
(Photo by HBO)
The 98 Best HBO Series Ranked
Updated: January 4, 2021
Game of Thrones’ may have been HBO’s most popular show ever — but is the epic fantasy series HBO’s all-time best-reviewed show?
No.
The premium cable network offers plenty of new, buzzworthy series on its current lineup, including dark comedy Barry, the sci-fi mystery of Westworld, and award-winning drama Big Little Lies. And that’s not to mention HBO’s signature prestige dramas including The Sopranos, Chernobyl, and Western period drama Deadwood.
The highly-anticipated first season of horror-fantasy Lovecraft Country and troubling docuseries The Vow joined those classics in our list of HBO’s best shows in 2020, along with the latest additions: David E. Kelley’s Nicole Kidman/Hugh Grant drama The Undoing, banking drama Industry, Luca Guadagnino’s We Are Who We Are, plus The Third Day, Agents of Chaos and How To with John Wilson.
We’ve rounded up Tomatometer scores for the best HBO series and miniseries to make a list to fill your binge-watch calendar into next year. To qualify for the list, a series must have at least 10 reviews counting toward its score.
Is your favorite HBO title missing? Tell us in the comments.
Recently added: We’re Here adds a review and joins the list
HBO SERIES
Synopsis: Satire about an `ethically challenged' sports superagent with an A-list clientele of professional athletes. The series is packed with cameos....
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Synopsis: Adaptation of the British sketch-comedy series, featuring some characters from the original, such as hospital receptionist Carol Beer and Prime...
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Synopsis: A young movie star from Queens lives the good life in Hollywood surrounded by his boyhood pals, who shamelessly milk...
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Synopsis: A sci-fi comedy following the passengers and crew onboard a space cruise ship that experiences technical difficulties during its eight-week...
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Synopsis: HBO's hit drama series created by Alan Ball ('Six Feet Under') and based on the best-selling Sookie Stackhouse novels by...
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Synopsis: The story revolves around four sassy New-York based women, Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha who are in search of love,...
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Synopsis: The lives of current and former NFL players aren't as glamorous as they seem in this comedy-drama that focuses on...
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Synopsis: Valerie, a veteran celebrity who once upon a time a famous star from the sitcom "I'm It", has to embark...
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Synopsis: Adaptation of Wally Lamb's novel about identical twin brothers Dominick and Thomas Birdsey in a family saga that follows their...
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Synopsis: From Martin Scorsese, Mick Jagger and Terence Winter, this new drama series is set in 1970s New York. A ride...
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Synopsis: This comedy series tells the story of a world-famous televangelist family with a long tradition of deviance, greed and charitable...
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Synopsis: 1931, Los Angeles. While the rest of the country struggles through the Great Depression, this city is booming! Oil! Olympic...
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Synopsis: Starring Myha'la Herrold, Marisa Abela, Harry Lawtey, David Jonsson and Nabhaan Rizwan as "The Graduates" and Conor MacNeill, Freya Mavor,...
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Synopsis: A successful therapist about to release her first book has her life turned upside down following a violent death and...
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Synopsis: A look at NXIVM, a self-improvement group and multi-level marketing company that disintegrated with criminal charges brought against its highest...
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Synopsis: Explores the psychological underpinnings of love and murder in a small town, blurring the line between reality and memory. ...
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Synopsis: Created by Felix Barrett and Dennis Kelly, limited series THE THIRD DAY debuts MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively...
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Synopsis: A suburban middle-aged couple with two kids struggle to come to terms with their failing marriage in this comedy....
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Synopsis: An anthology crime drama written by novelist Nic Pizzolatto. In the third season, a retired detective reexamines a 35-year-old case...
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Synopsis: A struggling Brooklyn writer lives out his detective fantasies by moonlighting as a private eye after his girlfriend leaves him...
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Synopsis: A ten-part miniseries following the reign of Pope Pius XIII, the first American pontiff....
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Synopsis: The complicated life of Bill Henrickson, a Utah businessman who also happens to be a polygamist with three wives and...
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Synopsis: A report on Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election includes a look at troll farms that used...
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Synopsis: The series chronicles the life of John Adams's political and personal life. The events covered include the Boston massacre, Declaration...
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Synopsis: A five-part adaptation of James M. Cain's 1941 novel about a Depression-era housewife whose husband leaves her with two young...
