26 shows similar to Game of Thrones to watch next

15. Vikings

Going back to medieval times, we have Vikings. Unlike many of the shows we’ve discussed thus far, Vikings started airing during the early days of Game of Thrones, and ran on something of a parallel course. It was originally produced by History before moving to Amazon Prime Video for its final season. One of the upsides of starting on History is that the producers pay more attention to historical accuracy than these types of shows often do.

Vikings is the story of Ragnar Lothbruk (Travis Fimmel) and his family, a group of Viking leaders who blazed a trail to England and propelled their society to new heights. At the story’s outset, Ragnar is a young Viking who wants to expand his fortunes and power by going on raids to far-off England…and quickly finds himself forced into a situation that gives him just such an opportunity. Vikings has a ton of epic battles and political maneuvering, brutal executions, betrayals, and all the other staples of the modern, gritty adult medieval drama. And while the show does initially focus quite heavily on Ragnar and his wife Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick), it does a pretty great job of expanding its scope and making other characters feel central later on.

Vikings ran for six seasons and just wrapped up in December of 2020. The show is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video. It also has a spin-off series, Vikings: Valhalla, coming to Netflix in 2022.