It’s a Sin S1

It’s a Sin charts the joy and heartbreak of a group of friends in 1980s London. With their lives tested as they come of age in the shadow of the Aids epidemic and a society that is largely intolerant of their sexual orientation, they’re determined to live and love more fiercely than ever.

The five-part miniseries was Channel 4’s biggest ever drama launch and became the most binged new series on the channel, racking up 18.9 million viewers. It also prompted a record-breaking three-fold rise in HIV tests ordered in the UK following its broadcast during National HIV Testing Week.

Named the #1 Show of the year by the likes of The Guardian, Empire Magazine, and Radio Times, It’s a Sin holds a 97% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, an 8.6/10 score on IMDb, and 91% on Metacritic, where was the fourth best-reviewed show of the year overall. 

BAFTA-winning, Emmy-nominated series creator and writer Russell T Davies (Queer as Folk, A Very English Scandal, Years and Years, Nolly) was named TV’s most influential person of the year by The Radio Times, with the show’s star, Years & Years lead singer Olly Alexander, taking second place on the TV Top 100 and co-star Lydia West at #7. Also look out for appearances from the likes of Stephen Fry, Keeley Hawes, and Neil Patrick Harris.  

It’s a Sin was up for Best Limited Series and Best Actor in a Limited Series (for Alexander) at the Critics Choice Awards, and won Outstanding Limited Series at the GLAAD Media Awards and a Dorian Award for Best LGBTQ TV Show. It was also the most nominated show at the 68th BAFTA awards, winning Best Director for Emmy nominee Peter Hoar (The Last of Us).

Empire Magazine called It’s a Sin “a full-on cultural phenomenon”; Time Magazine described it as “deeply humane, richly observed, frequently funny and fully devastating”; and Slant Magazine praised the series for “reorienting shame and blame from those who died to those who couldn’t be bothered.” The Daily Beast declared it “the year’s best show” with “some of the best acting on TV,” saying, “Yes, it is the most devastating piece of television I watched this year… But [also] perhaps the most joyous.”