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Synopsis: Life---and death---at a family-owned funeral home in Los Angeles plays out in this provocative, at times macabre series created by...
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Synopsis: An adaptation of Philip Pullman's acclaimed trilogy that follows a seemingly ordinary but brave young woman from another world whose...
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Synopsis: Horror tales based on the E.C. Comics of the 1940s and '50s, introduced by the Cryptkeeper, who was created by...
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Synopsis: A drama set in the world of horse racing focuses on the owners, trainers, jockeys and gamblers....
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Synopsis: A sci-fi drama set in an Old West theme park where guests interact with automatons in scenarios that are developed,...
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Synopsis: Comedy about a power struggle between two high-school administrators who are vying for the top job of principal....
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Synopsis: The anthropomorphic adventures of feathered, furry and feral populations of New York City are featured in this animated comedy series....
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Synopsis: A seven-part miniseries about an elite Marine unit in the first weeks of the Iraq War, based on the book...
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Synopsis: The Roman Empire's rise gets a royal treatment in this sprawling drama, which begins in 52 B.C., when Julius Caesar...
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Synopsis: A woman returns from a mental-health retreat with a new outlook on life, and hopes to get her corporate job...
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Synopsis: A story about two American kids who live on a U.S. military base in Italy, We Are Who We Are...
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Synopsis: Set in a single room of an average American motel, ROOM 104 tells a different story of the assorted characters...
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Synopsis: A psychotherapist meets with his regular patients Monday through Thursday, and seeks help for himself with his former therapist on...
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Synopsis: A frustrated wannabe actor continually lands bit parts on major film projects with real stars (who play themselves). Fortysomething Englishman...
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Synopsis: Atticus Black, a young black man, joins his friend and uncle on a road trip in the 1950s to find...
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Synopsis: A grim and graphically raw drama about life (and often death) in an experimental prison ward called Emerald City at...
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Synopsis: The story of an ex-cop turned security auditor who rigged McDonald's Monopoly game promotion for a decade, stealing millions of...
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Starring:
Synopsis: A series that follows a family from Manchester whose lives converge on one crucial night in 2019....
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Synopsis: Following a group of high school students as they navigate love and friendships in a world of drugs, sex, trauma...
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Synopsis: A comedy about twentysomething women navigating their way through life in New York....
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Synopsis: Based on Liane Moriarty's best seller, Big Little Lies is a dark comedy set in a town by the seaside...
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Synopsis: An adaptation of author George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" medieval fantasies about power struggles among the...
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Synopsis: Brilliant adaptation of Tony Kushner's award-winning play about the dawn of AIDS in the 1980s, focusing on a powerful lawyer,...
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Synopsis: Sequel to 'The Young Pope' follows Pope John Paul III as he takes over the papal throne from Pope Pius...
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Synopsis: A dramedy following the personal and professional lives of a trio of gay men in San Francisco....
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Synopsis: A series set in the complex, changing world of 1832 Halifax, West Yorkshire, focuses on landowner Anne Lister, who is...
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Synopsis: A couple's sputtering marriage becomes more complicated when they get new housemates in the husband's friend and the wife's older...
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Synopsis: From the producers of Band of Brothers comes this epic 10-part miniseries that tells the true stories of three Marines...
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Synopsis: Kenny Powers is a former baseball pitcher who aimed for the Big Leagues. However, his intolerable attitude and fading fastballs...
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Synopsis: Adaptation of Stephen King's novel about the investigation of the gruesome murder of a boy in the Georgia woods and...
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Synopsis: Adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel about life in a small town after many of its residents vanished in a Rapture-like...
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Synopsis: An American version of the British comedy series featuring Ali G....
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Synopsis: Set in a geriatric broadened mind wing of a down-at-the-heels hospital, Getting On takes after put-upon medical caretakers like nurses,...
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Synopsis: A potent, unusually vivid (and profane) Western about a late-1870s South Dakota settlement in the aftermath of Little Big Horn....
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Synopsis: Based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects
stars Amy Adams as reporter Camille Preaker,...
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Synopsis: A conflicted New Jersey crime boss seeks therapy to cope with mob and family pressures in this addictive, stunningly original...
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Synopsis: The Roy family -- Logan Roy and his four children -- controls one of the biggest media and entertainment conglomerates...
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Synopsis: A neurotic TV writer copes with life in L.A. in a tart, hilarious and semi-improvised sitcom that follows him dealing...
