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cross-post from: https://lemmy.world/post/32413125

πŸ‘‹ Hi everyone!

πŸ’‘ A while ago I came across some post on reddit where someone ranked the top-50 TV shows using aggregated ratings from multiple sources β€” and I got really inspired. Hats off to the original for the inspiration and idea.

After hundreds of hours of data transfer, I expanded the idea into a list of 100 must-see TV shows (no animation/documentaries), based on data from 20+ rating platforms like IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, Letterboxd, TMDB, Kinopoisk, Douban, and more (full list below).

🌎 The goal was to create a ranking that’s as close to objective as possible by combining scores from diverse international platforms β€” to equally represent critics, casual viewers, and different cultural perspectives across many countries.

To ensure quality and avoid outliers, I only included shows with at least 25,000 IMDb ratings. I tried to make a list of series with a broader audience in mind, which is probably why older shows didn’t make the final top. They tend to get less attention and fewer ratings from modern viewers, though some definitely deserve an β€œHonorable Mention.”

  • (You’ll find the shows that almost made the cut listed at the bottom of the table.)*

I’ve thought about this a lot and eventually came to this conclusion: if I didn’t filter by popularity at all, the list might end up with a bunch of random series that got, say, 85 points from 100 people. Instead, I gave preference to shows that scored around 83 points but from 300+ people - a stronger consensus. But still series that scored 75 points from 10,000 people wouldn’t necessarily make the list just because of the volume

βš–οΈ To add some balance, I also included a popularity score as one of the metrics β€” but kept its weight relatively low (just 1 out of 25 metrics). This metric was only applied within the top-100 to give more popular series a slight edge in their final positioning, while still ensuring rating quality remained the primary factor. Even shows with below-average popularity scores (as low as 65 points) could still make the cut if their ratings were outstanding enough.

For any missing ratings β€” which happened when a show had no data on a specific site β€” I used the average rating of the top-140 shows on that platform. This ensured that underrated or lesser-known series weren’t unfairly penalized due to lack of data.

If you’re wondering why your favorite show didn’t make the list β€” 99% chance it’s because it scored lower across aggregated ratings or didn’t have enough ratings compared to top-100 shows. There’s a 1% chance I genuinely missed it somehow, but given how deep I went into this, that’s pretty unlikely.

Hope you’ll find this list interesting or maybe even discover a few new shows to watch. Would love to hear your thoughts!

πŸ“Š** [Sources used]**

IMDb, IMDb Episodes Rating (W2WTV and Ratingraph), TMDB, Metacritic, Kinopoisk, Rotten Tomatoes, Serializd, JustWatch, Filmaffinity, Reelgood, Criticker, TasteDive, Taste.io, Simkl, Trakt, TV Time, Allocine, Filmweb, Myshows, Douban

πŸ”Ž Text version:

