The 10 Best HBO Shows of All Time, Ranked

Image via ©HBO/Courtesy Everett Collection Published Jul 17, 2026, 6:44 PM EDT Ryan Heffernan is a Senior Writer at Collider. Storytelling has been one of his interests since an early age, with his appreciation for film and television becoming a particular interest of his during his teenage years. This passion saw Ryan graduate from the University of Canberra in 2020 with an Honours Degree in Film Production. In the years since, he has found freelance work as a videographer and editor in the Canberra region while also becoming entrenched in the city's film-making community. In addition to cinema and writing, Ryan's other major interest is sport, with him having a particular love for Australian Rules football, Formula 1, and cricket. He also has casual interests in reading, gaming, and history. Sign in to your Collider account All television production networks are equal, but some are more equal than others. In modern history, there has been no brand, provider, or even streaming service that is as synonymous with small-screen greatness as HBO. While the cable network has been operational since as far back as the early '70s, there is no doubt the company’s greatness has been defined by the last 30 years, over which time it spearheaded television’s ascent to prestige entertainment and has consistently churned out series that have embodied the medium at its absolute best. Such is the plethora of outstanding shows HBO has produced that masterpieces like Rome, Oz, and Curb Your Enthusiasm are just some of the triumphant gems that haven’t made the list. The series that have are truly embedded among the greatest TV shows of all time. With everything from fantasy epics to crime thrillers, satirical comedies, and war dramas included, HBO’s best series display not only the creative brilliance of the network but the stunning variety of their stories as well. 10 'Veep' (2012–2019) Image via HBO Hot off the back of his success with the British comedy series The Thick of It, political satirist Armando Iannucci pivoted across the pond to scorch the landscape of American politics with his trademark acidic wit and cynicism in the form of Veep. Narrowly edging out Curb Your Enthusiasm as the best comedy series produced by HBO, it follows former senator Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) as she is given the opportunity to serve as the Vice President and uses the position to fulfill her own political ambitions while juggling day-to-day obstacles in her professional and personal life. Gaining momentum, gravitas, and grandeur throughout its seven-season run, Veep excels as an acidic depiction of political figures. With its profanity-laden, razor-sharp dialogue and its assembly of egocentric and wickedly immoral characters, it strips all notions of heroism and humanity from governance to present a confronting and hostile image of those in power. Laced with a sense of biting realism, Veep stands tall among the greatest political series television has ever seen and remains a cathartic, albeit shocking, skewering of American politics. 9 'Game of Thrones' (2011–2019) Image via HBO While many, even seven years on from its conclusion, lament the ending of Game of Thrones, there is no denying that the hit fantasy series is the greatest feat of production and scale the small screen has ever seen. Based on George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” novel series, it quickly became renowned for its devastating plot twists and unpredictable storytelling as it focuses on a savage war for power between five noble families in the mythical realm of Westeros. At its peak, Game of Thrones was irrefutably the most astonishing series television had ever seen, a faultless marriage of masterful writing, impressive performances, and breathtaking production design that transfixed millions around the world. Even with the series stumbling somewhat in its final season, it remains an iconic triumph of storytelling ambition and production might. Its spin-off series, House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, have been similarly impressive highlights for HBO as well. 8 'Six Feet Under' (2001–2006) Image via HBO Among the most criminally underrated series HBO has produced, Six Feet Under delivers a poignant balance of philosophical, character-driven drama and biting black comedy as it follows the highly dysfunctional Fisher family as they come together to manage their late father’s funeral home. With each of the main characters embarking on their own journeys of identity, belonging, and existentialism, the five-season series provides a masterful and contemplative exploration of the intricacies of the human condition in the face of mortality. Bolstered by its inflections of spiritual surrealism and the scope it finds in containing several main characters, it allows for a uniquely piercing and profoundly intriguing descent into ideas of morality that only gets better the longer it runs. With its series finale heralded by many who have seen it as one of the greatest conclusions in television history, Six Feet Under is a hidden gem of HBO drama that pulls no punches in its thematic might while still delivering a rewarding and emotionally captivating story of human turmoil. 