Empire of the Tsars: Romanov Russia with Lucy Worsley (Season 1)

Empire of the Tsars: Romanov Russia with Lucy Worsley (2016) is a BBC documentary series you can watch online on iFILM. Directed by John Das and Sebastian Barfield, the three-part co-production between the UK and Russia follows British historian and palace curator Lucy Worsley across Russia to trace three centuries of Romanov rule.

Each episode takes a distinct era: the dynasty's precarious seventeenth-century foothold, the radical transformations of Peter the Great, the long and calculating reign of Catherine, and the slow collapse that ended with Nicholas II and his family in 1918. Worsley films on location — inside the Hermitage, winter palaces, and the rooms where the decisions were actually made — which pulls the archive material into something visual and immediate rather than classroom-flat.

If you find traditional history documentaries too dry to sit through, this series is a reasonable corrective: ground-level access to one of Europe's most dramatic ruling families, with a presenter who keeps one eye on the human story behind every edict. Stream Empire of the Tsars (2016) online on iFILM.