The series was created and written by Michael Hirst and produced through a collaboration among American, British, and Canadian production companies for Showtime, including Peace Arch Entertainment, Reveille Eire, Working Title Television, and the CBC.

Although named after the Tudor dynasty as a whole, the series is based specifically on the reign of King Henry VIII and was filmed mostly in Ireland.

Production on Season Three began on 16 June 2008 in Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland.

The first two episodes debuted early on multiple platforms including DirecTV, Time Warner Cable OnDemand, Netflix, Verizon FiOS On Demand, and the Internet Movie Database before the official Showtime premiere.

The premiere of The Tudors on 1 April 2007 was the highest-rated Showtime series debut in three years, drawing almost 870,000 viewers in the US and earning a combined one million views online and via cable affiliates.

A New York Times review praised Natalie Dormer's portrayal of Anne Boleyn as a 'star-making, breakout performance,' even while criticizing the show for reducing the era's conflicts to simplistic personal and erotic power struggles.

According to Metacritic, the show received 64% favourable reviews for season one, 68% for season two, 74% for season three, and 63% for season four.

An original soundtrack for each season was composed by Trevor Morris and released by Varèse Sarabande; the series won the 2007 Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music.

The Tudors won seven of eight Irish Film and Television Award nominations in 2008, including Best Drama Series and acting awards for Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Nick Dunning, and Maria Doyle Kennedy, plus craft awards for Costume Design, Production Design, and Hair/Makeup.