Readers drawn to morally ambiguous antiheroes from ‘The Sopranos’ to ‘The Wire’

Either we’re inherently bad – or, deep down, we really want to be.

It’s not at all surprising that many people consider “Breaking Bad” to be the greatest TV show of all time. Its artistic virtues are evident and unassailable: Tight storytelling, complex characters. Groundbreaking visuals. The show’s cultural impact is undeniable.

But the very best show of all time? Dozens of various surveys have said so, including a newly released poll of Denver Gazette readers. Not that everyone agrees, of course. (Do we agree on anything anymore?) Some passionately argue for “The Sopranos” or “The Wire.” That’s just how the top three of our survey came out – and it would be foolish to argue against any of them.

What’s perhaps most interesting is what that top-three finish says about us. Of every TV show aired in the century-long history of network, cable and streaming television, we consider the three absolute best to be those that dwell in the moral ambiguity of deeply flawed, often terrifying and yet uncomfortably understandable antiheroes.

“Breaking Bad” features a struggling, underpaid high-school chemistry teacher facing a cancer diagnosis and is desperate to provide for his family. (Not so far down the path, we see him walking away from a dying junkie choking on her own vomit.) Tony Soprano is a vicious mob boss who is responsible for innumerable deaths while doubling as a family man grappling with self-care. Stringer Bell is a ruthless drug lord who is complicit in the continuing decay of his addicted Baltimore community, but we kind of like him because he adheres to a code of ethics.

All are considered sympathetic characters because they are each brilliantly written to explore their own specific struggles with their varying moral compasses.

Not a Mister Rogers, Ned Flanders or Leslie Knope among them.

Why do we love bad boys? Maybe because, in the end, we are all animals who choose to subvert our own worst instincts as a concession to the demands of living within a larger society. But our DNA is strong.

These milestone shows don’t glorify crime. They also show its toll on their families and themselves. In that way, they serve as cautionary tales – as a reminder for us to take stock of our own standards of right and wrong.

It’s worth noting that while “The Sopranos” and “Breaking Bad” won a combined 37 Emmy Awards, “The Wire” won zip – was only nominated for two. But even a decade (or more) later, the footprints of all three shows remain all over newer shows airing today.

Our poll of Denver Gazette readers is certainly an affirmation of the Golden Age of HBO. Five of the top 10 shows – “The Sopranos,” “The Wire,” “The Leftovers,” “Game of Thrones” and “Deadwood” originated on HBO, all during that sweet TV spot of 1999-2019. Although, considering the ongoing excellence of “The Last of Us” “The White Lotus,” “Euphoria,” “True Detective, “Mare of Easttown” and “The Pitt,” HBO MAX (as it now calls itself), is still gold, Ponyboy.

We don’t know the age range of the readers who responded, but the poll revealed an understandable tendency toward “recency” – a psychological principle of memory that naturally posits we all have a cognitive bias in favor of that which has happened most recently. This is the only reason fan surveys of all-time Nuggets greats don’t start and end with David Thompson. (Sorry, Nikola.) Fans won’t vote for players they weren’t alive to see.

That’s surely why “M*A*S*H” is the only top-10 show that precedes 1999. That means no Lucy, or Beaver, or Archie Bunker, or Mary Tyler Moore, or Mary Hartman or Johnny Carson.  

The survey was also not kind to comedies, with only two landing in the top 10 – ”M*A*S*H” and “Seinfeld.” When you think about all that leaves out – among them cultural juggernauts like “Friends,” “The Larry Sanders Show,” “The Office,” “Arrested Development,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” “Parks and Recreation,” “Ted Lasso,” “Abbott Elementary” and my personal fave, “The Good Place” – that’s a lot of hilarious underrepresentation.

And then when you have an undeniably masterful underdog drama like “The Leftovers” (by far the shortest-lived show in the top 10 at three seasons) coming in at No. 4, it seems clear that readers believe dramas carry more historical gravitas than comedies. Not funny. 

What’s kind of skin-crawly about a project like this is that, in 2025, you can actually ask AI a subjective question like: “Name the 10 best TV shows of all time” – and it will return what it presents as an “objective answer.” The funny (and by that I mean unsettling) thing about that is if you do ask AI that question, you will get the same results we did, only in a slightly different order: 1. The Sopranos, 2. Breaking Bad, and 3. The Wire.

That’s not creepy. (OK, yes, it is.)

Here is how the top 10 of our poll of Denver Gazette readers came out. Each was asked to list 10 shows in ranked order, and was offered the opportunity to comment.

