Best Series on Sky Atlantic: 26 Must-See Shows

1. Gangs of London (2020– )

• Starring: Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù, Joe Cole, Michelle Fairley
• Creator/Director: Gareth Evans, Matt Flannery
• Seasons/Episodes: 3 seasons • 28 eps
• Runtime: ~45–60 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~8.1/10

Brutal power plays crash into family loyalties across an impeccably choreographed crime saga. The series builds a living map of London’s underworld where every alliance costs something. Camera work treats action as storytelling rather than noise, letting cause and effect land. Performances keep the violence meaningful because choices feel irreversible. Political and international threads widen the canvas without losing street‑level grit. Between set‑pieces, quiet scenes hum with dread and tenderness. As one of the best series on Sky Atlantic minus the obvious juggernauts, it’s a perfect flagship. Queue it when you want prestige tensions without the usual fantasy trappings.

2. Patrick Melrose (2018)

• Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Jennifer Jason Leigh
• Creator/Director: David Nicholls (from Edward St Aubyn)
• Seasons/Episodes: Limited series • 5 eps
• Runtime: ~55–60 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~8.0/10

Addiction, trauma, and dark wit braid together in a blistering character study. The show sprints through decades without losing emotional coherence. Cumberbatch plays dissociation and self‑reconstruction with unnerving precision. Direction and design keep memory shards sharp but readable. Each episode functions like a novella with its own rhythm and sting. Humor arrives sideways, which makes the pain land honestly. Among the best series on Sky Atlantic, this is the literary bullet that still travels. It’s rich, compact, and quietly devastating.

3. Fortitude (2015–2018)

• Starring: Richard Dormer, Sofie Gråbøl, Stanley Tucci
• Creator/Director: Simon Donald
• Seasons/Episodes: 3 seasons • 26 eps
• Runtime: ~45–60 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~7.3/10

Arctic isolation turns a glossy research town into a pressure cooker. The landscape feels complicit—bright snow conceals rot, and auroras glow over bad decisions. Science, folklore, and crime entangle until genre labels fall away. Performances keep the weirdness grounded in grief and survival. Body horror is sparing but surgical when it arrives. The town’s politics are as treacherous as the ice fields. For prestige dramas that feel genuinely different, Fortitude is a cold fever dream. It lingers like frost on glass.

4. Tin Star (2017–2020)

• Starring: Tim Roth, Genevieve O’Reilly, Abigail Lawrie
• Creator/Director: —
• Seasons/Episodes: 3 seasons • 25 eps
• Runtime: ~45–55 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~7.2/10

A damaged ex‑detective tries to go straight and finds fresh trouble on the frontier. Family dynamics power the story as strongly as the crime engine. Visuals love wide horizons that shrink the toughest characters. Tim Roth flips between restraint and eruption in seconds. The supporting cast turns small choices into avalanches. Each season resets the chessboard without cheating the past. As critically acclaimed Sky Atlantic go, this one punches above its weight. It’s lean, jagged, and unexpectedly tender.

5. Save Me (2018–2020)

• Starring: Lennie James, Suranne Jones, Stephen Graham
• Creator/Director: Lennie James
• Seasons/Episodes: 2 seasons • 12 eps
• Runtime: ~45–50 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~7.7/10

A father refuses to accept the worst when his daughter disappears. Community becomes both refuge and mirror, exposing flaws with care. The writing trusts ordinary spaces—pubs, council flats, back rooms—to hold operatic stakes. Performances glow with lived‑in humanity rather than melodrama. Humor survives like a stubborn ember. Each lead carries moral compromises that feel painfully real. In the hunt for the best series on Sky Atlantic, Save Me is a street‑level heartbreaker. It earns every catharsis it offers.

6. The Young Pope (2016)

• Starring: Jude Law, Diane Keaton
• Creator/Director: Paolo Sorrentino
• Seasons/Episodes: Limited series • 10 eps
• Runtime: ~50–60 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~7.6/10

Sorrentino turns the Vatican into a dreamscape of power and doubt. Jude Law makes holiness and hubris disturbingly charismatic. Images move like paintings that suddenly breathe. Politics, faith, and spectacle pirouette without colliding. The soundtrack slides from sacred to sly in a beat. Side characters arrive with secrets like hidden chapels. For viewers seeking Sky Atlantic shows with auteur flourish, this is manna. It’s provocative, stylish, and strangely moving.