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Synopsis: Political boss Enoch 'Nucky' Thompson runs Atlantic City at the dawn of Prohibition in this drama inspired by Nelson Johnson's...
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Synopsis: Filmed in Israel, Our Boys is based on the true events which led to the outbreak of war in Gaza....
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Synopsis: THE DEUCE chronicles that moment in time when sex went from being a back-alley, brown-paper-bag commodity to a billion-dollar universal...
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Synopsis: Ex-senator and now the Vice President of the United States, Selina Meyer juggles her public and private life. However, it...
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Synopsis: Taped before a live audience at Brooklyn's Kings Theatre, the show features these fun, fearless queens dishing on Cocoa Khaleesis,...
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Synopsis: ATLANTA'S MISSING AND MURDERED: THE LOST CHILDREN offers a never-before-seen look at the abduction and murder of at least 30...
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Synopsis: A 10-part miniseries based on Stephen Ambrose's bestseller about a World War II unit called Easy Company, 2nd Battalion of...
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Synopsis: Guitar-playing troubadours from New Zealand try to kick-start their careers in New York City while also on the lookout for...
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Synopsis: Naz is a moralistic Pakistani-American student who is on his way to attend a party in Manhattan on Friday night....
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Synopsis: A complex, impeccably acted crime drama set in Baltimore that follows the thread of a single police investigation, from the...
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Synopsis: A series on the evolution of the Northern California high-tech mecca....
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Synopsis: Comedy sketch show. Tracey Ullman's return to British screens brings with it her unique take on some extraordinary characters living...
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Synopsis: Adaptation of Elizabeth Strout's Pultizer Prize-winning novel about life in a small Maine town over the course of 25 years...
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Synopsis: I'll Be Gone in the Dark is based on the book of the same name and explores writer Michelle McNamara's...
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Starring:
Synopsis: A new mandate approved by law over public housing divides public opinion in a white middle-class community of Yonkers City...
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Synopsis: When the most important friend in her life seems to have disappeared without a trace, Elena Greco, a now-elderly woman...
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Synopsis: CHERNOBYL dramatizes the story of the 1986 nuclear accident, one of the worst man-made catastrophes in history, and of the...
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Synopsis: Damon Lindelof (The Leftovers, Lost) creates a modern-day re-imagining of Alan Moore's groundbreaking graphic novel about masked vigilantes....
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Synopsis: Two black women who are best friends navigate the pitfalls of their personal and professional lives in south Los Angeles....
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Synopsis: Opinionated and loyal, Janay (Dede Lovelace) is strong willed and stubborn in ways that both help and hurt her. Honeybear...
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Synopsis: A woman about to marry her boyfriend falls for another woman....
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Synopsis: A drama set in New Orleans three months after Hurricane Katrina follows musicians and residents as they try to put...
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Synopsis: John Oliver's satirical look at the previous week's news, politics and headlines....
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Synopsis: Comedy about a New York cannabis dealer who slips in and out of the lives of his clients....
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Synopsis: A drama that explores the question of sexual consent in contemporary life and how, in the new landscape of dating...
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Synopsis: A comedy about a former marine working as a hit man in the Midwest who goes to the West Coast...
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Synopsis: Small-town residents across America are recruited to participate in a one-night only drag show....
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Synopsis: A tough Emmy-winning series about a drug-infested neighborhood in 1990s Baltimore and the broken, battered families who struggle every day...
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Synopsis: Often inspired sketch lunacy with an absurdist, stream-of-consciousness style, this series found a cult following similar to that of `Monty...
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Synopsis: In a uniquely hilarious odyssey of self-discovery and cultural observation, Wilson covertly and obsessively films the lives of his fellow...
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Synopsis: A Black Lady Sketch Show is a narrative series set in a limitless magical reality full of dynamic, hilarious characters...
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Synopsis: The unlikely partnership between music producer Jimmy Iovine and rapper Dr. Dre is spotlighted in this documentary series....
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Synopsis: A late-night series from artist Terence Nance....
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Synopsis: From Julio Torres and Ana Fabrega, alongside Fred Armisen and Lorne Michaels of "Saturday Night Live," the primarily Spanish-language show...
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Synopsis: Classic satire about late-night TV host Larry Sanders, a neurotic (when he's not being self-obsessive) performer. The show boasted celebrity...
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Featured image courtesy Helen Sloan/HBO