October 2026
What Makes a Great Family Saga?
The best family sagas aren't really about any single event — they're about watching a family change shape over years, or generations, as the world around them shifts. Money comes and goes, marriages are made for the wrong reasons, and the house itself often outlasts everyone who lives in it.
1. Downton Abbey
Downton Abbey
Julian Fellowes' Edwardian saga follows the aristocratic Crawley family and the servants who keep their estate running, across the social upheavals of the early 20th century, from the sinking of the Titanic through the aftermath of WWI.
2. The Forsytes
The Forsytes
Poldark creator Debbie Horsfield returns to the genre with a reimagining of John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga, set as a prequel to the novels and following four generations of a formidable Victorian-era stockbroking family caught between duty and desire.
3. All Creatures Great and Small
All Creatures Great and Small
Based on James Herriot's memoirs, a young vet joins the Skeldale House practice in the Yorkshire Dales and gradually becomes part of the Farnon household's found family, across the changing decades leading into WWII.
4. Poldark
Poldark
Based on Winston Graham's novels, Ross Poldark returns from war to a ruined estate and a lost love, and the generations that follow him and his rivals, the Warleggans, play out across 18th-century Cornwall.
5. Upstairs, Downstairs
Upstairs, Downstairs
The original above-stairs, below-stairs family saga, following the Bellamy family and their servants at 165 Eaton Place across three decades of change, from the Edwardian era through WWI and beyond.
Brideshead Revisited
Evelyn Waugh's novel, adapted as a landmark miniseries, follows the decline of the aristocratic, devoutly Catholic Flyte family across two generations, seen through the eyes of an outsider drawn into their world at Oxford and beyond.
From the Page
The novels behind the genre — several of these are the source material for the shows above.
The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
The sprawling original: three generations of the wealthy Forsyte family across Victorian and Edwardian England, now reimagined as a prequel in The Forsytes on PBS Masterpiece. Galsworthy won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his body of work.
The Poldark Novels by Winston Graham
The source material for the Poldark TV series: twelve novels following Ross Poldark and his descendants through fortune, rivalry, and love in Cornwall, written across more than five decades.
The Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard
A five-book saga following the extended Cazalet family — three generations of them — through the years surrounding WWII, praised for its close, unsentimental attention to family life.
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
The novel behind the 1981 miniseries above: an outsider's view of the aristocratic, Catholic Flyte family's slow decline, and one of the defining British novels of the 20th century.
Where to Stream in the US
Every saga on this page lives on BritBox or PBS Masterpiece.
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What Readers Ask Most
What makes a show a “family saga”?
A family saga follows one family — or two rival families — across years or generations, tracing how fortune, class, and relationships shift over time. It's less about a single plot than about watching a family change as the world around it changes.
Which family saga shows are streaming on BritBox?
Downton Abbey, All Creatures Great and Small, the original Upstairs, Downstairs, and Brideshead Revisited are all available on BritBox in the US.
Is The Forsytes based on a book?
Yes. The Forsytes is a new adaptation of John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga, the novel sequence that won Galsworthy the Nobel Prize in Literature.
What should I watch after Downton Abbey?
The original Upstairs, Downstairs covers similar ground with the same above-stairs/below-stairs structure, and All Creatures Great and Small offers a gentler, rural take on found family across generations.
Are Poldark and The Forsytes connected?
Not in story, but in pedigree: The Forsytes comes from Poldark's creator, Debbie Horsfield, who returns to the family-saga genre with a new adaptation of Galsworthy's novels.
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