Top 10 Most Popular and Highest Rated HBO Shows Of All Time

Laelia Yang April 19, 2022 | 04:20

HBO is considered at the top of Peak TV. The cable network has given viewers some truly original, quality shows, from The Sopranos to Game of Thrones. Here are HBO's greatest shows of all time.

HBO is the best of the best when it comes to television. Home Box Office, better known as HBO, has been around since 1972, and racked up plenty of cred during its first 20 years through iconic stand-up specials like Eddie Murphy: Delirious, miniseries like Robert Altman's Tanner '88, sketch-comedy series like Kids in the Hall, and genre anthology fare such as Tales From the Crypt. It wasn't until the 1990s that HBO evolved into the prestige-series juggernaut and Emmy factory we know today.

Over the years HBO has proved to be a prestige player in both the comedy and drama genres, raking in awards and spending unfathomable cash on attracting and retaining some of the best talents in the business. Now, with the launch of HBO Max, the cabler’s vault of equally cachet shows are available to enjoy in full.

Even now, HBO continues to produce some of the biggest and most acclaimed shows on television. But which of their classic series is the best? Have a look at some of the great television this network has produced, with the highest-rated HBO shows according to IMDb.

Top 10 Most Popular and Highest Rated HBO Shows Of All Time

10. Euphoria (2019)

9. Big Little Lies (2017)

8. Westworld (2016)

7. Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000)

6. Succession (2018)

5. The Sopranos (1999)

4. The Wire (2002)

3. Game Of Thrones (2011)

2. Band Of Brothers (2001)

1. Chernobyl (2019)

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10. Euphoria (2019)

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HBO’s Euphoria is bleak and deliberately provocative, saturated with drugs and sex and maladaptive decadence and rendered in beautifully lurid colors. Our tour guide through this dystopian high school landscape is Rue (Zendaya), a 17-year-old addict with… a nihilist streak? Her diffident attitude toward, like, being alive is understandable in context: she literally doesn’t know anyone who isn’t a drug-snorting, porn-swilling, lying, violent, self-harming glassy-eyed zombie. That’d get to anyone after a while, even if they didn’t have an anxiety disorder.

Euphoria is a confusing show in some ways. It seems like a total provocation, an endless barrage of existential misery and trauma softcore and shock for shock’s sake. It’s massively voyeuristic, a seeming peek into the veiled world of teen misdeed that’s not really intended for a teen audience; this show is for adults, and it’s designed to freak them the hell out, presenting a relentless universe of violation and self-destruction. It’s got a stochastic, vignette-oriented feel with relatively little in the way of plot deployment, which neatly—and I will add artfully— underscores the feeling of suffocating dread it offers with its misty, neon-light-in-fog tones and mumbling, voyeuristically screen-gazing characters. It’s not the first or the only TV show to have a very dark take on what teenagers are really up to and the layer of gauzy, bleary unreality it conveys is at once compelling and a little gross. It’s admirably unflinching in its exploration of our darker impulses. It’s got a dreary, miserable beauty to it.

9. Big Little Lies (2017)

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Big Little Lies could serve as the prototypical peak TV product. The adaptation of Liane Moriarty's novel was shepherded by Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, who produce and star in this tale of the nasty secrets hiding among the moms of Monterey society. In Season 1, they brought along their other big screen pals: Director Jean-Marc Vallée and actors Laura Dern, Zoe Kravitz, and Shailene Woodley. The ante was upped when Meryl Streep signed on for Season 2. Better than just high-wattage star power? Big Little Lies actually turned out some of the tastiest TV in years. Season 2 took a step back, despite American Honey auteur Andrea Arnold's best efforts, but it still managed to be both pulpy—Dern and Streep's performances are made for memes—and devastating. The show cuts through its gossipy exterior to weave a sensitive portrait of domestic abuse, and Kidman in particular does career best work.

8. Westworld (2016)

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With a certain fantasy series looking to wrap up its story, HBO was looking for its next big series and they thought they found it with Westworld. The series is based on the '70s sci-fi film and explores a sophisticated Western theme park where guests live out their fantasies. But things start to go wrong when the robotic "hosts" start evolving.

The series featured an all-star cast including Evan Rachel Wood, Thandie Newton, and Jeffrey Wright. The various mysteries of the story successfully drew viewers in and kept them guessing. While the second season disappointed some fans, the third season looks to be an anticipated change of pace.

7. Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000)

Photo: Youtube

Larry David’s wry humor is on full display in this heightened take on his life. Some consider the observational series an extension of “Seinfeld,” but more than that it’s a playground where David’s celebrity friends can come and play. The loose dialogue and storylines are bolstered with raw improv and relatable reactions, so even if you’re not a fan of the guy at the centre of it all, viewers can find humor in the way others perceive him.

Anchoring the action is a strong supporting cast of fictional characters played by regulars including Jeff Garlin, J.B. Smoove, Susie Essman and Cheryl Hines, plus an array of guest stars each season — some new, some recurring. More than a decade of seasons in and the show remains a solid player for the cabler, making it one of the best of the bunch.

6. Succession (2018)

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HBO’s Succession, from creator Jesse Armstrong (Peep Show, The Thick of It) is dressed up as a prestige drama, but it’s actually one of TV’s most acid comedies. Once you embrace that, Succession unlocks as a never-ending battle of power and prestige with medieval royal overtones that is also wonderfully aware of how absurd that kind of story is. The show’s grown children jockey for power and favor with their bully of a father (a kind of Rupert Murdoch baron-type) in a constant cycle of cringe-worthy acts and abject humiliation. As one observer of the Roy family comments, “watching you people meltdown is the most deeply satisfying activity on planet Earth.” Succession is not made to be binge-watched. It’s engrossing, as a world that’s easy to immerse oneself in, but there is a kind of shadowy, icky feeling that follows you when you’ve consumed too much.