1. ‘Breaking Bad’

• Years on air:  2008-13
• At a glance: Walter White (Bryan Cranston) transforms from a meek, dying New Mexico teacher into a ruthless criminal mastermind by manufacturing and selling crystal meth with a former student as his sidekick. A master class in acting, and an anthropological study of human morality and consequences.
• Network: AMC
• Total episodes: 62
• How to stream: Netflix
• Reader comment: “It began well and it ended well, which can’t be said for a lot of American TV shows.” – Candace Orrino 

2. ‘The Sopranos’

• Years on air: 1999-2009
• At a glance: Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) juggles overlording a fractious mob family and a fractious family at home, which leads him to a therapist. All while a whole bunch of people are being whacked.
• Network: HBO
• Total episodes: 86
• How to stream: HBO MAX, others
• Reader comment: “Totally plausible plot. Perfect casting top to bottom. Dialog sharp. Story arc just right. Empathetic lead despite his descent into evil. The most water-cooler worthy show ever.” – Eric Haag

3. ‘The Wire’    

• Years on air: 2002-08
• At a glance: David Simon’s masterpiece explores the personalities embroiled in Baltimore’s underground drug trade. Each standalone season examines a different failing American institution, including the illegal drug trade, city government, the public school system and the print news media.
• Network: HBO
• Total episodes: 60
• How to stream: HBO MAX, others
• Reader comment: “It just feels so real.” – Martin Campbell

4. ‘The Leftovers’  

• Years on air: 2014-17
• At a glance: A town searches for answers three years after hundreds of their own residents vanished in a global, rapture-like “Departure.” Career-defining performances by Justin Theroux and Carrie Coon in an underdog show that in just three seasons fully delved into unsettling themes of grief, faith and existential uncertainty.
• Network: HBO
• Total episodes: 28
• How to stream: HBO MAX, others

5. ‘Better Call Saul’   

• Years on air: 2015-22
• At a glance: Bob Odenkirk’s sublime prequel to “Breaking Bad” follows small-time attorney Jimmy McGill as he transforms from a shifty but harmless public defender into the morally compromised criminal lawyer we met first in “Breaking Bad.” A breakout role for Rhea Seehorn as his confidante, Kim Wexler.
• Network: AMC
• Total episodes: 63
• How to stream: Netflix
• Reader comment: “Better Call Saul” and “Breaking Bad” are 1-2 by far. Nothing like those two shows has ever been on television before.” – Brian Reasoner

6. ‘Game of Thrones’ 

• Years on air: 2011-19
• At a glance: This pioneering medieval fantasy epic based on a bestselling George R.R. Martin book series follows two powerful families playing a deadly game for control of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. Its enduring significance is attributable to its scale, stunning cinematography, visual effects and intricate plotlines.
• Network: HBO
• Total episodes: 63
• How to stream: HBO MAX, others
• Reader comment: “The biggest show ever made.” – Anonymous

7. ‘Deadwood’ 

• Years on air: 2004-06
• At a glance: It’s 1876, and the richest gold strike in U.S. history draws a throng of restless misfits to a lawless settlement built on land stolen from the Sioux in the Black Hills of South Dakota. David Milch’s series is forever to be remembered for its sophisticated, Shakespearean-inspired dialogue and gritty, realistic portrayal of the American frontier.
• Network: HBO
• Total episodes: 36
• How to stream: HBO MAX, others

8. ‘M*A*S*H’

• Years on air: 1972-83
• At a glance: In this pioneering sit-com, members of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital care for the injured during the Korean War, using humor to escape from the horror, depression and boredom of war. What began at a time of deep public disillusionment over the Vietnam War ended in 1983 with 122 million people watching the final episode.
• Network: CBS
• Total episodes: 251
• How to stream: Hulu, Disney+, others

9. ‘Seinfeld’    

• Years on air: 1989-88
• At a glance: Jerry Seinfeld’s infamously funny series was relentlessly described as being about “nothing.” In truth, it was about a lot of little things, striking a deep chord for its astute observations of everyday life –our petty impulses, social annoyances and selfish behaviors – to great comic effect.
• Network: NBC
• Total episodes: 180
• How to stream: Netflix

10. ‘Mad Men’            

• Years on air: 2007-15
• At a glance: Inside a sleek 1960s Manhattan ad agency,  ambitious executives, creatives and assistants pursue power in a manufactured marketing world fueled by image, desire and the seductive myth of the American Dream. Don Draper (Jon Hamm) is the beloved and reviled personification of patriarchal masculinity at a time of great societal upheaval. All with mind-blowing detail to the period.
• Network: AMC
• Total episodes: 92
• How to stream: AMC+, Prime, others

Reader comment: “This show is factually, subjectively and objectively No. 1. The last great American novel. Its poetry of memory and out-of-body reality of time is completely unmatched.” – Christian O’Shaughnessy(Note: I used Denver Gazette news and research resources to assist in compiling the descriptor sentences of the top-10 shows listed above.)

John Moore is The Denver Gazette’s Senior Arts Journalist. Email him at jmoore@denvergazette.com.

THE BEST TV SHOWS OF ALL-TIME

(according to Denver Gazette readers)

Title                               Points   

1.         Breaking Bad              170               

2.         The Sopranos             138               

3.         The Wire                     131               

4.         The Leftovers            120               

5.         Better Call Saul             67                

6.         Game of Thrones          62             

7.         Deadwood                    52             

8.         M*A*S*H                     51             

9.         Seinfeld                         49             

10.       Mad Men                     41             

The second 10

11.       All in the Family

12.       Justified

13.       Band of Brothers

14.       Buffy the Vampire Slayer

15.       The Americans

16.       Veep

17.       Roots

18.       The Shield

19.       Downton Abbey

20.       Prime Suspect