Mackintosh (Luther)
Century — period drama starring Charles Dance (Game of Thrones), Clive Owen (The Knick), Miranda Richardson (Tom & Viv)
Cherished — historical drama starring Sarah Lancashire (Happy Valley), Timothy Spall (Mr. Turner)
The Clothes in the Wardrobe — drama starring Jeanne Moreau (Jules et Jim), Joan Plowright (Enchanted April), Julie Walters (Billy Elliot), Lena Headey (Game of Thrones); adapted from Alice Thomas Ellis’s novel The Clothes in the Wardrobe
Copenhagen — historical drama starring Daniel Craig (Casino Royale), Stephen Rea (Dickensian), Francesca Annis (Flesh and Blood); adapted from Michael Frayn’s Tony Award-winning play Copenhagen
Count Dracula — horror drama starring Louis Jourdan (Gigi) as the vampire; based on Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula
Coup! — historical drama starring Jared Harris (The Beast Must Die)
Cruel Train — period crime drama starring David Suchet, Saskia Reeves, Adrian Dunbar; based on Émile Zola’s novel La Bête Humaine
Daphne — biopic drama starring Geraldine Somerville (Harry Potter) as British author Daphne du Maurier; based on Margaret Forster’s biography Daphne du Maurier: The Secret Life of the Renowned Storyteller
The Dark Room — psychological mystery drama starring Dervla Kirwan (Ballykissangel); adapted from Minette Walters’s novel The Dark Room
Degrees of Error — drama thriller starring Beth Goddard (The Scarlet Pimpernel)
Eight Hours from Paris — drama starring Tom Higgins, Julia Ford (Happy Valley), Angela Walsh (Taggart)
A Fatal Inversion — mystery-crime drama starring Douglas Hodge (The Great), Jeremy Northam (The Crown); adapted from the Barbara Vine (pseudonym of Ruth Rendell) novel A Fatal Inversion
Flesh and Blood — drama starring Christopher Eccleston (Doctor Who)
Flowers of the Forest — drama starring Lia Williams (The Crown)
Friday on My Mind — period drama starring Christopher Eccleston (The A Word), Maggie O’Neill (Shameless)
Genghis Cohn — dramedy starring Antony Sher (Royal Shakespeare Company: King Lear), Robert Lindsay (Jericho)
Gentleman Thief — period drama starring Nigel Havers (Finding Alice); based on characters in E. W. Hornung‘s A. J. Raffles, The Gentleman Thief novels
The Gift — drama starring Amanda Burton (The Commander), Neil Dudgeon (Life of Riley)
Go Now — drama starring Robert Carlyle (Hamish Macbeth), Juliet Aubrey (Professor T), James Nesbitt (Bloodlands)
The Great Kandinsky — drama starring Richard Harris (Harry Potter)
Great Moments in Aviation — period mystery dramedy starring Vanessa Redgrave (Howards End), John Hurt (The Elephant Man), Jonathan Pryce (Game of Thrones)
Green-Eyed Monster — crime drama starring Emma Fielding (Van der Valk), Fay Ripley (Cold Feet), Hugo Speer (London Kills)
Hattie — biopic starring Ruth Jones (Gavin & Stacey) as actress Hattie Jacques, Robert Bathurst (Cold Feet) as Hattie’s actor husband John Le Mesurier, and Aidan Turner (Poldark) as John Schofield, the young man she had an affair with
The Hawk — psychological drama thriller starring Helen Mirren (Prime Suspect), George Costigan (Happy Valley)
Hawkins — mystery crime drama starring Robert Lindsay (Spy), Elizabeth McGovern (Downton Abbey)
The Healer — drama starring Paul Rhys (A Discovery of Witches), Gerladine James (Anne with an E)
Heart Surgeon — drama starring Nigel Havers (Chariots of Fire), Orla Brady (The South Westerlies), Lorcan Cranitch (Bloodlands)
Holy Cross — historical drama starring Zara Turner (McCallum), Colum Convey (The Bill), Bronagh Gallagher (Pramface)
I Went Down — Irish dramedy starring Peter McDonald (Moone Boy), Tony Doyle (Ballykissangel), Brendan Gleeson (Mr. Mercedes)
In Your Dreams — drama starring Thandiwe Newton (Line of Duty), Oliver Milburn (The Royals)
Into the Fire — drama miniseries turned into a movie; stars Donal McCann (The Pallisers), Sue Johnston (Waking the Dead)
It Might Be You — comedy-drama starring Douglas Hodge (Catastrophe), Frances Barber (Whitstable Pearl), Jim Carter (Downton Abbey)
Killing Me Softly — historical drama starring Maggie O’Neill (EastEnders), Peter Howitt (Defying Gravity)
King Girl — drama starring Louise Atkins (Emmerdale Farm)
King Lear — filmed stage production of Shakespeare’s play starring Ian Holm (The Lord of the Rings), Timothy West (Gentleman Jack)
The Lost World — fantasy drama miniseries turned into a movie; stars Bob Hoskins (Who Framed Roger Rabbit), James Fox (A Passage to India), Peter Falk (Columbo)
The Maitlands — drama starring Bill Nighy (Worricker Trilogy), Eileen Atkins (Doc Martin), Samuel West (Mr. Selfridge), Harriet Walter (Belgravia)
Measure for Measure — a modern version of Shakespeare’s play starring Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton), Juliet Aubrey (Snatch), Corin Redgrave (Four Weddings and a Funeral)
Nervous Energy — drama starring Cal MacAninch (Time), Alfred Molina (An Education)
The Private Life of Samuel Pepys — biopic starring Steve Coogan (I’m Alan Partridge) as the 17th-centiry diarist, naval strategist, and serial adulterer
Small Faces — period drama starring Iain Robertson (River City), Joe McFadden (Holby City), Steven Duffy (Taggart)
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