That’s not the show’s fault; it’s easy to laugh at Tom (Matthew Macfayden) getting upset that he’s “not in the right panic room!” when he discovers Shiv (Sarah Snook) is in a more posh stronghold, but seeing Waystar encourage a dotcom to not unionize before gutting them, or how even a supposedly ethical organization might well sell out to partisan interests when there’s enough money is just depressingly real. Succession is a combination of Tom’s exclamation “what a weird family!” and Logan’s “Money wins. Here’s to us.” And it has us fully in its thrall.

5. The Sopranos (1999)

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Many of the shows we love today would not exist if it wasn't for The Sopranos. James Gandolfini, gives one of the greatest performances of all time, as Tony Soprano, a mob boss trying to balance his business and family while attending therapy. David Chase took many risks when creating The Sopranos, and they all paid off. There is so much to love in this show, including a good balance of drama and comedy, fantastic supporting characters, and not to mention...the food.

To focus a series on such a flawed and often detestable character was bold, but fans were obsessed with the engrossing chronicle of organized crime. Tony Soprano became one of the most iconic television characters of all time and the series inspired many great shows that followed.

4. The Wire (2002)

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You've heard this one before: The Wire is the best show HBO's ever made. During its five-season run, David Simon's Baltimore-set drama earned heaps of critical praise and cultural cache, but suffered, weirdly, from poor ratings and awards-season malaise. (It won zero Primetime Emmys.) It's easy to see why it's regarded as being so innovative and intricate. After the first season introduced viewers to the Avon Barksdale crew and the detectives tasked with investigating them, The Wire twists the anthology format to spotlight other corruption around the city, from the docks to City Hall, and tackle controversial ideas, like Season 3's drug-legalization plotline.

Everything in The Wire is connected, and everyone is a little bit tainted, with politics, police, drugs, race, and crime intersecting through iconic characters like Avon, Stringer Bell, McNulty, Greggs, Bunny, Bunk, and, of course, Omar. The show's fourth season, largely concerning Baltimore's education system, masterfully demonstrates the futility of human intervention in the face of systemic failures. Even factoring in The Wire's subpar fifth season, the show always managed to challenge the viewer in a medium that rewards superficial entertainment. In the end, we have to say it (sorry): The king stay the king.

3. Game Of Thrones (2011)

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The story of George R.R. Martin exiting the TV writing game in order to pen a novel that defied tired conventions was a noble one. And, as it turned out, it was also a full-circle one. When HBO debuted this series, based on Martin’s “A Song of Fire and Ice,” its unflinching narratives shocked anyone expecting to see the good guys win. And while the story itself had some big ups and downs over the subsequent seasons, there’s no denying “GOT” was a smash series with big ratings that created stars out of its actors and a fat bottom line.

No matter how viewers feel about the ending, there’s also no denying HBO is eager to once again capture what many execs describe as lightning in a bottle, what with all of the spinoffs and prequels in development.

2. Band Of Brothers (2001)

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Band of Brothers represented another bold undertaking from HBO as they sought to bring the battles of World War II to life in this miniseries. The story followed Easy Company, a real company of soldiers, from their time in basic training right to the end of the war.

The series comes from Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, so it might not be too surprising how good it is. Band of Brothers told the harrowing stories of these brave soldiers and the hardships of war in a brutally realistic and respectful way.

1. Chernobyl (2019)

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Maybe this is a good time for a drama about Chernobyl. I mean, as it becomes increasingly tempting to give in to apocalyptic ideation, I guess it’s useful to remember that the apocalypse already happened, and not even that long ago (I was a teenager and remember it vividly), and we apparently survived it.

In April 1986, the reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, in present-day Ukraine, exploded, leaving a large number of first-responder widows and a legacy of environmental annihilation. The incident and its aftermath are the subject of a new, five-part drama on HBO. Let me start by saying people with mood disorders should weigh the pros and cons carefully before tuning in: It’s possibly the worst thing I have ever seen on TV. And I don’t mean poorly done. (It’s unfortunately brilliant). I mean Chernobyl is devastatingly realistic and really, really painful, so be prepared for graphic depictions of what it’s like to die of radiation poisoning. Or what it’s like to be recruited to the task force that has to destroy radioactive housecats, milk cows and puppies. I literally couldn’t sit through the first episode. I had to watch it 10 minutes at a time.

Why Are HBO Television Series So Good?

In the early 80s, HBO and the Movie Channel were at each other's throats in a death spiral to the ground to see who could buy the rights for the most movies. HBO, under Michael Fuchs, realized that movie distribution alone was not going to cut it. He was the first person to pioneer original programming on cable. (He really started when he was head of HBO Sports and brought on boxing. Jerry Levin was head of HBO and had the insight to beam up the signal via satellite so everyone could watch. This was the first use of satellite for TV.)

HBO was a cash machine from subscriptions. 30m subscribers paying $30 a month. They were spewing money. But costs of movies were going up. Fuchs brought on Chris Albrecht to run original programming. He was a former comedian. This is why so many original HBO shows (in the 90s) featured comedians (The Larry Sanders Show, for instance). And also why HBO had so many comedy specials from great comedians (Seinfeld, Carlin, etc) and why they had so many comedy shows that were way above network quality (The Larry Sanders Show, Dream On - all featuring up and coming comedians). HBO also started a comedy channel which later became Comedy Central.