Greatest TV seriesof all time?

Who's the greatest TV series of all time? Nobody leads yet.

Ten matchups, about a minute. Or just tap a photo.

Tap a photo or use the ← → keys. The next matchup loads on its own.

The table

Rating ± certainty · updates live

PosContenderRatingWin %Week
1
Breaking Bad
Breaking Bad
16 Primetime Emmys
1,500 ±350 50%
2
The Sopranos
First cable show to win top drama Emmy
1,500 ±350 50%
3
Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones
59 Emmys, most for a drama
1,500 ±350 50%
4
The Wire
The Wire
Critics' favourite, zero Emmys
1,500 ±350 50%
5
Friends
Streaming giant decades later
1,500 ±350 50%
6
The Office
One of the most-streamed US shows
1,500 ±350 50%
7
The Simpsons
The Simpsons
Longest-running US scripted primetime series
1,500 ±350 50%
8
Succession
Top drama Emmy three times
1,500 ±350 50%
9
Seinfeld
Seinfeld
Redefined the sitcom
1,500 ±350 50%
10
Squid Game
Squid Game
Netflix's most-watched series
1,500 ±350 50%

Ratings use Glicko, a version of chess's Elo that also tracks how sure we are (the ± figure). Beat a higher-rated rival and you gain more, and the less sure we are about a contender, the more one vote moves them. On the real site the official table is recalculated from all votes every few minutes, so a matchup that gets voted on a lot doesn't count extra. Why a chess rating and not upvotes?

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    Fair play

    Nobody picks matchups by hand. Every visitor gets their own stream, drawn by a matchmaker that spreads votes across the whole field.

    • Least-seen first. Contenders with few matches come up more, so new entries get rated fast.
    • Unsure ratings first. The bigger the ± on a rating, the more often it gets tested.
    • Close contests. Evenly matched pairs tell us more than mismatches.
    • Wildcards and no repeats. One matchup in seven is fully random, and you never see the same pair twice.

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    Who gets shown: 1,000 visitors × 10 matchups

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