7 'Deadwood' (2004–2006) Image via HBO Western drama has long been a staple of television, spanning as far back as the late 1940s with iconic titles like Hopalong Cassidy and The Lone Ranger. In the 21st century, the small screen has seen no greater example of the genre than Deadwood, which follows the residents of the eponymous town as a mining boom in the 1870s brings masses of people to the settlement in search of riches. Buoyed by its brilliant dialogue, exceptional ensemble cast, and thorough exploration of society and order in a town where law enforcement is overwhelmed and crime runs rampant, Deadwood holds a ruthless allure as it explores Western drama at its most visceral, profanely poetic, and morally ambiguous. While its abrupt cancellation does strip it of a rewarding and holistic finale, it still stands as a masterclass in immersive storytelling and continues to endure as one of HBO’s most enrapturing titles. 6 'Succession' (2018–2023) Image via HBO Among the greatest series from any production network in the past decade, Succession is a masterpiece of skewering satire, one that sets its sights on power and wealth in the modern world with infectiously addictive results. Skirting the line between black comedy and high-octane thrills, it unfolds as the aging Logan Roy (Brian Cox) signals his intent to step down as the CEO and chairperson of Waystar RoyCo, a global multimedia conglomerate, thus creating a ferocious power struggle between his three children as they strive to best position themselves as the optimal successor. Defined by its frenetic pacing, vulgar dialogue, and the violent shifts in fortune and favor that the characters endure, Succession is a captivating dissection of status, inheritance, and elitist culture that intricately weaves its tale of rivalry and power with complex observations on trauma and morality. Complimented by its incredible ensemble cast and ceaselessly outstanding writing, Succession’s four-season stretch marks a modern marvel of television drama that remains utterly brilliant from beginning to end. Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would BeYour Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn't work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back. 🎖️Rambo 🍸James Bond 🏺Indiana Jones 🔧John McClane 🎭Ethan Hunt FIND YOUR PARTNER → 01 You're dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you. ASomeone who already has three contingency plans running and is calmly working through all of them. BSomeone who reads the terrain instinctively and knows exactly how to use it against the enemy. CSomeone who keeps their nerve and their sense of humour when everything is falling apart. DSomeone who knows the history of wherever we are and what we're walking into. ESomeone with the right contact, the right cover identity, and the right exit already arranged. NEXT QUESTION → 02 You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission. AOn foot through terrain no one else would attempt — I move where vehicles can't follow. BOn a motorcycle, a cargo plane, or anything else that gets me there before I think too hard about it. CIn something that belongs to someone else — borrowed, stolen, or improvised under fire. DFirst class, with a cover identity and a gadget that does something I won't explain until it's needed. EBy whatever means are available — I've driven, flown, and once arrived by camel. The destination matters, not the method. NEXT QUESTION → 03 You're pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of. ADisappears into the environment, flanks them silently, and ends it before I've reloaded. BCracks a one-liner, grabs a fire extinguisher or a chair, and improvises something that somehow works. CProduces a gadget specifically designed for this exact scenario and uses it with infuriating precision. DPulls out a whip, a pistol, and an archaeological insight that somehow gets us out alive. ENeutralises the threat with maximum efficiency and minimum words — they were already three moves ahead. NEXT QUESTION → 04 The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are. AA bar with terrible lighting, cold beer, and absolutely no questions about feelings. BThe finest restaurant in the city, a bottle of something expensive, and a conversation that is equal parts brilliant and exhausting. CA local dig site, a museum after hours, or a long story about why that particular artefact matters to human civilisation. DPizza. Bad TV. Falling asleep halfway through a movie neither of you were watching anyway. EA debrief that turns into three hours of contingency planning that somehow becomes the most fun you've had all week. NEXT QUESTION → 05 How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability. APrecise and minimal — tell me what I need to know and nothing else. Every word has a cost. BDeadpan and dry — keeping it light keeps me sharp, even when everything is on fire. CEnthusiastic and slightly chaotic — but always with useful information buried somewhere in the noise. DCalm and controlled through an earpiece, with a plan that covers every variable I haven't thought of yet. EBarely at all — silence is a language and they speak it fluently. NEXT QUESTION → 06 Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership. AInfiltrate their inner circle, learn everything, and