8 Most Perfect HBO Shows of the Last 25 Years, Ranked

Published Oct 24, 2026, 6:52 AM EDT

Diego Pineda has been a devout storyteller his whole life. He has self-published a fantasy novel and a book of short stories, and is actively working on publishing his second novel.

A lifelong fan of watching movies and talking about them endlessly, he writes reviews and analyses on his Instagram page dedicated to cinema, and occasionally on his blog. His favorite filmmakers are Andrei Tarkovsky and Charlie Chaplin. He loves modern Mexican cinema and thinks it's tragically underappreciated.

Other interests of Diego's include reading, gaming, roller coasters, writing reviews on his Letterboxd account (username: DPP_reviews), and going down rabbit holes of whatever topic he's interested in at any given point.

Sign in to your Collider account

HBO has been on the air since 1972, pioneers of the commercial-free, subscription-based model of broadcast television. However, it wouldn't be until around the late 1990s that they would become the undisputed king of prestige television, largely thanks to The Sopranos, generally regarded as the first true prestige drama in the history of the medium. Over the course of the last 25 years, the network has continued to deliver some absolute masterpieces.

It's one thing for a show to be great, but a wholly different deal for it to be perfect. The quality of any piece of art—television included—is, of course, highly subjective. However, HBO has produced particular shows since 2001 which are almost universally regarded as virtually flawless pieces of television. If anybody were to wonder what all the hype is about regarding HBO, all they'd need to do is watch one of these shows.

8 'The Penguin' (2024)

"Another Batman reimagining?" was what inevitably came to many a DC fan's mind with the announcement of Matt Reeves' The Batman. Little did they know, Reeves would end up delivering one of the most widely acclaimed renditions of the Caped Crusader to date, also introducing fascinating versions of other classic Batman characters—including Colin Farrell's take on a certain villain. That villain went on to become the protagonist of his own HBO limited series: The Penguin.

There are no current signs that there will ever be a second season of The Penguin, but that's okay, because it would leave this as one of the most perfect miniseries of the last 15 years. Gritty, dark, and with a perfect balance between violence and psychological intensity, The Penguin is easily one of the greatest DC TV shows to date. With great writing, clear inspirations from The Sopranos, and Farrell at his very best, what's not to praise?

7 'The Leftovers' (2014–2017)

Image via HBO

Based on co-creator Tom Perrotta's own 2011 novel, The Leftovers is probably not a show that will appeal to people that don't like ambiguity in television. However, those whose favorite part of the "mystery box" format of genre television is not the answers, but the questions and the thought-provoking themes they generate, will likely find this to be one of the best HBO shows to have aired since 1990.

Masterful performances all across the board by stars like Justin Theroux and Carrie Coon, a beautifully haunting Max Richter score, and a sublime ending that's perhaps one of the best of any modern HBO show are but a few of the praise-worthy elements that make up The Leftovers. It's a wonderfully character-driven sci-fi show whose sci-fi elements are subtle to the point of almost being invisible, instead focusing on deeply existential themes of grief and loss.

6 'Six Feet Under' (2001–2005)

Image via HBO

Though several of the most universally acclaimed HBO shows of the last 25 years have been full-on dramas, the network has also produced many great comedies and dramedies. Case in point: Six Feet Under, widely regarded as one of the greatest dramedies in the history of television. Everything that leads up to one of the best endings in HBO history is an equally powerful series about mortality, family, and the search for meaning in life.

It's all very emotionally heavy stuff, but the way the writing balances that darkness with unforgettably endearing (yet undeniably flawed) characters, wonderful magical realism, and sharply satirical humor makes for a timeless exploration of a bunch of universally compelling themes. If Six Feet Under's ending is so legendary, it's largely thanks to how the show powerfully de-stigmatizes death and inspires viewers to live, laugh, and love as much as possible while they're still alive.

5 'The Pitt' (2025–Present)

Image via HBO Max

Medical dramas are a dime a dozen, the genre often crumbling under its own weight due to the vast number of shows that sacrifice realism and authenticity in favor of cheap melodrama. Every now and then, though, the world gets a medical show that goes down in history as one of the best—and that is precisely what R. Scott Gemmill's The Pitt, a show specifically designed to be the most accurate medical drama in history, is.

It's one of the best TV shows to have aired since 2020, and it's not just because of its incredibly admirable commitment to realism. You also get one of the most incredible ensemble casts of any HBO show in recent memory (including the great Noah Wyle at the top of his game), sharp commentary on the current state of the healthcare system in the United States, deeply endearing characters, and an inescapable sense of urgency lent by each episode being structured in real time.

Collider Exclusive · TV Medicine Quiz Which Fictional Hospital Would You Work Best In? The Pitt · ER · Grey's Anatomy · House · Scrubs

Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television — brutal, chaotic, romantic, brilliant, and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out exactly where you belong.

