The Hollywood Reporter ranked the best TV series of the 21st century, justifying their greatness and influence on culture (17 photos)

The laborious work of film critics gives us the opportunity to trace the history of the development of serial films and get acquainted with the most outstanding! Read below which TV series deserve a place in the top 16 and why.





Over the course of three months, three critics from the Hollywood Reporter analyzed the 21st century TV series that most influenced the modern world culture of cinema and television. Their result was a ranking of the 50 best TV series over the past 24 years. As the publication admits, this matter was not at all easy: disputes within the team were inevitable. But this once again proves that there was something to fight for!

16th place. "Breaking Bad" (2008–2013)



Breaking Bad offers delicious twists and thrills wrapped in a sense of wounded masculinity.

15th place. Atlanta (2016–2022)



A comedy-drama series about the everyday life of Ern, who is trying to atone for his guilt before his family and improve his life and the life of his daughter.

14th place. "Enlightened" (2011–2013)



By all rights, Amy Jellicoe should be a hero: a woman armed with a sincere determination to better herself and the world around her. However, as played by Laura Dern, she is a toxic mixture of self-righteousness and self-absorption. A few years before The White Lotus, Mike White touched on the painful loneliness at the heart of his flawed, even repulsive characters.

13th place. “30 events in 30 years” (2009-...)



The ESPN documentary franchise at its best, produced by Bill Simmons and Connor Shell in 30 segments to celebrate the network's 30th anniversary. This project provides an opportunity for outstanding filmmakers to tell compelling stories related to sports that have not yet received the spotlight.

12th place. "The Americans" (2013–2018)



Joel Fields' six-season series is sexy, stylish, features a killer '80s soundtrack, a pair of brilliant central performances - and is a cat-and-mouse game that would make John le Carré proud.

11th place. "The Daily Show" (1996-...)



Pictured is Trevor Noah, the current host whose tenure is lauded by the Hollywood Reporter. Below is the first host of the show.

For 15 years, Stewart was an indispensable source of political and cultural commentary, and his show the way a generation of viewers received and processed news.

10th place. "BoJack Horseman" (2014–2020)



It's a biting satire of show business, chronicling the rocky comeback of a washed-up sitcom star (voiced by Will Arnett). It's an unvarnished portrait of depression, an experiment in style and storytelling that traces the characters' pain to the deepest recesses of their psyches. It's an animated joke machine that takes full advantage of its anthropomorphic animal world, designed by Lisa Hanawalt, to deliver one cheeky pun and wacky joke after another.

9th place. "Hooligans and Nerds" (1999-2000)



There will never be another teen drama quite like Geeks and Geeks: a simultaneously earnest and harrowing 18-episode TV series that eschews soapiness in favor of cultural specificity and unvarnished teenage turmoil.

8th place. "Girls" (2012–2017)



Lena Dunham (who played Hannah Horvath) doesn't care whether you love her or hate her; all she cares about is telling the story honestly. When she debuted on HBO in 2012, her stunningly authentic, semi-autobiographical show shocked audiences into falsely expecting the dark comedy about four New York friends to present a quixotic fantasy about shoes and space.

7th place. Better Call Saul (2015–2022)



Like the series that spawned it, Better Call Saul focuses on the moral failure of a man—in this case, the future Saul Goodman, known here as Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk). Odenkirk's performance gains strength with every piece of Jimmy's soul lost...

6th place. "Dogs of the Reservation" (2021–2023)



It's not just that Indigenous teen characters are rarely portrayed on television, although that is true; and it's not just that their storylines here ignore centuries-old stereotypes about Native Americans, although they do. These stories are told with boundless curiosity and an unbridled desire to experiment. The series puts joy next to grief and mixes the mundane with the magical.

5th place. "The Wire" (2002–2008)



Just enjoy the Dickensian proliferation of storylines as cops, drug dealers, politicians, longshoremen, teachers, editors and reporters cross paths. All players in the endlessly vicious and endlessly ambitious American world.

4th place. "Studio 30" (2006-2013)



Cynical Hollywood satires are almost as old as Hollywood itself, but few of them are hilarious self-immolations that also highlight the good old-fashioned importance of mentorship. Tina Fey's messy, surreal and sublime sitcom about the inner workings of a low-brow NBC sitcom.

3rd place. "Descendants" (2018–2023)



Its main characters are a collection of bumbling heirs and corrupt executives who spend their time realigning their loyalties and morals to suit the whims of CEO and patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox), and most of the time they still fail to win his approval. . There is no one to root for, nothing to root for; all this is bad. And yet the dazzling virtuosity of the show draws us in despite our will. It reveals how too much money and too little love can distort the soul.

2nd place. "The Sopranos" (1999–2007)



The Sopranos was not a formulaic series, but executive producer David Chase truly created the formula that ushered in the modern golden age of television. James Gandolfini's Tony Soprano—anxious, cruel, vulnerable, ruthless—has become the paradigmatic antihero to root for; became a paradoxical archetype that ruled prestige dramas in the early 2000s.

1 place. "Mad Men" (2007–2015)



What if the people who shape our cultural narratives, the geniuses who tell us how to feel about cars and perfume and cameras and politics, are terribly inferior? What if our sense of morality and decency is created by people who themselves are barely hanging on by a thread?

The full list of 50 series can be seen on the publication's page.