No single show is more responsible for the current state of scripted television — and the pop cultural sense that TV is at least on equal creative footing with movies — than David Chase’s story of a New Jersey wiseguy who goes to therapy to combat depression and crippling mother issues. 

Starring the late, great James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano, The Sopranos was the first big hit drama made for cable television, without any of the content restrictions imposed on broadcast network series for decades prior. It premiered on January 10, 1999 and ran for seven seasons. Beyond the cursing, the nudity, and the violence, the show was so much more narratively and thematically complex than its peers at the time; The Sopranos was playing chess while the rest of television was playing checkers. 

The series won 21 Emmys, made the careers of previously unknown actors like Gandolfini, Edie Falco, and Michael Imperioli, and rewrote the rules of what its whole medium could do and be. In 2022, Rolling Stone ranked it as the Number One greatest TV show of all time. —Alan Sepinwall