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1. Breaking Bad. 9.5 (2.1M) Rate. TV Series. 2. Planet Earth II. 9.5 (158K) Rate. TV Mini Series. 3. Planet Earth. 9.4 (220K) Rate. TV Mini Series. 4. Band of Brothers. 9.4 (526K) Rate. TV Mini Series. 5. Chernobyl. 9.3 (863K) Rate. TV Mini Series. 6. The Wire. 9.3 (377K) Rate. TV Series. 7. Avatar: The Last Airbender. 9.3 (371K) Rate. TV Series.
- Alan Sepinwall
- ‘What We Do in the Shadows’ The first of several movie-to-TV projects on this list. This one is a spinoff rather than an adaptation, though, since Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi have appeared on the show in the roles they played in the 2014 vampire rockumentary film.
- ‘Oz’ Before The Wire, before The Sopranos, there was Oz, the canary in the coal mine for the idea of scripted dramas existing outside the broadcast network ecosystem.
- ‘The Good Fight’ For seven seasons, The Good Wife was a fine example of how loftier creative ambitions could be smuggled into the formula of a broadcast network procedural drama.
- ‘The Odd Couple’ The 1968 film version of Neil Simon’s play about a mismatched pair of divorced middle-aged friends sharing an apartment was a beloved, Oscar-nominated, box office hit.
- Community. NBC. 2009-15. The half-hour comedy is a format built around comfort and familiarity, and while “Community” had those trappings — a quirky ensemble, a relatable setting, a will-they-won’t-they storyline — the Dan Harmon series was best when it got weird.
- Hannibal. NBC. 2013-15. Somehow, showrunner Bryan Fuller tricked NBC into airing an avant-garde homoerotic romance between Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) — practicing psychiatrist, preening aesthete, noted gourmand — and Will Graham (Hugh Dancy), an FBI profiler who could inhabit the mindset of a sociopath.
- Homeland. Showtime. 2011-20. Carrie Mathison has all the hallmarks of an unreliable narrator — except she’s usually right. That was what made “Homeland’s” first two seasons so compelling: The CIA agent played masterfully by Claire Danes ought to have been a superspy, but the very mania that lent her a special insight also clouded her judgment, and made her appear untrustworthy to superiors.
- Top Chef. Bravo. 2006-present. As a genre, reality has a largely lowbrow reputation. Not so with “Top Chef,” the Bravo tentpole that’s evolved over 20 seasons into the Rolls-Royce of food television.
- IGN and some of our friends have decided the best in the world of TV.
- 100. Happy Days
- 99. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
- 98. The Dick Van Dyke Show
- 97. NYPD Blue
- 96. I May Destroy You
- 95. Living Single
- 94. The Prisoner
- 93. Pushing Daisies
- 92. Mystery Science Theater 3000
By IGN Staff
Updated: Sep 26, 2023 9:47 pm
Posted: Sep 25, 2023 3:00 pm
How do you break down what makes the ideal television show? It’s not easy, given the fact that each person has their own individual taste, but IGN did our best when it came to outlining our criteria for our 2023 revamp of our top TV shows of all time.
The show must have finished its run or been on the air for at least 10 years and had a significant impact on television as a whole — because how many shows make it to 10 seasons these days? While this does exclude some of our currently running faves like The Last of Us, The Boys, Squid Game and more, those shows haven’t completed their stories yet. Don’t worry — we’ll likely see them eligible by the next time we refresh this list!
Voters were asked to consider the following: How influential was the show? How well has it aged? Did the show have ongoing cultural significance? And, obviously, we considered best vs. favorite. (Just because you love Love Is Blind, that doesn’t mean it’s one of the greatest TV shows ever made. Sorry, those are just the rules!)
After making box office magic with George Lucas in the similarly themed classic American Graffiti, Ron Howard was cast as Richie in Happy Days. Taking a jump into a highly idealized version of 1950s Milwaukee, Happy Days sold audiences by being pretty much just what the title says it is. Along with Potsie, Ralph, and cool guy Fonzie, Richie and his...
Jon Stewart was a comedian and MTV show host for years before striking gold with The Daily Show after prior host Craig Kilborn moved on. It’s safe to say that this is the work for which Stewart is best known today, considering that his political involvement has only continued with his 2015 departure. Though proceeding host Trevor Noah has now had h...
Carl Reiner’s much-loved family sitcom may not have had the most realistic marriage on TV (its central couple was one inspiration behind Wandavision’s black-and-white meta-series, twin beds and all), but it certainly had one of the funniest. Comedy legends Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke starred as snazzy metropolitan couple Rob and Laura Petrie...
Gritty police procedurals are old hat by now, but NYPD Blue helped establish a formula that many have followed but few have surpassed. Delving into the frustrating bureaucracy of the American judicial system and moral failings of the police entrusted with finding justice for victims of violent crime, NYPD Blue went several steps over the preestabli...
I May Destroy You is a staggering example of turning pain into something beautiful. It may not have started as the focus for creator and star Michaela Coel’s next project, but it became a clear choice while processing her own personal experience of being drugged and sexually assaulted while writing her prior series, Chewing Gum. As a rising millenn...
Khadijah is a magazine editor living with her comparatively naive cousin Synclaire and friends Regine and Max, while on the other side of the brownstone apartments, we have bachelors Kyle and Obie. These twenty-something singles navigate their career and social lives, but of course, it’s the glorious hilarity of their dating misadventures that make...
The term “prestige television” didn’t exist back in 1968, but if it did, it certainly would have been used to describe The Prisoner. The series served as star Patrick McGoohan’s follow-up to Danger Man. But far from being another straightforward espionage drama, The Prisoner is a surrealist and heavily allegorical look at one ex-spy’s ill-fated att...
Forensic detective shows and fairy tale homages are both well-tread ground, but only one show springs to mind that was able to combine the best of these two seemingly unrelated genres. Pushing Daisies follows the story of Ned, a baker that can reanimate the dead through physical contact. Naturally, this isn’t without its drawbacks, and nothing he b...
This quirky, low-budget riff-fest rustled up an entire story about a janitor being sent into space with two robots so that mad scientists could force them to watch old B-movies as, more or less, a complicated excuse to sit around and make fun of silly sci-fi. MST3K fans know, however, that this series changed how we interact with movies. Not just “...
A list of the best TV shows of all time, selected by Time Out critics, covering crime thrillers, sitcoms, sci-fis and period epics. From Breaking Bad to The Sopranos, from Twin Peaks to The Wire, discover the finest scripted TV ever made.
Presenting the best television series to ever grace the small screen, as chosen by TIME's TV critic James Poniewozik.
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Find your next binge-worthy TV show based on Metascore, a weighted average of critics' ratings. Browse by streaming service, genre, or release year and see the top 30 results with summaries and ratings.
