The highest ranked show of all time isn’t HBO’s Band of Brothers – and the reality might leave you gobsmacked.
Band of Brothers, starring , David Schwimmer and Michael Fassbender, proved an instant hit with history buffs when it debuted in 2001, documenting Easy Company’s mission in Europe.
Praised for its historical accuracy – and putting its actors through a gruelling Army boot camp to prepare them for the role – the show cemented its own place in history.
But according to Rotten Tomatoes, it’s not the top WW2 show on telly.
So what got the top honour?
Home Fires
ITV cancelled Home Fires despite its success (Image: ITV)
That honour goes to the Home Front drama show Home Fires, which follows a group of women living in rural Cheshire during the war. Forced to cope with limited resources while their husbands are away at war, they form the Great Paxford Women’s Institute and find strength in community.
Home Fires has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score and an audience score of 87%. Despite its 5.2million strong viewership, announced it would not renew the show for another series in 2016.
SAS Rogue Heroes
programme comes in second, with a 100% score and 84% audience score.
The programme documents the very start of the SAS under eccentric officer David Stirling, who head undercover for a dangerous mission.
Starring everyone from Dominic West to Alfie Allen, the show returned for a second series this year, after attracting more than 5.6million UK viewers with its first series.
Band of Brothers
Band of Brothers is one of the nation’s favourite WW2 series (Image: HBO)
Band of Brothers, conversely, has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 94%, though its audience rating is higher than both programmes at 96%.
One historian on said of the programme: “Band of Brothers, in my opinion, is a very entertaining and well produced series, and a great way to give a general audience a basic understanding of the experiences faced by a typical American combat unit operating in the ETO during WWII.”
Based primarily on first-hand accounts and interviews with real soldiers who served during the war, its high octane drama is made all the more harrowing by the fact it’s based in reality.
We Were the Lucky Ones
Based on Georgia Hunter’s novel, the TV adaptation of We Were the Lucky Ones follows a Jewish family from Poland who are separated at the start of World War Two – and are determined to find each other again after the war ends.
It stars Joey King and Logan Lerman, and has a 93% Rotten Tomatoes score and an audience rating of 84%.
The Hulu miniseries features eight episodes and has left fans “in tears” after watching.
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World on Fire
Streaming free on iPlayer, World on Fire follows the lives of ordinary civilians around Europe during WW2 who get caught up in the conflict.
Though the show – starring Sean Bean, Lesley Manville and Jonah Hauer-King – was cancelled after just two series, it has a 92% score on Rotten Tomatoes, though its audience score falls short at 52%.
The Pacific
The Pacific is a companion series to Band of Brothers (Image: HBO)
From the same studio that brought us Band of Brothers, HBO series The Pacific lags behind its older brother despite starring names like Tom Hanks, Rami Malek and Jon Seda.
Released in 2010 as a companion series to Band of Brothers, The Pacific focuses on the US Marine Corps during the Pacific War in WW2, fought in eastern Asia, the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean.
The Pacific has an 89% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 90% audience score.
SS-GB
Another series that’s free to watch on the , SS-GB – released in 2017 – is set in an alternative timeline of WW2. It looks at what 1941 would have looked like for Britain if it was occupied by Nazi Germany.
With Winston Churchill executed and King George VI taken prisoner, the chilling alternate history shows what could have happened if the war had taken a more tragic turn for the UK. The programme, based on Len Deighton’s novel of the same name, stars Kit Connor and Sam Riley.
It achieved an 89% Rotten Tomatoes score and 88% audience rating.
Masters of the Air
TV+ series Masters of the Air also serves as a companion series to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, this time focusing on the actions of the 100th Bomb Group – a heavy bomber unit in the Eighth Air Force.
Starring Austin Butler, Callum Turner and Barry Keoghan, the series – which focuses on airmen during the war – has an 85% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 72% audience score.