Arabian Nights (Season 1)

"Arabian Nights" (2000) is a two-part fantasy miniseries you can watch online on iFILM — directed by Steve Barron, filmed across Jordan, Turkey, Germany, and the UK, with Mili Avital as Scheherazade and Rufus Sewell as the sultan she must outlast.

A young ruler, shaken by assassination and convinced of everyone's treachery, is told he must marry before the next full moon or lose his throne. Scheherazade volunteers, knowing she is likely headed for execution. Each night she postpones her fate with a story — Sinbad, Aladdin, Ali Baba — and John Leguizamo, Jason Scott Lee, and Andy Serkis step into those tales. Alan Bates, Dougray Scott, and Cheki Karyo fill out the surrounding court.

The framing device genuinely works: the sultan's paranoia shifts across both parts as the stories accumulate. A TV fantasy production from 2000 with better production value than it had any reason to have. Stream "Arabian Nights" (2000) online on iFILM.