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The Best TV Shows on Sky Arts

Every Sky Arts Show Ranked From Best To Worst

With its programming history stretching from 1997 to 2023, Sky Arts offers an impressive lineup of over 20 shows. Our curated list, current as of November 2024, showcases over 20 of Sky Arts’s highest-rated series. Classic Albums and Songbook represent the pinnacle of Sky Arts’s programming, launching in 1997 and 2008.

  • Guy Garvey: From The Vaults
    Guy Garvey: From The Vaults (2020)8.2

    Elbow frontman and broadcaster Guy Garvey lifts the lid on two decades of TV gold – with era-defining musical performances, long lost studio appearances and revealing interviews that have remained on the shelves for decades. The series is centred around shows which were made by ITV companies around the country – from Tony Wilson and Granada TV’s So It Goes to Tyne Tees’ ground-breaking Channel 4 series The Tube and LWT’s The London Weekend Show - chronicling not just changing musical tastes but evolution in the UK’s social and cultural history too. The series travels from Punk and New Wave to the birth of ‘Madchester’.

  • Classic Movies: The Story Of
    Classic Movies: The Story Of (2023)8.0

    Movie critic Ian Nathan goes in search of the cinematically sublime and explores the ingredients that went into making a classic. With each episode devoted to a single film, their story will be told with detail, affection, looking for the truth behind the myth, and all the trials and triumphs that went into forging the classic.

  • The Art of Film with Ian Nathan
    The Art of Film with Ian Nathan (2023)8.0

    Ian Nathan explores the many layers of the world of filmmaking, discussing each episode with filmmakers, cultural commentators, historians, authors and critics; what defines these stories, how they came to be, and who were the creative forces behind them.

  • Classic Albums
    Classic Albums (1997)7.7

    A documentary series about pop and rock albums that are considered the best or most distinctive of a well-known band or musician or that exemplify a stage in the history of music.

  • Urban Myths
    Urban Myths (2017)7.6

    Our Urban Myths are stories that have been passed down over time and have now become part of urban folklore. But are they true? We take a slightly tongue in cheek, mischievous – and deliberately ambiguous – look at what might have happened...

  • The Legacy
    The Legacy (2014)7.5

    The death of a matriarch brings forgotten secrets out into the open and causes a prolonged battle for the family inheritance.

  • Brian Johnson's A Life on the Road
    Brian Johnson's A Life on the Road (2017)7.4

    One of rock music’s iconic and tour-hardened frontmen, Brian Johnson, gives us a brand new and exclusive take on one aspect of the rock and roll life: live performance, touring and being ‘on the road’.

  • A Young Doctor's Notebook
    A Young Doctor's Notebook (2012)7.1

    A young doctor who has graduated at the top of his class from the Moscow State University of Medicine and Dentistry is thrust out into an isolated and impoverished country side as the village's only doctor. As he learns to adapt to his new lifestyle, he develops a morphine addiction to stay his sanity while realizing what being a doctor in the real world means.

  • The Nineties
    The Nineties (2017)6.9

    Hit rewind and explore the most iconic moments and influential people of The Nineties, the decade that gave us the Internet, DVDs, and other cultural and political milestones.

  • Landscape Artist of the Year
    Landscape Artist of the Year (2015)6.8

    It is a nationwide search to find the best landscape artist. Filmed at picturesque locations around the UK, contestants paint National Trust properties for a chance to win a £10,000 commission for a British institution's permanent collection. Through several rounds, winners are selected to advance to the semifinal, and then to the final. Judging the competition are British art historian Kate Bryan, independent curator Kathleen Soriano, and award-winning artist Tai-Shan Schierenberg.

  • Portrait Artist of the Year
    Portrait Artist of the Year (2013)6.7

    Artists from the UK and Ireland compete by creating portraits of famous people.

  • Psychobitches
    Psychobitches (2013)6.6

    Sky Arts takes famous females from history and puts them in the psychiatrist's chair.

  • Neil Gaiman's Likely Stories
    Neil Gaiman's Likely Stories (2016)6.2

    A unique collection of extraordinary fantastical short stories from the pen of Neil Gaiman, directed by Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard. With a score by Jarvis Cocker and starring a host of British acting talent led by Tom Hughes, Johnny Vegas, George MacKay, Rita Tushingham and Kenneth Cranham.

  • Discovering Film
    Discovering Film (2014)6.0

    Leading movie experts celebrate the lives and work of some of the most prolific and iconic Hollywood stars.

  • Master of Photography
    Master of Photography (2016)2.6

    Sky Arts hosts a competition like no other to find the best European amateur or professional photographic talent. An eight-week, eight-episode trial in which finalists must convince a jury of world-famous photographers and experts of their creativity, instinct and versatility,to become the first Master of Photography. The winner will receive €150,000; a show; and a catalogue.

  • The Art of Architecture
    The Art of Architecture (2019)2.0

    An exploration of some of the world's most famous structures and the inspirations of the architects behind them.

  • Songbook
    Songbook (2008)N/A

    Exclusive interviews and acoustic performances with the legends responsible for some of the most famous songs of our times. Each acclaimed songwriter discusses their unique musical inspiration and writing processes before giving an exclusive intimate acoustic performance of some of their seminal songs.

  • What the Dickens?
    What the Dickens? (2008)N/A

    What the Dickens is a television panel game hosted by Sandi Toksvig. Team captains were Dave Gorman and Tim Brooke-Taylor for the first series and Sue Perkins and Chris Addison for the second and third. It is recorded at Sky Studios in West London.

  • Tate Britain's Great Art Walks
    Tate Britain's Great Art Walks (2017)N/A

    Danny Baker, Simon Callow, Richard E Grant, Cerys Matthews, Miriam Margolyes and Michael Sheen follow in the footsteps of their favourite British artists.

  • Comedy Legends
    Comedy Legends (2018)N/A

    Barry Cryer pays tribute to the heroes of comedy he has worked with over his many years in the business. Each episode celebrates one artist and include highlights from their comedy careers. Stars include Tommy Cooper, Ronnie Barker, Joan Rivers, Bob Hope, Frankie Howerd and Morecambe & Wise and Barry recalls some of his funniest moments working with each of them.