Click

  1. Breaking Bad – 92.28
  2. Chernobyl – 91.80
  3. Band of Brothers – 90.76
  4. The Wire – 90.40
  5. The Sopranos – 90.28
  6. Better Call Saul – 89.12
  7. Game of Thrones – 88.88
  8. Sherlock – 88.04
  9. Fleabag – 87.40
  10. Succession – 87.28
  11. Severance – 87.16
  12. Fargo – 86.80
  13. Peaky Blinders – 86.76
  14. The Office (2005) – 86.76
  15. The Queen's Gambit – 86.44
  16. Mindhunter – 86.44
  17. The Pitt – 86.44
  18. Dark – 86.24
  19. Stranger Things – 85.92
  20. Narcos – 85.88
  21. When They See Us – 85.88
  22. House M.D. – 85.80
  23. Shōgun (2024) – 85.68
  24. Mad Men – 85.48
  25. Mare of Easttown – 85.44
  26. Twin Peaks – 85.40
  27. Andor – 85.40
  28. Freaks and Geeks – 85.32
  29. Ted Lasso – 85.28
  30. The Penguin – 85.24
  31. Firefly – 85.24
  32. The Boys – 84.96
  33. The Haunting of Hill House – 84.92
  34. Atlanta – 84.92
  35. Friends – 84.84
  36. Black Mirror – 84.76
  37. Daredevil – 84.76
  38. Big Little Lies – 84.64
  39. The Last Kingdom – 84.64
  40. Downton Abbey – 84.60
  41. The Night Of – 84.56
  42. Rome – 84.56
  43. True Detective – 84.52
  44. The Crown – 84.52
  45. Boardwalk Empire – 84.52
  46. Silicon Valley – 84.44
  47. Hannibal – 84.36
  48. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel – 84.36
  49. Mr. Robot – 84.32
  50. The Bear – 84.20
  51. The Shield – 84.20
  52. Six Feet Under – 84.16
  53. Brooklyn Nine-Nine – 84.08
  54. The Mandalorian – 83.96
  55. Fallout – 83.92
  56. Parks and Recreation – 83.88
  57. This Is Us – 83.88
  58. Broadchurch – 83.84
  59. The Expanse – 83.80
  60. Unbelievable – 83.80
  61. Heartstopper – 83.76
  62. The Last of Us – 83.68
  63. Shameless (2011) – 83.68
  64. The Pacific – 83.68
  65. 1883 – 83.68
  66. What We Do in the Shadows – 83.64
  67. Battlestar Galactica (2004) – 83.64
  68. Sons of Anarchy – 83.56
  69. Anne with an E – 83.56
  70. Community – 83.40
  71. Normal People – 83.36
  72. Curb Your Enthusiasm – 83.32
  73. Lost – 83.28
  74. Black Bird – 83.28
  75. Vikings – 83.24
  76. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia – 83.24
  77. Slow Horses – 83.24
  78. Dexter – 83.16
  79. Modern Family – 83.08
  80. Barry – 83.04
  81. Peacemaker – 82.92
  82. The Good Place – 82.80
  83. Person of Interest – 82.80
  84. The Leftovers – 82.80
  85. Seinfeld – 82.68
  86. Banshee – 82.64
  87. Adolescence – 82.52
  88. Orphan Black – 82.52
  89. Maid – 82.52
  90. Suits – 82.48
  91. Fringe – 82.32
  92. The Newsroom – 82.32
  93. Doctor Who – 82.24
  94. The IT Crowd – 82.20
  95. House of Cards – 82.16
  96. Ozark – 82.12
  97. One Piece (2024) – 81.92
  98. Yellowstone – 81.84
  99. Scrubs – 81.76
  100. Cobra Kai – 81.72

πŸ“œ Histogramma:

  • 1986–1990: 2
  • 1991–1995: 1
  • 1995–2000: 2
  • 2001–2005: 13
  • 2006–2010: 13
  • 2011–2015: 24
  • 2016–2021: 30
  • 2021–2025: 16

Honorable Mentions (Almost Made the Main List): Pride and Prejudice (1995), Line of Duty, Happy Valley, The Twilight Zone (1959), The Chosen, Fawlty Towers, The Bridge (2011), It's Okay to Not Be Okay, Mr Inbetween, The Knick, Peep Show, Deadwood, Olive Kitteridge, SKAM (2015), The Americans, This Is Going to Hurt, Wayne, Oz, Justified, Halt and Catch Fire.

⁉️ If anyone’s interested in what the ranking** would look like without any influence from popularity** (i.e. broader audience appeal), here’s the list. Let me know if you think it’s better - maybe I’ll make this the main one.

