Martin Scorsese & Mark Wahlberg’s 92% RT Masterpiece Was Officially The End Of An Era For HBO

Published Sep 25, 2026, 3:30 PM EDT After 18 months at Screen Rant, Guy became Classic TV Editor in September 2026, and specializes in leading features content about shows from decades gone by. Having written for and editing several TV, film and music publications, his areas of expertise include comedy, crime, historical drama, Westerns, and political thrillers. 16 years ago this month, HBO debuted a prestige crime drama that proved to be the last of its kind on the network. Co-produced by Martin Scorsese and Mark Wahlberg, the show would run for five seasons, picking up dozens of awards along the way, while costing a whopping $5 million per episode to produce. Its sprawling cast is littered with modern TV greats, from Kelly Macdonald to Michael Kenneth Williams. It’s no surprise, then, that this period masterpiece has achieved an impressive 92% critics’ score on the review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. Boardwalk Empire is a work worthy of all the above and more. It was clear within its first 10 minutes that this gangster show was going to be a masterpiece. Directed by Scorsese and penned by series creator Terence Winter, the pilot episode is lavish and unsentimental in equal measure, setting the scene for ruthlessly corrupt bureaucrat "Nucky" Thompson’s rise up the ranks of Atlantic City’s bootlegging empire. Portrayed by Steve Buscemi in a career-defining role, Nucky bridges two seemingly incompatible worlds without the slightest moral scruple, rubbing shoulders with many of America’s foremost politicians and mafiosos at the same time. Boardwalk Empire is an HBO series everyone should watch at least once, even if it represents the end of a bygone era, in multiple ways. Boardwalk Empire Was The Last TV Show Of Its Kind On HBO When Boardwalk Empire arrived on our screens in September 2010, we shouldn’t have been surprised that the network which brought us The Sopranos and The Wire was delivering another slow-burning masterclass in murky mob storytelling spread across several seasons. Yet, the series proved to be the last of its kind on HBO. Martin Scorsese’s sequel show Vinyl deserved more episodes, but was canceled after just 10, with the network citing its lack of ratings success as well as budget limitations. Meanwhile, their more recent multiseason gangster dramas like The Deuce, the Perry Mason reboot, and Tokyo Vice don’t have anything like the same scope. The era which saw HBO single-handedly chart a bold new course for television, proving the small screen could be just as prestigious and cinematic as any theatrical release, effectively ended with Boardwalk Empire. This isn’t to say that prestige TV went into decline. On the contrary, HBO simply let the genie out of the bottle. But the medium through which the network had become a byword for premium serial drama – cable television – was surpassed in the midst of Boardwalk Empire’s run by the explosion of TV streaming. HBO was suddenly facing the challenge of streamers like Netflix and Prime Video betting even more money on innovative original series for home viewing. Smoldering, panoramic gangster epics spanning half a decade or more no longer stood out from the crowd. Nor did they grab the attention of viewers like they used to, as the cancellation of Scorsese’s Vinyl demonstrated. There’ll always be a niche for this kind of project, but gone are the days when HBO is ready to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on one. HBO’s Prestige Cable Era Set The Scene For The Streaming Wars On the other hand, the prestige cable era that HBO dominated is precisely what conditioned the rise of Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, and Apple TV. The advent of YouTube meant that television streaming was always coming sooner or later, but it was essentially the HBO model of show development that Netflix and others initially chose to replicate. Without Boardwalk Empire, The Sopranos, The Wire, and similarly prestigious series in other genres like Band of Brothers, streaming giants would haven’t taken the approach they did to House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black, Stranger Things, Mindhunter, Transparent, The Man in the High Castle, The Handmaid's Tale, The Morning Show, or For All Mankind. Meanwhile, HBO has finally won its own prestige TV network battle with Showtime by successfully combining the production model it used in the noughties and 2010s with a streaming service capable of competing with Netflix and Prime Video. HBO Max provides the perfect platform on which to enjoy a sprawling epic Boardwalk Empire at your own speed. Perhaps we will never see another decade for HBO like the one which brought Tony Soprano, Stringer Bell, and Nucky Thompson to our screens all in the space of a few years. But their classic shows are still there to be enjoyed in the broadcaster’s back catalog. For fans of period gangster sagas, Boardwalk Empire ought to be the priority watch. Release Date 2010 - 2014-00-00 Showrunner Terence Winter Directors Timothy Van Patten, Allen Coulter Based on Atlantic City in the 1920s and 1930s, Boardwalk Empire follows political heavyweight "Nucky" Thompson as he battles mobsters, politicians, government agents, and the common folk who look to take him on. Now, with the federal government cracking down on bootlegging and other illegal activities, and everyone looking to take over control of the city, Nucky's lavish lifestyle is in danger of collapsing.