dismantle them from inside out before they know we're there. BStudy the historical pattern — every villain of this type has a weakness written somewhere in the past. CGet them talking. The more they monologue, the more time I have to figure out how to beat them. DGo through them. Directly. With as much force as the terrain allows. EFind the one thing they haven't accounted for — there's always one thing — and make sure we're holding it. NEXT QUESTION → 07 Things go badly wrong and you're captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters. ACome in alone, quietly, and get me out before anyone knows they were there. BHave already been working on the extraction since the moment I disappeared — the plan is already running. CCome in loud, come in fast, and worry about the collateral damage later — I'd do the same for them. DUse every resource, every contact, and bend every rule until I'm out — they don't leave people behind. ECharm their way in somehow, bluff through the hard part, and still manage to look good doing it. NEXT QUESTION → 08 What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn't replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn't know you had. ATechnology that shouldn't exist yet and the training to use it under any conditions. BSurvival instinct so refined it borders on supernatural — and the scars to prove it's been tested. CKnowledge of history, language, and culture that makes them invaluable in places where force is useless. DThe ability to walk into any room in the world and immediately become the most trusted person in it. EStubbornness that refuses to accept a situation is hopeless — and the improvisational skill to back it up. NEXT QUESTION → 09 Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together. AA partner who never fully switches off — always watching exits, always calculating threats, even at dinner. BA partner who gets the job done brilliantly but has the emotional availability of a locked filing cabinet. CA partner who makes everything ten times more complicated than it needs to be — but who always comes through. DA partner who gets personally attached to every relic, ruin, and artefact we encounter, which slows everything down. EA partner who was not built for this and knows it — but shows up anyway, every time, without being asked. NEXT QUESTION → 10 It's the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one. AOne line. Absolutely dry. Delivered like the world isn't ending. Then we move. BNothing said at all — just a look that means we both already know what has to happen. CA plan I don't fully understand that somehow accounts for everything, delivered in thirty seconds flat. DA piece of historical context that reframes the entire situation and tells us exactly what to do next. ESomeone who steps forward instead of back — because that's who they've always been. REVEAL MY PARTNER → Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse. RamboYour partner doesn't talk much, doesn't need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you've finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You'll never need to ask if he has your back. You'll just know. James BondYour partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it'll take you a moment to remember what's actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You'll never be bored. You'll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing. Indiana JonesYour partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar's eye and a brawler's instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn't matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you'll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them. John McClaneYour partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren't so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay. Ethan HuntYour partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you've finished reading the briefing, and the plan he's settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn't exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 5 'The Leftovers' (2014–2017) Image via HBO Not only HBO’s most underappreciated series so far, but one of the most criminally underrated titles of 21st-century television as well, The Leftovers is an absorbing masterpiece of high-concept drama and character-driven narrative anchored by the depth of its writing and the perfection of its cast. On October 14, 2011, two percent of the world’s population inexplicably vanished in an event that is known as the “Sudden Departure.” Three years later, the world is left reeling with remorse, memory, and grief as some in society try to maintain a sense of normality while others insist on remembering the vanquished. As hypnotic as it is unique, The Leftovers doesn’t approach its story with a sense of dystopian tension or unraveling mystery, but with an air of weighted, lingering drama as it follows the journeys of deeply flawed and wounded characters. Its ability to make viewers empathize with characters is remarkable, and the trust it places in the audience to embrace its languid tempo of human vulnerability, impossible morality, and the search for purpose is easy to reward. Cerebral, challenging, and completely immersive, it stands as the best long-running season HBO produced in the 2010s, and it’s a shame it hasn’t been regarded as such by more people. 