Ranking Every HBO Drama Series From Worst To Best

The show that built an empire, Oz was HBO’s first dramatic megahit, a terrifying and captivatingly dark, violent, often outrageous drama about life in an experimental high security prison. This was must-see TV, getting tongues wagging due to the sheer extremes it would go to on a weekly basis.

The language and savagery on display was the selling point, but beyond that, Oz could tell terrific stories, often about groups we weren’t seeing so often on TV. There were Muslim freedom fighters, the despicable Aryan brotherhood, sociopathic schemers, wizened lifers, and everything in between, segregated into gangs and forever expecting the shank in the shower.

Fast paced and often ludicrous, there was nowhere Oz wasn’t willing to go. In characters like terrifying African drug lord Simon Adebisi and chillingly brutal Nazi Vernon Schillinger (an astonishingly nasty performance from J K Simmons), Oz could be the stuff of nightmares. It was often funny, too, either in its outright comedic moments and characters or the sheer delightful silliness of some of its plots.