7. The New Pope (2020)

• Starring: John Malkovich, Jude Law
• Creator/Director: Paolo Sorrentino
• Seasons/Episodes: Limited series • 9 eps
• Runtime: ~50–60 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~7.1/10

The follow‑up swaps certainty for fragile grace without losing the visual rapture. Malkovich’s quiet ache plays beautifully against Vatican theater. Themes of succession, image, and mercy stay razor‑sharp. Costume and set design do character work in silence. The show loves paradox and lets it bloom. Faith becomes a question asked in many dialects. As HBO on Sky go, it’s a meditative standout. Watch it for performances that whisper and still shake walls.

8. Gomorrah (2014–2021)

• Starring: Salvatore Esposito, Marco D’Amore
• Creator/Director: —
• Seasons/Episodes: 5 seasons • 58 eps
• Runtime: ~45–50 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~8.6/10

Naples’ clan wars unfold with documentary ice and operatic sorrow. Violence is consequence, not decoration, and that gives it weight. The camera finds poetry in alleyways and kitchens. Loyalty contracts keep getting rewritten in blood. Performances avoid mythology and star in human ruin. Long arcs pay off with brutal logic. Among the best series on Sky Atlantic, this remains a towering European pillar. It’s unsparing, addictive, and unforgettable.

Mid‑List Lift: navigating the best series on Sky Atlantic without the usual megahits

9. ZeroZeroZero (2020)

• Starring: Andrea Riseborough, Dane DeHaan, Gabriel Byrne
• Creator/Director: —
• Seasons/Episodes: Limited series • 8 eps
• Runtime: ~55–60 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~8.2/10

A single cocaine shipment links Italy, Mexico, and the US in a grim world tour. The structure hops timelines to show how markets make monsters. Performances keep commerce intensely personal. Cinematography turns ports and deserts into haunted cathedrals. Family businesses look the same whether they sell ships or sins. Each hour tightens a knot you feel in your stomach. For prestige dramas with global scope, it’s near the top. You’ll think about logistics differently afterward.

10. Das Boot (2018– )

• Starring: Vicky Krieps, Tom Wlaschiha (early seasons)
• Creator/Director: —
• Seasons/Episodes: 4 seasons
• Runtime: ~50–60 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~7.4/10

War claustrophobia meets resistance drama across sea and shore. Submarine sequences favor tension over bombast. The show treats ideology like weather—always present, sometimes deadly. Women’s stories expand the frame in meaningful ways. Engineering details carry narrative charge. Moral ambiguity reads clearly even in the dimmest light. As Sky Atlantic box sets go, this is a deep dive worth taking. It’s muscular, mournful, and gripping.

11. Babylon Berlin (2017– )

• Starring: Volker Bruch, Liv Lisa Fries
• Creator/Director: —
• Seasons/Episodes: 4 seasons
• Runtime: ~45–60 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~8.4/10

Weimar Berlin sways between decadence and doom. Jazz clubs, protests, and conspiracies share the same streets. The series blends noir with political awakening at a dizzying clip. Production design is a dissertation in velvet and smoke. Performances dance on the edge of catastrophe. Plotting braids romance, police work, and revolution cleanly. In the hunt for the best series on Sky Atlantic, it’s a sumptuous historical anchor. It makes the past feel alarmingly present.

12. 1992 (2015)

• Starring: Stefano Accorsi, Miriam Leone
• Creator/Director: —
• Seasons/Episodes: Limited series • 10 eps
• Runtime: ~50–55 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~7.8/10

Italy’s Tangentopoli scandal becomes a human carousel of ambition and fallout. Journalists, advertisers, and politicians clash in neon and smoke. The show captures how corruption seeps into ordinary rooms. Characters chase reinvention while the ground moves. Style serves substance, not the other way around. Miriam Leone steals scenes with knives in her smile. As part of the award-winning series pipeline, this is sharp and lively. It’s a gateway to the whole trilogy.

