Ranking Every HBO Drama Series From Worst To Best

Created by Sopranos writer Terence Winter, exec produced by Martin Scorsese and starring Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire came to our screens with enormous expectations. And while it couldn’t quite add up to the sum of its parts, at its best this was breathtaking TV on the grandest stage imaginable.

Buscemi brilliantly portrayed Nucky Thompson, a cunning bootlegger in 1920s New Jersey. He’s loosely based on a real politician, but exists among historical figures like Lucky Luciano, Arnold Rothstein, and Al Capone. Better still are the show’s original creations, especially Jack Huston’s Richard Harrow, a war scarred hitman whose face is half hidden by an instantly iconic mask.

Nucky is besieged by foes from all corners, including a Sicilian gangster, a heroin trading community leader, and even members of his own family. It mostly moves at a languorous pace, but the story has a captivating manner of occasionally exploding into relentless action. There are some spectacular setpieces, peaking with a season three shootout in a brothel.

Good until the last, Boardwalk Empire perhaps didn’t meet the levels we might have dreamed of, but evolves and grows in new directions throughout.