Click

  1. Breaking Bad – 92.00
  2. Chernobyl – 91.63
  3. Band of Brothers – 90.92
  4. The Wire – 90.75
  5. The Sopranos – 90.33
  6. Better Call Saul – 88.88
  7. Game of Thrones – 88.42
  8. Sherlock – 87.67
  9. Fleabag – 87.67
  10. Succession – 87.29
  11. The Pitt – 87.29
  12. Severance – 87.13
  13. Fargo – 86.75
  14. The Office (2005) – 86.58
  15. Peaky Blinders – 86.58
  16. When They See Us – 86.50
  17. Mindhunter – 86.46
  18. The Queen's Gambit – 86.21
  19. Freaks and Geeks – 86.13
  20. Dark – 86.08
  21. Shōgun (2024) – 85.96
  22. Narcos – 85.92
  23. Pride and Prejudice – 85.83
  24. Line of Duty – 85.79
  25. Mare of Easttown – 85.71
  26. House M.D. – 85.67
  27. Atlanta – 85.63
  28. Andor – 85.63
  29. Happy Valley – 85.54
  30. Firefly – 85.54
  31. Twin Peaks – 85.50
  32. The Penguin – 85.50
  33. Stranger Things – 85.42
  34. The Twilight Zone (1959) – 85.33
  35. Ted Lasso – 85.29
  36. Mad Men – 85.17
  37. The Chosen – 85.17
  38. The Last Kingdom – 85.13
  39. Fawlty Towers – 85.13
  40. Rome – 85.08
  41. Downton Abbey – 85.04
  42. The Shield – 85.00
  43. Silicon Valley – 85.00
  44. The Bridge – 85.00
  45. Boardwalk Empire – 85.00
  46. The Night Of – 85.00
  47. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel – 84.88
  48. The Haunting of Hill House – 84.88
  49. Big Little Lies – 84.79
  50. It's Okay to Not Be Okay – 84.75
  51. The Crown – 84.71
  52. Mr Inbetween – 84.71
  53. Six Feet Under – 84.67
  54. The Knick – 84.63
  55. Peep Show – 84.63
  56. Daredevil – 84.58
  57. Deadwood – 84.58
  58. The Boys – 84.54
  59. Olive Kitteridge – 84.54
  60. SKAM – 84.54
  61. The Americans – 84.50
  62. Friends – 84.46
  63. Broadchurch – 84.46
  64. This Is Going to Hurt – 84.46
  65. Wayne – 84.42
  66. Heartstopper – 84.38
  67. Unbelievable – 84.38
  68. Oz – 84.38
  69. This Is Us – 84.33
  70. 1883 – 84.33
  71. Black Mirror – 84.29
  72. Justified – 84.29
  73. The Bear – 84.29
  74. Battlestar Galactica (2004) – 84.25
  75. Hannibal – 84.25
  76. The Pacific – 84.25
  77. What We Do in the Shadows – 84.21
  78. True Detective – 84.17
  79. Anne with an E – 84.17
  80. The Expanse – 84.17
  81. Parks and Recreation – 84.13
  82. Friday Night Lights – 84.13
  83. Dopesick – 84.13
  84. Mr. Robot – 84.08
  85. Brooklyn Nine-Nine – 84.08
  86. Curb Your Enthusiasm – 84.08
  87. Slow Horses – 83.96
  88. Pose – 83.96
  89. Fallout – 83.92
  90. Black Bird – 83.92
  91. Halt and Catch Fire – 83.92
  92. Normal People – 83.88
  93. Shameless (2011) – 83.75
  94. Gomorrah – 83.67
  95. The Mandalorian – 83.58
  96. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia – 83.58
  97. Sons of Anarchy – 83.58
  98. The West Wing – 83.54
  99. Community – 83.50
  100. Louie – 83.50

If you have a Reddit account, could you share this list there? I’ve been unfairly blocked in my every new account, so I can’t post it myself. I’d really appreciate it if more people could see this ranking! πŸ‘€

(page 2) 50 comments
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[–] hOrni@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I would throw out any series that isn't finished yet, those canceled before they got to finish and those finished but with a shitty ending (Game of Thrones, obviously).

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[–] RipLemmDotEE@lemmy.today 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That list is garbage if it has Game of Thrones above The Expanse and What We Do In The Shadows.

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[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 4 points 1 day ago

Mr Robot is very good, would recommend

[–] catty@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

There are so many bad shows in there that are overproduced American trash, and not even 'good trash'.

[–] kayzeekayzee@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Watching some objectively bad shows makes you realize how braindead a lot of reviewers are. Especially with modern shows that have 40+ minute filler episodes that exist just because the streaming service wanted to stretch the season out to 10+ episodes.

There will be an episode that advances nothing except a cringey forced romance sideplot, and then all the imdb reviews will be like "5 stars, best thing I ever watched"

There are plenty of exceptions though! Breaking Bad was really good. Poker Face (not on the list, but it should be) is also good. Brooklyn 99 and Parks & Rec were good. WWDitS was good until right after the house flipping episode in season 3.

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 2 points 2 days ago

Watching some objectively bad shows makes you realize how braindead a lot of reviewers are. Especially with modern shows that have 40+ minute filler episodes that exist just because the streaming service wanted to stretch the season out to 10+ episodes.

I mean, this has always existed. TV shows were much more stuffed with filler during the episodic network era.

Ted Lasso was bad for this. The first season was great, but after that they didn't have enough story to fill all the episodes, so you get multiple episodes that add nothing to the story or don't move the plot in any way. Those aren't 40 minute episodes, they are 60 minutes.

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[–] pseudo@jlai.lu 0 points 1 day ago

I have watch 18 of these show and enough extract and random episode of 12 others to have a good enough sense of it and that list is bad.

Some recommandation are quite good. Some very bad. Most are about some decent show that was extremly popular when they got out.

[–] MrFappy@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I don’t quite understand how Arrested Development isn’t on here since I’m pretty sure it was beloved by critics and fans alike, but I guess not enough. πŸ™

[–] ECB@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago

It probably would be off they didn't make any seasons after the first three.

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[–] errer@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (7 children)

How the heck did Game of Thrones as a series end up so high on the ranking?

