--- title: "Years and Years" year: 2019 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/years-and-years" fi1m_score: 79 critics_score: 69 critics_reviews: 13 published: "2026-09-17T16:15:29.981230+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T16:15:41.960012+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Years and Years (2019) Created by Simon Cellan Jones, Lisa Mulcahy · 1h 00m · MPA TV-MA · Drama, War & Politics, Sci-Fi & Fantasy **Fi1m score: 79** · Critics 69 from 13 reviews *In a sentence:* Britain gets worse while one family tries to keep up, and Emma Thompson is not helping > Russell T Davies makes an anxious, absorbing family drama out of political upheaval and technological change. The Lyons family is given too many issues to illustrate, but the performances keep us worrying about the people. ## Synopsis Manchester, 2019. Stephen Lyons (Rory Kinnear), Daniel Lyons (Russell Tovey) and Rosie Lyons (Ruth Madeley) belong to an extended family facing a future that keeps changing faster than they can adjust. They want to keep their relationships intact as political upheaval and new technology alter the terms of everyday life. Beyond the family, populist politician Vivienne Rook (Emma Thompson) embodies a shift in British public life. The story moves forward from 2019, following the Lyons family as national crises become personal problems and relatives find themselves caught up in events they cannot control. ## Review Russell T Davies gives *Years and Years* a useful task: make a frightening future matter to people who still have families to deal with. Across six episodes, the Lyons family gives us familiar people to return to as politics and technology change around them. It is an absorbing, often funny drama, with enough affection for its characters to make their vulnerability hurt. The trouble is how often the writing recruits them to illustrate another public concern, until some of their decisions feel made for the writer’s convenience. The Manchester setting matters: this future begins in 2019, among people who have not volunteered to represent the state of Britain. Rory Kinnear makes Stephen Lyons’s anxiety seem difficult for him to admit, while Russell Tovey gives Daniel Lyons a more exposed emotional urgency. Ruth Madeley brings a welcome bluntness to Rosie Lyons, helping to keep the family from becoming uniformly solemn. The performances make us believe that these people could exhaust each other and still want to stay in touch. Emma Thompson’s Vivienne Rook is the most immediately troubling presence, a populist politician whose appeal the performance makes comprehensible. She does not give us the easy reassurance of a villain who announces herself as one. We were frightened by how readily Rook’s confidence could pass for competence. That confusion is familiar enough outside fiction, and the performance makes the family’s wider circumstances feel dangerous without requiring us to believe that everyone who listens to her is stupid. Directors Lisa Mulcahy and Simon Cellan Jones keep the family drama prominent enough that we understand who the political changes will affect. Stephen Murray and Tony Slater Ling’s cinematography is most persuasive at the scale of a face, where an actor can make anxiety specific. Editors Billy Sneddon and Jonathan Lucas give the jumps through time a brisk momentum, allowing little opportunity to settle. Murray Gold’s music reinforces that pressure, sometimes too insistently. The constant push suits the subject, though we occasionally wanted an ordinary conversation to last longer before the next development arrived. That hurry also exposes the writing’s chief weakness. The same family is asked to absorb so much political and technological upheaval that coincidence begins to feel like a condition of belonging to it. Individual predicaments can become examples in a discussion before the actors have had time to make them personal. The humour helps, particularly when it punctures the family’s own certainty, but it cannot always disguise how firmly Russell T Davies is moving everyone towards the next issue. As speculative television, the series is convincing about how people learn to accept worse conditions, even when the plotting becomes hard to believe. The family can be loving, intelligent and still poorly equipped to recognise what is happening around them. That gives the cast something worth playing beyond alarm, and it keeps us interested through the passages where the writing explains too much. Choose it when a frightening programme sounds more appealing than another argument about the news, but expect the occasional lecture. *Fi1m score 79, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics respond warmly to Years and Years, with praise centred on Russell T Davies’ writing and the family relationships that make its political and technological fears feel personal. The favourable reviews find humour, compassion and energy in the domestic scenes, and an unsettling plausibility in the near-future upheavals. Performances also earn praise, with The Independent singling out Emma Thompson’s portrayal of populist politician Vivienne Rook as particularly effective. The spread is wide, however, and the central disagreement concerns whether the Lyons family remain convincing people amid so many topical crises. Even some admirers find their involvement in events contrived, while mixed reviews question the dramatic substance beneath the ambition and describe the storytelling as chaotic. The harsher responses find caricatures and an excess of issues; IndieWire sees a workable black comedy about comfortable, detached people, but little substance in the cautionary drama. ### Reviews we read (13) - **The Guardian** (90/100, inferred): The critic hails Russell T Davies’ thrilling new show following one Manchester family through a realistically imagined near-future from 2019 to 2034. It singles out the writer’s trademark humour, compassion and kinetic energy for praise. