The 15 Best HBO Series of All Time, Ranked

Ranking HBO shows is really ranking the history of prestige television, since the network invented the category and then spent 25 years competing mostly with itself. The Sopranos is #1 and it isn't close in influence: every difficult man, every cut-to-black, every therapy scene on television descends from it. The Wire is the better novel, Succession the better satire, Game of Thrones the bigger event — but Tony came first and made them all possible. The list's structural pick is Oz at #15: crude by today's standards, but it was HBO's 1997 dry run at serialized drama, and its DNA is in everything above it. Deadwood gets the martyr slot, cancelled with the camp half-built; The Leftovers gets the cult slot, three seasons of grief that HBO renewed out of pure conviction rather than ratings. Comedy is represented by its sharpest blades — Veep, Barry, Curb — not its safest. Think you know your Bada Bing from your Baltimore? The matching HBO trivia quiz is waiting.