🚨The Pitt

🏥ER

💉Grey's

🔬House

🩺Scrubs

FIND YOUR HOSPITAL →

01

A critical patient comes through the door. What's your first instinct? Medicine under pressure reveals who you actually are.

AStay completely present — block everything else out and work through it step by step, right now. BTriage fast and delegate — get the right people on the right problems immediately. CTrust my gut and move — I work best when I stop overthinking and just act. DAsk the question everyone else is ignoring — what's the thing that doesn't fit? ETake a breath, make a joke to cut the tension, and then get to work — panic helps no one.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

Why did you go into medicine in the first place? The honest answer says more about you than the one you'd give in an interview.

ABecause I wanted to be where it matters most — right at the edge, when someone's life is actually on the line. BBecause I wanted to help people — genuinely, one patient at a time, in a system that makes it hard. CBecause I was drawn to the intensity of it — the stakes, the drama, the feeling of being fully alive. DBecause medicine is the most interesting puzzle there is — and I needed a problem worth solving. EBecause I wanted to make a difference — and also, honestly, I didn't know what else to do with my life.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

What do you actually want from the people you work with? Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are.

ACompetence and calm — I need people who don't fall apart when things get bad. BTrust and reliability — I want to know that when I pass something off, it's handled. CConnection — I want colleagues who become family, even if that gets complicated. DIntelligence and the willingness to be challenged — I have no interest in people who just agree with me. EFriendship — people I actually like spending twelve hours a day with, because those hours are going to happen either way.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

You lose a patient you fought hard to save. How do you carry it? Every doctor who's worked a long shift has had to answer this question.

AI carry it. All of it. I don't look for ways to put it down — that weight is part of doing this work honestly. BI process it and move — you have to, or the next patient suffers for the one you just lost. CI feel it deeply and lean on the people around me — I don't think you're supposed to handle that alone. DI go back over every decision — not to punish myself, but because I need to understand what I missed. EI grieve it genuinely, find some way to laugh about something unrelated, and try to be kind to myself — imperfectly.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

How would your colleagues describe the way you work? Your reputation on the floor is usually more accurate than your self-image.

AIntense and completely present — no small talk during a shift, but exactly who you want there. BSteady and dependable — not the flashiest in the room but never the one who drops something. CPassionate and occasionally chaotic — brilliant on the hard cases, prone to drama everywhere else. DBrilliant and difficult — right more often than anyone else, and everyone knows it, including me. EWarm and self-deprecating — not the most intimidating presence, but genuinely good at this and easy to like.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure? Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice.

AProtocol is the floor, not the ceiling — I follow it until the patient needs something it can't provide. BI respect it — the system is broken in places, but the structure is there for a reason and I work within it. CI follow it until my instincts tell me not to — and my instincts are usually right, even when they cause problems. DRules are for people who haven't thought hard enough about when to break them. EI try to follow it and mostly do — with a few memorable exceptions that still come up in meetings.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

What does this job cost you personally? Nobody works in medicine without paying a price. What's yours?

AEverything outside these walls — I've given this job my full attention and the rest of my life has gone around it. BMy idealism, mostly — I came in believing the system could be fixed and I've made a complicated peace with that. CStability — my personal life has been as chaotic as the OR, and that's not entirely a coincidence. DMy relationships — I am not easy to know, and the people who've tried to would probably agree. EMy sense of gravity — I use humour as a coping mechanism, which not everyone appreciates in a hospital.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back? The answer to this question is the most honest thing about you.

AThe fact that it's real — that nothing else I could be doing would matter this much, right now, today. BThe patients — individual human beings who needed something and got it because I was there. CThe people I work with — I have walked through impossible things with these people and I'd do it again. DThe next unsolved case — there's always another puzzle, and I'm not done yet. EBecause despite everything — the exhaustion, the loss, the absurdity — I actually love this job.

REVEAL MY HOSPITAL →

Your Assignment Has Been Made You Belong In…

Your answers have pointed to one fictional hospital above all others. This is the ward your instincts, your temperament, and your particular brand of dysfunction were built for.

The Pitt

You are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has ever shown — one that puts you inside a single fifteen-hour shift and doesn't let you look away.

• You need your work to be real, not romanticised — meaning over drama, honesty over aesthetics.
• You find purpose inside the work itself, not in the chaos surrounding it.
• You've made peace with the fact that this job takes from you constantly, and gives back in ways that are harder to name.
• Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center demands exactly that kind of person — and you would not want to be anywhere else.

ER

You are the person who keeps the whole floor running — not the most brilliant in the room, but possibly the most essential.

• You show up, do the work, absorb the losses, and come back the next day without needing the job to be anything other than what it is.
• You care about patients as individual human beings, not as cases to solve or dramas to live through.
• You believe in the system even when it fails you — and you understand that emergency medicine is about holding the line just long enough.
• ER is television about endurance. You have it.

