Television series

Quiz

Name: Quiz
Genre: Drama
Released: 2020
Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Michael Sheen, Sian Clifford, Mark Bonnar, Helen McCrory

Quiz is ITV's three-part dramatisation of the 'coughing Major' scandal, replaying the biggest fraud trial in British game-show history with wit and surprising sympathy. Michael Sheen's uncanny Chris Tarrant anchors a story that keeps flipping between farce and courtroom dread, asking whether Charles Ingram was a cheat, an idiot, or just unlucky. Sharp, soapy, very English.

TVMaze rating

6.5

If you liked this

A Very English Scandal2018

Hugh Grant is magnetic as a disgraced politician whose small lies snowball into a public unravelling — the same blend of absurdity, class comedy and courtroom stakes that makes Quiz sing.

But The comic tone occasionally undercuts real cruelty at the story's centre; some viewers will want less winking.

The Dropout2022

Amanda Seyfried's Elizabeth Holmes charts the same slow-motion collapse of confidence into fraud, showing exactly how ordinary ambition curdles into a very public deception.

But It's longer and more corporate — Silicon Valley jargon replaces quiz-show glitz, and the satire bites harder than it laughs.

Inventing Anna2022

A scammer you can't help half-admire, told with the same 'so, did she or didn't she' energy that drives Quiz's central mystery about the Ingrams.

But It runs long and leans stylish over substantial; fascination with Anna herself can overshadow the actual crime.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Quiz Show1994

The literal ancestor of Quiz's premise — a real game-show fraud decades earlier, proving this collision of television, money and self-deception is a recurring pattern, not a uniquely British or modern one.

Robert Redford's film about the 1950s Twenty-One quiz scandal is the story Quiz is quietly in conversation with — a nation's favourite show, rigged from inside, and a reckoning nobody wanted.

But It's slower and more earnest, more interested in television's moral corruption than in the puzzle of guilt or innocence.

American Crime Story2016

Anthology true-crime at its most gripping, unpicking a real scandal from multiple angles the way Quiz splits sympathy between accuser and accused.

But Far darker subject matter — this is a murder story, not a caper, and the tonal gap from Quiz is considerable.

Chernobyl2019

The gold standard for dramatising a real disaster with forensic patience, showing how institutions protect themselves — the same instinct that shapes the Millionaire fallout.

But Nothing playful here; it's bleak, slow-burning tragedy rather than the tabloid fun of Quiz.

Anatomy of a Scandal2022

A courtroom drama that keeps rewriting who deserves your sympathy, mirroring how Quiz makes you switch sides on the Ingrams episode by episode.

But It's glossier and more melodramatic, trading Quiz's dry comedy for full soap-opera intensity.

Catch Me If You Can2002

A slick, charming true-life con story that revels in the audacity of getting away with it — precisely the pleasure Quiz trades in before the reckoning arrives.

But It's a film, not a series, so you lose the slow courtroom unspooling that makes Quiz's structure so satisfying.

The Staircase2022

A meticulous true-crime miniseries that lingers in the same fog of reasonable doubt Quiz creates around whether the coughing was really a code.

But Much darker and more gruelling — a marriage and a death, not a game show and a jackpot.

American Animals2018

A heist gone wrong told half as drama, half as documentary, sharing Quiz's fascination with ordinary people convincing themselves a scheme will work.

But Its hybrid style is unconventional, and the real-life subjects appearing on camera can feel distracting rather than illuminating.

Icarus2017

Same anatomy of getting caught cheating and having to explain yourself, but told as unscripted documentary instead of drama — watch how differently it lands when there's no actor standing in for the liar.

This Oscar-winning documentary follows an amateur cyclist's doping experiment that accidentally exposes state-sponsored fraud — a real person improvising a cover story in real time, exactly like the Ingrams did.

But It swerves hard into geopolitics and whistleblower thriller territory that has nothing to do with game shows or Britishness.

Fargo1996

Both are studies in the gap between a scheme's tidy plan and its messy execution — Fargo just turns the volume up on the violence to show where that same impulse can lead.

The Coens' pitch-black comedy about a small, greedy scheme spiralling wildly out of control shares Quiz's exact sense of humour: ordinary people, modest ambitions, catastrophic overreach.

But It's fiction, considerably more violent, and set in snowy Minnesota rather than a TV studio — the crime here has real blood, not just embarrassment.