13. 1993 (2017)

• Starring: Stefano Accorsi, Laura Chiatti
• Creator/Director: —
• Seasons/Episodes: Limited series • 8 eps
• Runtime: ~50–55 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~8.0/10

Fallout hardens into strategy as Italy learns new rules the brutal way. The series tightens its focus without losing scope. Friendships become mergers and acquisitions of the soul. Performances track power’s toll with granular detail. Visuals keep the era tactile—fax paper, suits, smoke. The writing respects consequence like gravity. Within the best series on Sky Atlantic, this middle chapter bites the deepest. It’s sleek, cynical, and compelling.

14. 1994 (2019)

• Starring: Stefano Accorsi, Guido Caprino
• Creator/Director: —
• Seasons/Episodes: Limited series • 8 eps
• Runtime: ~50–55 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~7.8/10

The trilogy closes with victories that don’t feel like wins. Characters reckon with the costs of the masks they chose. The show refuses moral neatness and earns respect for it. Pacing stays taut while arcs land cleanly. Secondary players get truthful endings, not vanishing acts. Period detail remains delicious without nostalgia. For Sky Atlantic shows that reward completionists, this is essential. It’s politics as mirror and caution.

15. The Plot Against America (2020)

• Starring: Zoe Kazan, Morgan Spector, John Turturro
• Creator/Director: —
• Seasons/Episodes: Limited series • 6 eps
• Runtime: ~55–60 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~7.4/10

An alternate 1940s America asks how quickly normal can curdle. The family lens keeps the stakes intimate and painful. Performances capture fear that grows by inches. Production design whispers dread in wallpaper and wardrobe. Political rhetoric lands with chilling familiarity. The adaptation trims but preserves the novel’s moral bones. For UK premium TV that start conversations, park this high. It’s sober, taut, and impeccably acted.

16. The Night Of (2016)

• Starring: Riz Ahmed, John Turturro
• Creator/Director: —
• Seasons/Episodes: Limited series • 8 eps
• Runtime: ~55–60 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~8.6/10

A single night fractures into a labyrinth of law and consequence. Riz Ahmed charts innocence, panic, and adaptation with surgical clarity. Turturro builds a lawyer from rituals and regret. The show respects process without losing momentum. Jails and courtrooms become ecosystems with predators and caretakers. Cinematography keeps the city watchful and cold. Among the best series on Sky Atlantic, this is the procedural that aches. It’s precise, humane, and unforgettable.

17. Perry Mason (2020–2024)

• Starring: Matthew Rhys, Juliet Rylance
• Creator/Director: —
• Seasons/Episodes: 2 seasons • 16 eps
• Runtime: ~55–60 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~7.6/10

The reboot trades slickness for bruised noir heart. Rhys gives Mason a conscience scarred by war and work. Period Los Angeles feels sun‑baked and morally overcast. Cases peel back systems rather than just culprits. Supporting players carry secrets like weights in their pockets. Direction lets quiet looks carry as much as cross‑exams. For NOW Entertainment nights, this is a smoky fit. It honors canon while finding its own pulse.

Final Stretch: rounding out the best series on Sky Atlantic with hidden heavy‑hitters

18. Sharp Objects (2018)

• Starring: Amy Adams, Patricia Clarkson
• Creator/Director: Marti Noxon (from Gillian Flynn)
• Seasons/Episodes: Limited series • 8 eps
• Runtime: ~55–60 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~8.1/10

A reporter returns home and meets the ghosts she never filed. The series weaponizes Southern Gothic mood with surgical precision. Amy Adams threads fragility through ferocity. Patricia Clarkson crafts menace from manners. Visual motifs—razors, ivory, wallpaper—accumulate like evidence. Sound design turns memory into a creaking house. On a list of the best series on Sky Atlantic, this is the slow burn that scars. It’s exquisite and unsettling.

19. We Are Who We Are (2020)

• Starring: Jack Dylan Grazer, Jordan Kristine Seamón
• Creator/Director: Luca Guadagnino
• Seasons/Episodes: Limited series • 8 eps
• Runtime: ~50–55 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~7.3/10

American teens on an Italian base chase identity like it’s oxygen. Guadagnino lets awkwardness bloom into grace. Sun and salt water frame messy firsts and lasts. The camera loves uncertainty and treats it kindly. Music choices feel like confessions. Adults are complicated, not obstacles. In the constellation of best series on Sky Atlantic, this is the tender, restless star. It hums with real adolescence.