[–] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 days ago

The show is really phenomenal for the first several seasons. Because of how averages work, the last season can only bring it down so much.

Fun fact, I still to this day have not seen the last episode. I heard of the infamous final season being atrocious and thought it couldn't be that bad. My partner and I binged the entire series when it was all out. Loved it... Until the last season. Everything about the show had seemed so remarkably worse. The story, the dialogues, the cinematography, the sound design, the acting, the editing, the lighting, literally everything. Every aspect of a show that could be worse was worse.

After watching the entire series, we simply were not even interested in watching the final episode.

[–] MycarHolmes@quokk.au 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This is average score. There are what, 7 seasons? The ratings mostly dunk for the last half of the last season.

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[–] ThoGot@feddit.org 3 points 2 days ago

I mean the first couple of seasons were pretty good

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[–] djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

There's a lot about this list I find silly, but nothing is sillier than recommending the live-action One Piece. Surely if the goal is to watch the best media, you'd want to watch the original anime, as opposed to the strange live-action remake? There's some serious recency bias prevalent throughout the list, but that has to be the most absurd example.

[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

The live action one piece was actually pretty good. Not really top 100 shows ever, but good.

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[–] Jaxia@startrek.website 4 points 2 days ago

Yay! The IT Crowd made it!

[–] SharkWeek@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago (13 children)

My main feeling looking at this ranking gives is of a location, gender, and race bias in reviews and reviers. I can't really add sexuality to that because, really, there's not much media that takes it into account full stop.

Many of the favourites people are talking about in this thread have little appeal to others outside their own demographic. That's not a bad thing, but it does mean series like High Potential, Deadloch, or even classics like Fresh Prince, don't get a look in.

It's also ammunition for people who want to remove representation of women and minorities from popular culture.

Oh fuck yeah I didn't even notice Fresh Prince was missing…

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[–] Aeonx21@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

I need everyone to start watching the 1000+ EP of one piece. It made the list, ty.

[–] Rhaxapopouetl@ttrpg.network 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Not sure i need to watch 100 tv shows before i die.

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[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I don't like any list that puts Cobra Kai at 100, while Peaky Blinders is way up at 13. Also, season 7 and 8 of GoT should have knocked it all the way off this list.

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[–] oftheair@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Some of these we have seen, some of them we want to but the vast majority we don't want to and thus think popularity of something is not a good metric of whether people should watch something.

We have watched tons of shows and movies, played lots of games etc, read lots of books and listened to lots of podcasts which were either universally slammed or complained a lot about by many people and we thoroughly enjoyed them.

Edit: Conversely we have seen/played/read/listened to some that were popular that we hated, even some on this list.

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[–] eighty@aussie.zone 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Resisting the temptation to pile on, but a title change away from the cringey-redditbait-title into something like "100 most popular shows based on aggregated data" would: 1. more accurate 2. show the amount of effort put in and 3. emphasis that this is based on collected data and not a definitive list.

This is fantastic work but that cringe title and it's implications are really holding you back.

[–] mshin@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I hear you - and honestly, I didn’t expect the title to be that off-putting. It was meant as a fun nod to the classic '1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die' format, which is popular and widely used. I thought it would give the list a familiar and engaging vibe. That said, I get that it might come across as too definitive or clickbaity, especially since the list is based on aggregated ratings. So I’ve gone ahead and changed the title to better reflect the data-driven nature of the post. Thank you!

[–] eighty@aussie.zone 2 points 2 days ago

Thank you, truly! For the changes but the effort! I usually love aggregated data and lists and see what is generally favored (and have fun disagreement) but having the title implying certainity in "must see" soured me being able to enjoy the data for what it is.

Again, thank you! (cheek in tongue but Better Call Saul is a must watch for me if you're interested in the pinnacle of character-driven drama and greek myth-like self fulfilling prophecies)

[–] Gork@sopuli.xyz 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Is there a list of absolute train wrecks of TV shows as well? I think Tiger King might be up there on that list.

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[–] goldenbug@fedia.io 3 points 2 days ago

Narcos? Sorry but nah.

Is it interesting and a good recommendation? Yes

Can you live your TV life without having watching it? Most def

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (5 children)

I’m constantly shadow banned on Reddit too!

I like the list, though I think it’s a shame animation is essentially cut out. I’d rank Pantheon, Arcane, Avatar well above, say, Person of Interest, as much as I like PoI.

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[–] Ashtear@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago

This reminds me to get on Shogun, I've been meaning to start it.

And oof, it hurts me in my soul to see The Night Of that high up. I've rarely been so disappointed in a show.

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