The 40 most popular french war & politics TV shows, ranked. Click any show for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


Has Fallen
2024
country: France
A protection officer and an MI6 operative team up after a terrorist attack. They suspect a mole as they race to thwart a larger conspiracy threatening Paris.


History of the World
2020
country: Australia
It's about human history, how humans shaped the world we live in. A history through cultures and civilizations - from early Mesopotamia to the industrial revolution. Documentary series from various european production company’s like BBC, SVT, NRK, DR, ARTE, Covering serveral topics of war, Persons Like Cleopatra, Hitler, George Washington, etc


Woke
2017
country: France
Describes everyday life in a Lyon LGBT centre, examining the initial political, emotional and sexual life of a man who recently came out as gay.


A French Village
2009
country: France
The stories of the people of Villeneuve, a fictional subprefecture, in the Jura, in German–occupied France during the Second World War.


Napoleon
2002
country: France
A masterful soldier, tactician and statesmen, Napoleon Bonaparte's courage and love for his country sees him rise from an unpaid general consumed with ambition to the most powerful man in Europe, then his fall, and exile.


Marie Antoinette
2022
country: France
Marie Antoinette is just a teenager when she leaves Austria to marry the Dauphin of France. At Versailles, under the complex rules of the French court, she suffers from not being able to live her life the way she wants, under pressure to continue the Bourbon line and secure the Franco-Austrian alliance.


No Man's Land
2020
country: France
Dive into the depths of the Syrian civil war through the eyes of Antoine, a young Frenchman, in search for his estranged, presumed to be dead sister. While unraveling the mystery, piece by piece, Antoine’s journey crosses paths with adventurers and anarchists, spies and innocent victims, and provides a unique look on the tragic events in Syria, and the way they affect the entire world.


Parliament
2020
country: France
Samy, a young parliamentary assistant, arrives in Brussels after the Brexit referendum. He is not fit for the job. Samy doesn't know much about European institutions and he hopes to get away with it thanks to his cleverness…


Kabul
2025
country: France
Kabul, August 14, 2021. The Taliban are at the gates of the city, and France prepares to evacuate its embassy. But the sudden fall of Kabul the next day rushes all the plans. French, Italian, German, American diplomats and the police must improvise the evacuation of hundreds of Afghans and refugees to the airport. While chaos reaches the city, the Afghans will soon have only two choices: to kneel or to run away.


Resistance
2014
country: France
In occupied France, 17-year-old Lili encounters war before love, and joins the Resistance. Through the interconnecting destinies of its teenage heroes, Resistance tells the story of young people going to any lengths to defend their country.


Women at War
2022
country: France
France, 1914. The destinies of four women intersect : Marguerite, a mysterious Parisian prostitute, Caroline, propelled to the head of the family factory, Agnes, Mother Superior of a requisitioned convent and Suzanne, a feminist nurse.


XIII: The Series
2011
country: France
After a plot to kill the president of the USA an agent with lost memories tries to recover his life and memories. Others use him to cover up some dirty business involving high ranking officials from the CIA and the White House.


Totems
2022
country: France
Set in 1965 in the midst of the Cold War, Totems follows a French scientist, Francis Mareuil, as he begins working as a spy. While working for the French Secret Service and the CIA, Mareuil meets Lyudmila Goloubeva, a pianist forced to work for the KGB. A romance blossoms between them but neither can be sure what is an expression of their true feelings, and what is the fruit of political shenanigans.


Exterior Night
2022
country: France
Italy, March 16, 1978. Aldo Moro, president of Christian Democracy, the ruling party, is kidnapped by the extreme left-wing terrorist gang Red Brigades. While the criminals put him on trial and condemn him, the Italian government and Pope Paul VI pull their twisted strings to save his life.


Apocalypse: The Second World War
2009
country: France
A six-part French documentary about the Second World War composed exclusively of actual footage of the war as filmed by war correspondents, soldiers, resistance fighters and private citizens. The series is shown in color, with the black and white footage being fully colorized, save for some original color footage. The only exception to the treatment are most Holocaust scenes, which are presented in the original black and white.


Carême
2025
country: France
Witness the rise of the world's first celebrity chef, Antonin Carême, and his descent into espionage in Napoleon-era France—where manipulation is king. With his gifts for gastronomy and seduction, he becomes the perfect weapon in a fight for power.


Dark Hearts
2023
country: France
The French Special Forces are deployed in Iraq, on the eve of the battle of Mosul, in October 2016. The members of this commando have the mission of finding and exfiltrating the daughter and the grandson of an important French Emir of Daesh who captured and who will cooperate with them only on this condition.