20. The Deuce (2017–2019)

• Starring: Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Franco
• Creator/Director: —
• Seasons/Episodes: 3 seasons • 25 eps
• Runtime: ~55–60 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~8.0/10

Times Square’s transformation arrives through labor, sex, and hustles. Gyllenhaal builds an entrepreneur from grit and vision. The series maps how power dresses up as opportunity. Period detail is lavish but never distracts. The ensemble gets room to fail and change. Direction respects quiet victories as much as headlines. Within the best series on Sky Atlantic, it’s the socio‑economic epic to savor. It’s generous, tough, and alive.

21. Olive Kitteridge (2014)

• Starring: Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins
• Creator/Director: Lisa Cholodenko (from Elizabeth Strout)
• Seasons/Episodes: Miniseries • 4 eps
• Runtime: ~55–60 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~8.2/10

Small‑town years gather like weather fronts around one flinty woman. McDormand makes prickliness into an x‑ray of love. Jenkins brings gentleness that devastates. The show honors quiet lives without condescension. New England light reads like a memory you can touch. Episodes feel complete yet accumulate power. For critically acclaimed Sky Atlantic rooted in character, this is a masterclass. It aches in the best way.

22. Show Me a Hero (2015)

• Starring: Oscar Isaac, Catherine Keener
• Creator/Director: David Simon (from Lisa Belkin)
• Seasons/Episodes: Miniseries • 6 eps
• Runtime: ~55–60 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~8.0/10

Housing policy becomes riveting because people are. Oscar Isaac charts a politician’s rise, fracture, and grace. The writing trusts audiences to follow complexity. Neighborhood voices are treated as citizens, not props. Politics shows its costs at kitchen tables. Direction keeps tension humane. As far as the best series on Sky Atlantic go, this is civics with a heartbeat. It’s gripping, empathetic television.

23. The Outsider (2020)

• Starring: Ben Mendelsohn, Cynthia Erivo
• Creator/Director: Richard Price (from Stephen King)
• Seasons/Episodes: Limited series • 10 eps
• Runtime: ~55–60 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~7.6/10

A murder case sprouts something that shouldn’t exist. The series balances skepticism and fear like twin scales. Mendelsohn’s weariness sharpens every scene. Cynthia Erivo injects electricity the moment she arrives. Atmosphere builds from textures—mud, light, breath. Logic is honored even as it breaks. In the landscape of best series on Sky Atlantic, this is dread done elegantly. It’s patient, eerie, and satisfying.

24. The Knick (2014–2015)

• Starring: Clive Owen, Andre Holland
• Creator/Director: Steven Soderbergh
• Seasons/Episodes: 2 seasons • 20 eps
• Runtime: ~55–60 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~8.5/10

Surgery, addiction, and innovation collide in a pre‑antibiotic world. Soderbergh shoots with nervy precision and cool light. Clive Owen crafts genius that hurts to watch. The hospital becomes a city inside a city. Race, class, and science clash in crowded rooms. Setpieces feel earned, not staged. For fans of prestige dramas, this is a surgical strike. It’s one of the boldest period dramas on TV.

25. The Leftovers (2014–2017)

• Starring: Justin Theroux, Carrie Coon, Regina King
• Creator/Director: —
• Seasons/Episodes: 3 seasons • 28 eps
• Runtime: ~55–60 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~8.3/10

Two percent vanish; the rest learn how to live. Grief, faith, and absurdity weave into a singular tone poem. Carrie Coon delivers one for the ages. The show rewards patience with thunderclap episodes. Music cues haunt like old dreams. It believes in mystery without empty puzzles. Among the best series on Sky Atlantic, this is the transcendent swing. It’s strange and profoundly humane.

26. Mare of Easttown (2021)

• Starring: Kate Winslet, Jean Smart
• Creator/Director: Brad Ingelsby
• Seasons/Episodes: Limited series • 7 eps
• Runtime: ~55–60 min/ep
• IMDb Rating: ~8.4/10

A detective drama where community is the main suspect. Winslet crafts fatigue, pride, and love into steel. Jean Smart steals scenes with lethal warmth. The case matters because the people do. Direction lets silences carry evidence. Accents and kitchens paint a full world. If you’re building a queue of the best series on Sky Atlantic, save room for this. It’s humane, tough, and deeply satisfying.