The 9 Sexiest Period Dramas Now Streaming

Period dramas have always been hot (repression so often is). Whether it’s Oliver Reed and Alan Bates nude wrestling in front of a roaring fire in “Women in Love” or Keira Knightley and James McCardle in the library with the green dress in “Atonement,” sex has always been there in period dramas. But something has happened in recent years in television: Shows set in ye olden times have gotten much, much hornier.

“Bridgerton” earned a lot of publicity for its frank sex scenes in Season 1, but it was hardly the first. There’s something about peeling back the bedclothes (and clothes) of a lost era that makes it resonate even more with modern audiences. If the stolen glances and hastily scrawled notes are foreplay, then we’re now living in a golden age of ruffled and furbelowed consummation.

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With “Bridgerton” Season 3 premiering May 16, IndieWire decided to do the hard work of looking back on other sex-filled (and -fueled) period dramas to see what other shows have been getting hot and heavy under satin and jacquard. Some are more explicit than others, but all the shows here take things a step or two beyond the bedroom door and a mile or two beyond what an entire generation grew up expecting from Merchant Ivory productions.

From recent shows like Starz’ “Mary & George” and “Our Flag Means Death” to older series like The CW’s “Reign,” these are all period dramas that score big when it comes to revealing and reveling in characters’ sexuality. More importantly in our era, these shows aren’t prurient just for the sake of prurience. The sex scenes all serve to move the story or the character forward in some way while also providing a titillating peek into what may initially seem like the dry times we all learned about in school. For all the quills and candles littering the sets, there’s a lot more going on than might meet the eye — though each show does its damndest to be as revealing as possible. For that, we salute them and watch them voraciously and maybe a little vicariously.

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