Jazz. Art Deco. Bobbed hair. Exposed knees. Libations and liberation. The 1920s were an era of unprecedented growth and excitement across the world. How fun would it be to go back in time to experience the Golden Twenties in person?
Thanks to several of our favorite dramas, you can! Whether through stylish mysteries, historic films, fraught family dramas, or lavish biographies, the Jazz Age comes to life on your screen with these blasts from the past.
Agatha and the Truth of Murder
Beloved murder mystery writer Agatha Christie is brought to life in this alternative history film that imagines what might have happened during Christie’s mysterious 11-day disappearance in 1926 if she’d become embroiled in a real-life murder investigation. While all of Britain searches for the high-profile author, she goes undercover to help solve the murder of Florence Nightingale’s goddaughter – an experience that influences her later writing.
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Frankie Drake Mysteries
1920s Toronto is colorfully captured in this mystery series that follows the adventures of Frankie Drake and her partner Trudy Clarke at Drake Private Detectives, the city’s only all-female detective agency. Feast your eyes on fun period costumes and eye-catching sets as you tag along with the PIs as they fight crime in the age of flyboys, gangsters, rum-runners, and speakeasies.
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Hotel Portofino
Experience the Roaring ’20s by the sea in the breathtakingly beautiful Italian town of Portofino and its glamorous – but troubled – namesake hotel. Married British couple Bella and Cecil Ainsworth relocate to Italy to run a lavish hotel for the wealthy. Complications ensue as relationships fracture, fascism raises its ugly head, and the hotel’s elite guests make the Ainsworths’ life anything but sunny. Season 3 premieres on June 28 at 8PM. The first two seasons are now streaming.
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House of Promises
This impossible love story is set against the golden but grimy backdrop of 1920s Berlin. Vicky arrives in the city full of hope, but instead finds a place full of poverty and crime. Things seems to be looking up after she lands a job at a glamorous department store and meets a dashing pianist, but fascism and class divides rattle Vicky’s convictions. In German with English subtitles.
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La Otra Mirada
An academy for young ladies in 1920s Seville is shaken to its core when a mysterious new teacher arrives and challenges tradition in every meaning of the word. With her differing views (la otra mirada means “a different view” in English), new teacher Teresa is intent on showing her female students that their voices matter and that empowerment is possible even in the most oppressive of circumstances. In Spanish with English subtitles.
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Luisa Spagnoli – Queen of Chocolate
Luisa Spagnoli was a fascinating woman. The Italian businesswoman founded companies during the 1920s and ’30s that specialized in chocolate (the world-famous Perugina brand), the breeding of poultry and angora rabbits, and high-end knitwear. This biographical series examines a woman teeming with entrepreneurial spirit, and uncovers how she made her mark in an environment unfriendly to powerful, visionary women. In Italian with English subtitles.
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Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries
Miss Phyrne Fisher is full of both style and substance. The female detective solves crimes in 1920s Melbourne with sharp wit, equally sharp dressing in full flapper fashion, and her signature pearl-handled pistol. Based on author Kerry Greenwood’s series of detective novels, this mystery/drama revels in the glamor of the era while examining what it takes to be a woman in Phyrne’s line of work.
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Seaside Hotel
At Andersen’s Seaside Hotel on the North Sea dunes, the fate of guests and staff are intertwined in the salty sea air of northernmost Jutland. As wealthy regulars arrive for vacation in the summer of 1928, locals like chambermaid Fie, merchant’s daughter Amanda, and local fisherman Morten seek to emancipate themselves from the plans other people have made on their behalf. In Danish with English subtitles.