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What is the best TV series of all time?

6 October 2026 · Series

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Television used to be the thing films looked down on. Then, around the turn of the century, a handful of shows started telling long, novel-like stories with the budgets and ambition of cinema, and the question of the best series ever made became as fiercely argued as the best film. GOATvs settles it the simple way: two shows side by side, pick one, and everyone's picks add up to a single list. The box above shows where some of the usual contenders stand right now.

For many critics the answer is The Sopranos. David Chase's HBO drama ran from 1999 to 2007 and followed Tony Soprano, a New Jersey mob boss who sees a therapist about his panic attacks. It is often named as the show that started television's golden age, and in 2013 the Writers Guild of America put it first on its list of the 101 best-written TV series. Its final scene, which cuts to black in a diner, is still debated today.

Its closest rival among critics is The Wire, also from HBO, which ran from 2002 to 2008. Created by David Simon, a former crime reporter, it looked at the city of Baltimore through the police, the drug trade, the docks, the schools and the newspaper, one season at a time. It never won a big audience or a major Emmy while it aired, yet its reputation has grown every year since, and when Rolling Stone updated its list of the greatest TV shows in 2022, The Wire was first and The Sopranos second.

Third on that list was Breaking Bad, the show that may have the best claim to being loved by critics and by viewers at the same time. Vince Gilligan's AMC drama, which ran from 2008 to 2013, turned a mild chemistry teacher into a drug kingpin over five seasons, and Bryan Cranston won four Emmys for playing him. Streaming helped it grow while it was still on air, and it has long sat near the top of IMDb's user ratings.

Then there is Game of Thrones, the biggest television event of the 2010s. HBO's adaptation of George R. R. Martin's novels ran from 2011 to 2019 and won 59 Emmy Awards, more than any other drama series. Its final season divided fans sharply, so a vote between Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad is often really a vote on how much an ending matters.

Comedy has its own champions. Friends ran for ten seasons on NBC from 1994 to 2004 and found a whole new audience on streaming. The Office (US), a remake of Ricky Gervais's British series, did the same, and The Simpsons has been on the air since 1989, longer than any other American scripted prime-time series. Critics rarely put sitcoms first, but head-to-head voting is different: people pick what they have watched and rewatched, which is why comedies often do better here than on critics' lists.

There is no final answer, and that is the point. Start with Breaking Bad vs The Sopranos, the critics' favourite against the fans' favourite, then try Game of Thrones vs Breaking Bad, the two biggest dramas of their decade, and Friends vs The Office (US). The full Top 100 TV shows of all time, ranked by everyone, has the rest, along with lists for crime and thrillers and comedy.

Vote: Breaking Bad vs The Sopranos

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