Grey's Anatomy

You came to medicine with your whole self — your ambition, your emotions, your relationships, your history — and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door.

• You feel things fully and form deep attachments to the people you work with.
• Your personal and professional lives are permanently, chaotically entangled — and that entanglement drives both your greatest disasters and your most remarkable saves.
• You understand that extraordinary medicine often happens at the intersection of clinical skill and profound human connection.
• It's messy at Grey Sloan. You would not have it any other way.

House

You are drawn to the problem above everything else — the symptom that doesn't fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one.

• You're not primarily motivated by the patient as a person — though you are capable of caring, even if you'd deny it.
• You work best when the stakes are highest and the standard answer is wrong.
• Princeton-Plainsboro exists to house one extraordinary, impossible mind — and everyone around that mind is there because they're smart enough to keep up.
• The only way forward here is to think harder than everyone else in the room. That is exactly what you do.

Scrubs

You understand that medicine is tragic and absurd in almost equal measure — and that the only sane response is to hold both of those things at the same time.

• You are warm, self-aware, and funnier than most people in your field.
• You use humour to get through terrible moments — and at Sacred Heart, that's not a flaw, it's a survival strategy.
• You lean on the people around you and let them lean back. The laughter and the grief are genuinely inseparable here.
• Scrubs is a show about learning to become someone worthy of the job. You are still very much in the middle of that process — which is exactly right.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

4 'The Wire' (2002–2008)

Image via HBO

As far as HBO shows go, if there's any one title that easily earns the silver medal as the second most groundbreaking TV drama the network has thus far produced—after The Sopranos, of course—, it's The Wire. Where The Sopranos offered a level of psychological depth and moral ambiguity that mainstream broadcast television had never really seen before, The Wire offered an unprecedentedly gritty and hyperrealistic critique of foundational American institutions.

For that and many more reasons, The Wire is one of the best crime shows to have aired since 1990, a masterpiece which anybody who loves crime dramas should check out at least once in their lives. With its almost documentary-like commitment to realism and rejection of traditional Hollywood television conventions from its time, The Wire only kept further expanding its scope and power with each subsequent season. Though fans tend to agree that the final season was the show's weakest, it in no way detracts from this being among the best TV shows in history.

3 'Chernobyl' (2019)

Image via HBO

To this day, Chernobyl is one of the miniseries with the highest Rotten Tomatoes scores, and that's for good reason. Over the course of a mere five episodes—all among the best that any miniseries has delivered throughout the last decade—, the show dismantles every nuance of the infamous 1986 disaster in the eponymous Ukrainian city. It's a gripping horror story, a courtroom thriller, and a deeply moving tribute to human sacrifice all at once.

With its relentlessly bleak and realistic depiction of the disaster and its destructive consequences, Chernobyl is a miniseries that definitely requires viewers with a strong stomach. It's a perfectly-paced masterclass in tension and dread, greatly elevated by the stunning cinematography and atmospheric score. The acting is fantastic, the writing is airtight, and the fact that there's nothing of substance worthy of criticism over the course of those five hyper-ambitious episodes is worthy of applause.

2 'Succession' (2018–2023)

Image via HBO

Some may argue that it's relatively easier for a miniseries to remain flawless, since there's less room for error in such a shorter and cinematic form of storytelling. That's not necessarily true, but it nevertheless makes the fact that Succession remained so virtually flawless over the course of four seasons all the more admirable. Part family dramedy, part political satire, part Shakespearean tragicomedy, this is one of the most addictive HBO shows of all time.

The show's razor-sharp satirical humor and deeply character-driven drama remained in perfect balance over the course of its entire run, making for a series that could go from hilarious to incredibly intense from just one scene to the next. Add to that some of the best-written dialogue and character arcs of any HBO show in history, some unassumingly meaningful handheld camerawork, and a faultless ensemble cast, and it should be no wonder why so many people regard this as one of the greatest shows in history.

1 'Band of Brothers' (2001)

Image via HBO

Most people who have seen Band of Brothers would vehemently agree that it's the most perfect piece of media that HBO has ever produced; and those who haven't seen it either have it near the top of their watchlist or have somehow never heard of it. Executive-produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, and based on historian Stephen E. Ambrose's 1992 non-fiction book of the same name, this is still the highest-rated HBO show ever on IMDb, and the second-highest-rated fiction show in general.

It's probably the best American miniseries of all time, and may even be one of the greatest pieces of audiovisual war fiction of modern times. Crafted with a level of cinematic scope and technical perfection that television has rarely seen throughout the last 25 years, complete with some incredible performances and a timeless message of heroism, brotherhood, and sacrifice. It's perhaps the most perfect HBO show of all time, let alone of the past 25 years.

Band of Brothers

• 

  Richard D. Winters

• 

  C. Carwood Lipton