4 'Chernobyl' (2019) Image via HBO One of the greatest miniseries ever made, Chernobyl is a masterclass of atmospheric dread and historical drama that revolves around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster of 1986. Epic in scope, its five-episode run covers the night of the reactor meltdown and the immediate aftermath suffered by first responders, the rigorous efforts to organize and execute a containment strategy, and the eventual political fallout that befell the Soviet Union on the world stage. The brilliance of Chernobyl is that it excels on two different fronts. As an all-encompassing historical drama, it is as frightful as it is enrapturing, showcasing the astonishing scale of the operation to contain the radioactive damage in a manner that is entirely absorbing. However, it also soars as a ferocious indictment on political deception, with the series’ later episodes making pointed observations on the Soviet Union’s efforts to shelter the true nature of the incident from the rest of the world and the price it paid when the facts were unveiled. It is regarded by many to be the greatest piece of television drama in the past decade, and it is certain to endure for many years to come as a defining triumph of the medium. 3 'Band of Brothers' (2001) Image via HBO From one masterpiece of miniseries drama to another, Band of Brothers has stood the test of time for 25 years now to solidify itself as one of the best and most ageless series the format has ever seen. Also standing as the greatest depiction of war ever put to the small screen, it follows the soldiers of Easy Company, an American Airborne division, through their campaign in the European Theater of WWII, beginning with their rigorous training regime and their airdrop in Normandy on the eve of D-Day, through the many battles they fought in, and to their presence in Germany as the war draws to a close. Driven by the rich authenticity of its production, it delivers a harrowing descent into the brutality and chaos of war, but its emotional punch is firmly rooted in the investment it makes in the journeys the soldiers endure and the bonds and camaraderie they form. Its basis on real soldiers—many of whom appear and give testimonial interviews throughout the series—only adds to its gravitas, making Band of Brothers one of the most enriching and rewarding series ever made, even if it is often a challenging viewing experience. 2 'The Sopranos' (1999–2007) Image via HBO In many ways, HBO is the flagship of television’s rise to becoming a prestige form of drama in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Not dissimilarly, The Sopranos is something of a defining spearhead of the network’s rampant rise to becoming one of the most respected brands in modern entertainment. A truly revolutionary masterpiece, it follows New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) as he begins seeing a therapist in secret to help him navigate the increasingly complex imbalance in his violent professional life and tumultuous family environment. Its serialized approach to long-running drama broke new ground for the format, with the series’ continuous story over the course of six seasons not only standing as a masterpiece of intense, character-focused complexity but as a pioneer of modern television as well. Astonishing from beginning to finish, it continues to be heralded as a defining achievement of the medium due to its litany of note-perfect performances, razor-sharp writing, and commanding control over narrative tone. If anyone were to herald it as being the greatest series HBO has ever produced, or even the best series of all time, it would be difficult to argue. 1 'The Wire' (2002–2008) Image via HBO Max Not just a viscerally intense and painfully realistic crime series, but an all-encompassing epic dissecting the failings of societal institutions in modern America as well, The Wire is the best, most timeless, and most important show to have ever been produced. Starting relatively small, its first season explores both the inner workings of street-level drug dealers and the police work of officers trying to mount a case against them, but it quickly grows from there. Ensuing seasons examine everything from the hierarchy of the drug trade and a violent transition of power to the chain of command of the Baltimore Police Department, the swaying priorities of City Hall, and the systemic rot that affects everything from public schooling to journalism as well. Grounded by the detail and authenticity that former crime reporter David Simon and veteran police detective Ed Burns bring to the series as co-creators, The Wire eschews notions of heroism and villainy in favor of delving into the moral complexity of the world it examines. It is never anything short of profoundly nuanced and contemplative, especially as it treats Baltimore itself as a central character and critiques the efficiency and pitfalls of the city’s institutions while acknowledging the humanity and hopes of those who populate them. Immense, heartbreaking, and ceaselessly poignant, The Wire is the pinnacle of television drama at its most urgent and captivating. The Wire Release Date 2002 - 2008-00-00 Network HBO