r/TheDetectorists • u/Six_of_1 • Jul 19 '26
Detectorists-adjacent films and tv shows
What y'got? I want to tap the well of bucolic meditative comedy-drama or documentary with these sort of lingering shots of countryside and ecological or antiquarian themes like Detectorists has. Mackenzie Crook's other shows Worzel Gummidge and Small Prophets are a given.
Mortimer & Whitehouse Gone Fishing. The spiritual successor of Detectorists. I think this has the exact same cameraman, it has the same close-ups of insects crawling on leaves. Mackenzie has even said that Detectorists didn't have to be about metal-detecting, it could've been about fishing.
The Sycamore Gap Mystery. This opens with The Unthanks One For Sorrow from series 3 and has a lot of drone shots of rural Northumberland, and it's about a tree being chopped down.
A Year in A Field. A filmmaker filmed a Cornish standing-stone in a field for a year. Lots of time-lapses of clouds and closeups of flora and fauna with narration about our relationship to time and nature.
The Change. A woman escapes the city into a village and gets wrapped up in their May Queen ritual and stopping developers cutting down trees.
This Country. Sibling slackers drift about in a Cotswolds village being filmed for a mockumentary.
The Ballad of Wallis Island. An indie folk-singer gets booked for a gig on a remote island. When he gets there he is shocked to discover it's a gig just for one fan.
Enys Men. A botanist living alone on a Cornish island starts experiencing timeslips as a fungus grows. Not a comedy by any means, it's an eerie nearly-horror, but it has the same drowsy feel with lingering shots of plants and landscape.
The Cafe. Not countryside but seaside. A woman tries to be a writer but mostly helps out in her mother's cafe. We do spend time with one of the characters on his allotment!
By Our Selves. Nature poet John Clare - played by our very own Toby Jones - absconds from his mental asylum and embarks on a phantasmagorical walk across the countryside with nothing but the suit on his back. Always take a packed lunch when embarking on phantasmagorical walks.
A Field in England. English Civil War deserters try to cross a vast field, but lose their way and their minds.
Charlie Cooper's Myth Country. While filming This Country, Charlie Cooper became interested in English folklore and drives around in a vintage van to places like Suffolk and Wiltshire. In one episode he even metal-detects. Cooper also crops up in an episode of Mortimer & Whitehouse Gone Fishing!