Les Misérables
2000
country: France
Set against the background of the French Revolution and based on Victor Hugo's classic novel this is the story of Jean Valjean who is sent to prison for stealing a loaf of bread and is released after nineteen years. He meets and cares for a beautiful but poverty-stricken young girl named Fantine who has daughter Cosette. After Fantine's death Valjean brings Cosette up but he is haunted by Javert - a policeman whose search for Valjean has become an obsession.


Apocalypse: World War I
2014
country: France
Colorized historical footage in ascending order of World War 1. Not only the relatively known Flanders and France battles, but also the generally unknown Italian-Austrian, German-Polish-Russian, Japanese-German, Ottoman Empire- Allied and African German Colonies, and other unknown or forgotten fronts and battles.


The Long, Long Holiday
2015
country: France
In September 1939, Colette and Ernest are welcomed by their maternal grandparents in a fictional village named Grangeville, near Dieppe in Normandy. The short vacation becomes semi-permanent when their father goes off to fight, following the mobilization of France to fight the invading German Army, and the poor health of their mother, required to leave to be treated for tuberculosis in a sanatorium in Switzerland. The two little Parisians discover life in the countryside during wartime, including occupation, Resistance, deprivation, but also life with friends.


Clash of Futures (1918-1939)
2018
country: France
From the armistice of 1918, which marked the end of the First World War, to the declaration of war in September 1939, the beginning of the Second World War: an era during which there was an aspiration to create a new world, prosperous and at peace, but which provoked a new tragedy, seen through the destinies of thirteen people who were both actors and witnesses of the upheavals of the so-called inter-war period.


Apocalypse: The Rise of Hitler
2011
country: France
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was a mediocre who rose to power because of the blindness and ignorance of the Germans, who believed he was nothing more than an eccentric dreamer. But when the crisis of 1929 devastated the economy, the population, fearful of chaos and communism, voted for him. And no one defended democracy. As the dictatorship extended its relentless shadow, the leader claimed peace, but was preparing the Apocalypse.


Hitler: A Film from Germany
1977
country: France
A structure-free, four-part examination of the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Each part explores a different topic, from Hitler's cult of personality in propaganda to how said propaganda was associated with pre-Nazi German cultural, spiritual, and national heritage to the Holocaust and the ideology behind it, particularly from Himmler's point of view.


Richelieu
1977
country: France
In a France fractured by court rivalries and personal ambitions, Richelieu moves without ornament. No flourish, no glory — only the cold machinery of power. Caught between a hesitant king, a nobility dreaming of defiance, and enemies multiplying on every front, the cardinal enforces his line: centralize, control, crush resistance. The series follows a strategist who doesn’t hide behind morality. He acts to keep the State standing, even if it means breaking those who stand in his way. Espionage, secret negotiations, decisive strikes… Richelieu plays a game where mistakes are fatal, and the survival of the kingdom rests on one man willing to go further than all the others


Mussolini and I
1985
country: France
World War II is about to end. Benito Mussolini, il Duce, supreme dictator of Fascist Italy, sees his totalitarian dream crumbling and his power slipping away as the terrible day of his ignominious death at the hands of those he so ruthlessly oppressed for more than two decades draws inexorably near.


The Accursed Kings
1972
country: France
It is the start of the 14th century and Philip IV the Fair reigns supreme over France. His three sons would rule after him. Isabelle, his only daughter, is married to King Edward II of England. Under Philip's reign, France is great but its people are unhappy. Only one power dares to stand up to him: the order of the Knights Templar. When the last Grand Master of the Temple, Jacques de Molay, is burned at the stake, he curses Philip and so begins a dark period, full of blood and violence, death and tears ...


The Blue Bicycle
2000
country: France
Léa, the daughter of a wealthy Bordeaux family, is spending happy days at the Montillac family estate at the end of the 1930s. Radiant with youth, she charms all the men who meet her on the blue bicycle offered to her by her father. She is in deep love with Laurent, when she tells him, he lets her down. He is in love with Camille, Lea's best friend. The war sounds the death knell of her carelessness. She takes refuge in Paris. There, she finds Laurent, his secret love, who has just married Camille. During a party given him, she meets mysterious François -a friend of Laurent who works for the government. He goes right on and starts to win Lea's heart, but she is not interested. Laurent has to go to the front-line. He asks Lea to stay with Camille in Paris, to look after her and the unborn baby. But the German troops are progressing, and Léa and Camille are forced to leave the capital.


