Emma Thompson is back in the viewing guide spotlight as Good Housekeeping ranks seven dramas to watch now across ITV, Netflix, the and other services. The list turns her filmography into a practical streaming map, with titles spread across period drama, family film, biography and contemporary drama.
Down Cemetery Road and Zoë Boehm
Down Cemetery Road pairs Thompson with Ruth Wilson in an Apple TV+ adaptation of a Mick Herron work. Thompson plays struggling Oxford private eye Zoë Boehm, while Wilson’s Sarah Tucker becomes obsessed with the whereabouts of a child she believes to have gone missing. The setup sends both characters into a complex conspiracy, which gives the guide a present-tense entry rather than just another prestige title from Thompson’s past.
That contemporary project sits alongside the older work that built Thompson’s range. The article points readers to Sense and Sensibility and Howards End, and it also frames her as “up there with the greatest actresses,” a blunt reminder that the list is not random browsing filler but a curated route through the roles that made her name.
Brideshead Revisited 2008
Brideshead Revisited appears in its 2008 version, adapted from Evelyn Waugh’s 1945 novel and set in 1925 Oxford. Thompson plays Lady Marchmain, with Michael Gambon as Lord Marchmain, Matthew Goode as Charles Ryder, Ben Whishaw as Sebastian Flyte and Hayley Atwell as Julia. For viewers, the practical value is obvious: the film gives a single-stop cast comparison piece within the broader Thompson catalog.
2013’s Saving Mr. Banks pushes the guide from aristocratic decay into studio biography. Thompson plays P. L. Travers opposite Tom Hanks as Walt Disney, a combination that gives the list one of its clearest industry-facing titles, because it shifts her from costume drama to a film about the machinery behind a family entertainment empire.
Saving Mr. Banks and Burnt
Burnt, released in 2018, adds a sharper contemporary register. Bradley Cooper plays chef Adam Jones and Thompson plays Dr. Rosshilde, so the list now spans not just period settings and literary adaptations but also a restaurant-world drama with a modern professional setting.
Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang widens the appeal again as the sequel to the 2005 film, with Thompson returning as Nanny McPhee and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Isabel Green. That matters for anyone deciding where to start: the seven-title selection gives a route into Thompson’s work through family viewing, literary prestige and modern character pieces without forcing a single tone or platform.
Seven titles also means the guide does the sorting work for the viewer. Instead of digging across services one by one, readers get a short list anchored by named performances and platform availability, which is the difference between a casual recommendation and a useful watch-now roundup. For Thompson, it is the kind of list that keeps the breadth of her screen career in circulation.