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/may/14/years-and-years-review-a-glorious-near-future-drama-from-russell-t-davies) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Tim Goodman (90/100, inferred): An ambitious, magnificent series that turns current political and technological anxieties into compelling, human drama centered on an extended British family. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/years-and-years-1220415/) - **Variety**, Daniel D'Addario (85/100, inferred): The series is among the most emotionally involving and best of the year, centering on an ordinary family enduring rapid societal and technological upheaval through resilient personal bonds. [Read](https://variety.com/2019/tv/reviews/years-and-years-review-emma-thompson-hbo-1203243714/) - **The Independent** (80/100, inferred): The review calls the near-future drama plausible and intriguing, praising how domestic detail and global trends are skilfully blended. It singles out Emma Thompson’s brilliant performance as the terrifying populist politician Vivienne Rook. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/years-and-years-emma-thompson-russell-t-davies-doctor-who-rory-kinnear-a8911686.html) - **The Telegraph** (4/5): The review describes Davies brewing an anxious concoction of big issues and future fears in the first episode. It praises the creation of fleshy drama with a beating heart that thinks big urgent thoughts. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2019/05/14/years-years-episode-1-review-russell-t-davies-brews-anxious/) - **Vulture** (80/100, inferred): It is a gripping account of a society’s existential crisis that remains compelling by focusing on one family, though it gets a bit ludicrous shoehorning everyone into current events. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2019/06/years-and-years-review-hbo-emma-thompson.html) - **The i Paper**, Adam Sweeting (★★★): The ambitious series about the Lyons family leaping through a turbulent future offers plenty to think about but the critic is not yet convinced it qualifies as great drama. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/years-and-years-bbc1-review-291232) - **The AV Club**, Erik Adams (C): It nails the masochistic impulse to consume news but treats the Lyons family as caricatures and feels like it is sadistically frying ants under a magnifying glass. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/hbo-s-summer-of-drama-bummers-continues-for-years-and-y-1835821203) - **IndieWire**, Ben Travers (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the series only really works as a black comedy lampooning the well-off and out-of-touch, but is hollow as a cautionary drama overall. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/shows/years-and-years-hbo-review-emma-thompson-1202152443/) - **The Times**, Chris Bennion (★★☆☆☆): The critic finds sharp satire buried under an avalanche of issues in the overstuffed state-of-the-nation drama. It notes the writer’s skill but complains the drama is bursting at the seams. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/world/us-world/article/years-and-years-review-sharp-satire-buried-under-an-avalanche-of-issues-5hcjxwxwt) - **Paste**, Shane Ryan (80/100, inferred): The critic finds the series a riveting vehicle for pure dystopian dread, praising its step-by-step portrayal of societal decay and the unsettling realism that implicates comfortable viewers. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/years-and-years/years-and-years-review-hbo) - **Den of Geek**, Louisa Mellor (75/100, inferred): Russell T Davies’ energetic new drama holds a mirror up to modern times and gets off to an audacious start full of chutzpah, but everything is underscored by bleakness. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/years-and-years-episode-1-review-an-exuberant-but-bleak-family-saga/) - **Digital Spy**, Morgan Jeffery (60/100, inferred): It is wild and ambitious, a show about everything all at once that is stunning but rather dizzying and chaotic, with terrific performances but some elements feeling lightweight. [Read](https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/a27464814/years-and-years-bbc-one-review-russell-t-davies/) ## Details - **Created by:** Simon Cellan Jones, Lisa Mulcahy - **Director:** Simon Cellan Jones, Lisa Mulcahy - **Writer:** Russell T Davies - **Cinematography:** Tony Slater Ling, Stephen Murray - **Editor:** Billy Sneddon, Jonathan Lucas - **Music:** Murray Gold - **Producer:** Karen Lewis - **Cast:** Emma Thompson as Vivienne Rook; Anne Reid as Muriel Deacon; Rory Kinnear as Stephen Lyons; Jessica Hynes as Edith Lyons; Russell Tovey as Daniel Lyons; Ruth Madeley as Rosie Lyons; T'Nia Miller as Celeste Bisme-Lyons; Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Fran Baxter - **Runtime:** 1h 00m - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA - **Release (the US):** 14 May 2019 - **Genres:** Drama, War & Politics, Sci-Fi & Fantasy - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY41jhIP_xI ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Hulu: add-on, hd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AT, AU, CA, CH, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, IE, IS, IT, NO, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Children of Men* (2006): Another frightening British future where political cruelty is measured through individual lives. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/children-of-men.md) - *World on a Wire* (1973): A slower, stranger examination of technology, power and the instability of ordinary life. - *The Day After* (1983): Domestic routines give a national catastrophe its weight, with little comfort offered. - *Borgen* (2010), Fi1m 84: For the compromises behind political speeches, and the private lives paying for them. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/borgen.md) - *The Leftovers* (2014): Shared grief unsettles another family, with more mystery and fewer political explanations. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/years-and-years