Television series

The Forsyte Saga

Name: The Forsyte Saga
Genre: Drama, Family, History
Released: 1967
Cast: Eric Porter, Nyree Dawn Porter, Kenneth More, Susan Hampshire

Other titles called The Forsyte Saga: the 2002 series (ITV1).

Drama
Slow-burning

The original prestige costume drama: a 26-episode chronicle of one wealthy Victorian family's slow unravelling over property, pride and love. It's stately and deliberate, filmed with the theatrical patience of 1960s BBC drama, but Eric Porter's Soames gives it real teeth. Watch it as the ancestor every family saga since has quietly borrowed from, not for speed.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love sprawling family chronicles where property, pride and polite hypocrisy grind slowly against private longing, and you don't mind a story that takes its time to let resentments ripen.

Skip it if you want brisk plotting or modern pacing, since this 1967 adaptation moves unhurriedly through drawing rooms and dinners, and its stateliness may feel like a long wait for the next development.

What it asks of you: Twenty-six hour-long episodes in a single season, each one settling into conversation and tension rather than rushing forward, so it rewards steady attention across many evenings.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Upstairs, Downstairs1971

Same BBC era and the same fascination with money boxing people into unhappy shapes, but told from both floors of the house at once, giving the servants their own equally weighted story.

But Slower even than Forsyte in places, and its early episodes can feel like table-setting before the real drama arrives.

Brideshead Revisited1981

Another sprawling English family undone by inheritance, faith and desire, filmed with a lushness and patience Forsyte never had the budget for. Jeremy Irons narrates a doomed world beautifully.

But Its languor and Catholic guilt run deeper than Forsyte's, and eleven hours is a serious commitment.

I, Claudius1976

Same BBC decade, same appetite for a family devouring itself across generations — just swap Victorian drawing rooms for Roman poisonings. Derek Jacobi is magnificent and the scheming never lets up.

But Broader and campier than Forsyte's restraint; some viewers find the wigs and murder plots silly rather than gripping.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Forsyte Saga

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Succession2018

Same structural engine as Forsyte — inheritance as a weapon, family as a business, love treated as collateral — just relocated to corporate skyscrapers and modern profanity.

If you want the same machine — a family whose love is inseparable from its money, and whose money is inseparable from its cruelty — restaged in modern boardrooms instead of Victorian parlours, this is it.

But Foul-mouthed and fast where Forsyte is buttoned-up and slow; the tone is comic-tragic rather than solemn.

Bleak House2005

Dickens on inheritance and the law's slow poison, shot with unusually kinetic camera work for a costume drama. Gillian Anderson is superb, and the scheming relatives rival Forsyte's.

But A denser cast and more subplots than Forsyte, with a court case at its centre that can feel abstract.

North & South2004

Gaskell's story of pride, money and industry, compressed into four tight episodes rather than twenty-six. Same clash of old wealth and new, with a properly swoony central romance.

But Shorter and more romance-forward than Forsyte, less interested in the slow accumulation of family history.

Poldark2015

A Cornish cousin to the Forsytes: land, money and thwarted love across decades, with a wilder, more romantic landscape standing in for London drawing rooms.

But More swashbuckling and less interior than Forsyte; it wants your heart racing more than your mind turning.

Downton Abbey2010

The modern heir to Forsyte's territory — family, money and the tightening rules of a class system, but glossier and paced for an audience wanting twists faster.

But Softer and warmer than Forsyte; it flatters its characters more than it ever interrogates them.

Vanity Fair1998

Thackeray's sharp, satirical take on climbing English society for money and status — a wittier, more cynical cousin to Forsyte's earnestness.

But More comic and cynical than Forsyte; if you want sincerity over satire, this may grate.

Greed1924

Both are studies of what wealth does to the people who hold it, one told through Victorian manners, the other through raw, wordless obsession — the same moral question, decades apart.

A silent-era fable about how the pursuit of money hollows people out, made decades before Forsyte but chasing the exact same idea: that property corrupts everyone who touches it.

But Silent, fragmentary — much of the original cut is lost — and its melodrama is blunter and less character-driven than Forsyte's slow burn.

Dynasty1981

Both track a wealthy family's decades-long war over money, marriage and legacy; Dynasty just strips out the Victorian decorum and lets the ugliness get loud instead of quiet.

Take Forsyte's family-money-and-betrayal plot and run it through eighties excess: shoulder pads, catfights, none of the restraint. Same DNA, played for pure, gleeful trash.

But Zero subtlety, zero prestige — this is soap opera by design, not drama with soap elements. Don't expect craft.