Apocalypse: Hitler Takes on the West
2021
country: France
May 10th, 1940, Hitler takes on the West. Will he precipitate Europe into the Apocalypse?


Spin
2012
country: France
The President of the French Republic, visiting Saint-Etienne in the Loire, in a striking plant dies, victim of a bomb attack. The political world is agitated: early presidential elections to be held within the next thirty-five days. There is no doubt that Philip Deleuvre, the prime minister, will run for the Elysee. But what few people know is that the leader of the government knows more things he claimed. This state causes lie back to business Kapita Simon, a former communications adviser (spin doctor) of the late president. Anxious to preserve the honor of his deceased friend and some form of political ethics, the man of the shadows has now set a goal: to find a candidate who will be able to beat Deleuvre.


Apocalypse: Stalin
2015
country: France
The rise of Stalin, from his early beginning as a bankrobber to the cold-blooded leader of the Soviet Union.


The House in the Woods
1971
country: France
During World War One, in a small rural French village far away from the front, a gamekeeper and his wife take in children displaced by the war.


The Anatomy of a Moment
2025
country: France
Madrid, Spain, February 23, 1981. A group of Civil Guards storm into the Congress of Deputies and terrorize those present by firing shots into the air. Only three men remain unmoved: Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez; Vice President Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado; and Santiago Carrillo, leader of the Communist Party.


Carlos
2010
country: France
The story of the Venezuelan Ilich Ramirez Sanchez known as "Carlos", who was, for almost twenty years, one of the most wanted terrorists in the world.


70 Years of Youth Revolt
2020
country: France
A look back at the social movements, revolts and youth subcultures from the post-war period to the present day: after the World War II, the left-bank of Paris became a mecca for jazz and alternative living, youth culture was born with trailblazing American movies, and rock became the soundtrack to a generation that wanted to change everything.


The Trial of Klaus Barbie
2025
country: France
On May 11, 1987, the trial of Klaus Barbie, former head of the Gestapo and the first Nazi officer to be tried in France for crimes against humanity, began in Lyon. Tracked down and identified by Beate and Serge Klarsfeld, he was extradited from Bolivia through intergovernmental agreements. The charges centered on three major crimes: the roundups on Rue Sainte-Catherine, the roundup of the children of Izieu, and the final deportation convoy of August 11, 1944. During 37 hearings, filmed in their entirety, the survivors’ testimonies reveal a relentless and cruel torturer. Barbie, absent on the advice of his lawyer Jacques Vergès, was sentenced on July 4, 1987, to life imprisonment. This verdict marked a key milestone in the fight against impunity for Nazi criminals. Barbie died in 1991.


A Life's Worth
2025
country: France
A deep dive into the Bosnian War, that tore the country apart at the dawn of the 1990s, A Life’s Worth explores with intensity the unimaginable dilemma faced by the peacekeepers sent to the region, unable to intervene in a conflict that was beyond their control. A gripping series and a much-needed look back at one of the most violent wars in recent European history, prompting an essential discussion about the weight of commitment, interventionism, and the cost of peace.


Mazarin
1978
country: France
The series Mazarin (1978) recounts the rise of Jules Mazarin, first an Italian diplomat and later France’s chief minister after Richelieu. The story shows how he earns the trust of Anne of Austria and becomes the political mentor of the young Louis XIV. Over the course of the episodes, Mazarin faces court intrigues, the hostility of powerful nobles, and the turmoil of the Fronde, which threatens royal authority and forces him into several periods of exile. Despite pamphlets and conspiracies, he manages to restore order and prepare the emergence of the future Sun King. The series thus portrays a skilled statesman, often contested but essential in shaping absolute monarchy.


Juger Pétain
2015
country: France
No overview available


Augustus: The First Emperor
2003
country: United Kingdom
Old and ill, Augustus, the man who changed the fortunes and destiny of an empire by completing Julius Caesar's project, recounts the two most important phases of his life: his rise to power and his fight against the pressure of his family.


Decolonisation
2020
country: France
The history of decolonization from the point of view of colonized peoples, an epic story that still resonates and reverberates to this day.
French television has moved from a broadcast-dominated tradition into a strong export position, particularly in crime and spy drama. The results tend to be shorter-run and more cinematic than Anglo-American equivalents.
War and political series use serial length to show process: campaigns, negotiations, and institutions grinding forward. The genre works best when it's interested in systems rather than just speeches.