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HBO didn’t just raise the bar; it moved the bar somewhere nobody else could reach, and rewrote the rules of television. These HBO shows are not here to just entertain you; they will change your perception of storytelling. From mob therapy sessions to billion-dollar family duels, these shows are worth it.
The Sopranos
The Television Academy puts it plainly: 21 Emmys, 111 nominations, six seasons. What those numbers can’t capture is Gandolfini making Tony Soprano feel terrifyingly, uncomfortably real from 1999 to 2007.
The Wire
No Film School calls it the closest TV ever got to genuine literature. David Simon ran five seasons on Baltimore’s streets from 2002 to 2008 and somehow never took home a single Emmy for it.
Succession
Wikipedia’s awards archive tells you the numbers: 19 Emmys, nine Golden Globes, and Outstanding Drama three straight years. What it won’t tell you is how badly the finale will wreck you.
Chernobyl
It won the Primetime Emmy Awards in 2019 in the category of Outstanding Limited Series, and they were correct. Craig Mazin framed five episodes around a true disaster in 1986, and Jared Harris lived every minute of it.
Band Of Brothers
Collider calls it the best war story ever put on screen. Spielberg and Hanks produced ten episodes, seven Emmys, and twenty nominations. Easy Company’s journey from D-Day to victory has never been filmed better.
Game Of Thrones
According to the Television Academy Emmy records, there are four gems of Outstanding Drama- 2015, 2016, 2018, and 2019. During these seven seasons, there was nothing on TV that seemed as urgent or as dangerously unpredictable as Westeros.
The White Lotus
Collider confirms 16 Emmy Awards across three seasons, Hawaii, Sicily, Thailand, each one more savage than the last. Mike White built something that looks like a holiday show and cuts like a knife.
Six Feet Under
CBR recorded 53 Emmy nominations and nine wins for Alan Ball’s Fisher family funeral drama. Nobody who watched that series finale ever really got over it, and that’s exactly the point of great television.
Barry
CBR’s Emmy records clock Barry at 10 wins and 55 nominations across four dark, brilliant seasons. Bill Hader won Outstanding Lead Actor twice for playing a hitman who desperately wanted to be something else entirely.
Veep
The Television Academy revealed six Emmy wins that Julia Louis-Dreyfus had won in a row – the record that is yet to be broken. The number of Emmy awards that Veep won, 17 in total, has Collider affirming that Veep is one of the most-watched shows in HBO history.
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