Emmy Winners: Drama

Every Outstanding Drama Series since 1970, newest first — Hill Street Blues to The Pitt. The prestige-TV canon, as voted by the Academy.

31 titles

  1. The Pitt (2025), R. Scott Gemmill
    A Pittsburgh emergency room, one 15-episode shift in real time. Won Best Drama at the 2025 Emmys. Noah Wyle's return to hospital television was quieter and more rigorous than anyone expected.
  2. Shōgun (2024), Rachel Kondo, Justin Marks
    The FX adaptation of James Clavell's novel about a European navigator in feudal Japan in 1600. Won Best Drama and a record eighteen Emmys for a single season. Hiroyuki Sanada's passion project.
  3. Succession (2018), Jesse Armstrong
    The Roy family fights over a media empire. Won Best Drama three times. Jesse Armstrong's dark comedy is the defining prestige television of its era. The series finale is the best season finale of the peak TV era.
  4. The Crown (2016), Peter Morgan
    The reign of Queen Elizabeth II dramatized across six decades and three different casts. Won Best Drama for the fourth season. The most expensive series Netflix ever made.
  5. Game of Thrones (2011), David Benioff, D. B. Weiss
    Noble houses fight for the Iron Throne. Won Best Drama four times. The first four seasons are some of the best genre television ever made. The final season is a lesson in what peak TV cannot survive.
  6. The Handmaid's Tale (2017), Bruce Miller
    Margaret Atwood's novel about a near-future theocratic America. Won Best Drama in 2017, the first streaming series to win the award. Elisabeth Moss in the defining performance of her career.
  7. Breaking Bad (2008), Vince Gilligan
    A chemistry teacher begins cooking methamphetamine. Won Best Drama twice. The most precisely engineered character arc in television history. The ending is perfect.
  8. Homeland (2011), Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon
    A CIA analyst with bipolar disorder believes a returning POW has been turned. Won Best Drama in 2012. The first two seasons are a taut, paranoid thriller. Seasons one and two are the essential object.
  9. Mad Men (2007), Matthew Weiner
    Don Draper and the advertising world of the 1960s. Won Best Drama four consecutive years. The best-written drama of the post-Sopranos era. A show about surface and depth that never let its period setting become costume drama.
  10. The Sopranos (1999), David Chase
    Tony Soprano runs the New Jersey mob and sees a therapist. Won Best Drama twice. Created by David Chase. The most influential television drama ever made. The cut to black is not a cop-out.
  11. 24 (2001)
    Jack Bauer, 24 hours, real time. Won Best Drama in 2006. The show that invented the modern action television format. Season 1 is still the gold standard for real-time thriller television.
  12. Lost (2004)
  13. The West Wing (1999), Aaron Sorkin
    The Bartlet White House, by Aaron Sorkin. Won Best Drama four consecutive years. A show about idealism in politics, written by someone who believed in both the idea and the sentence. The walk-and-talk became a television grammar point.
  14. The Practice (1997)
    David E. Kelley's legal drama about a small Boston criminal defense firm. Won Best Drama twice. A show that asked whether winning was the same as justice and did not give the easy answer.
  15. Law & Order (1990)
  16. ER (1994)
    The emergency room of Chicago's County General, created by Michael Crichton. Won Best Drama in 1996. George Clooney's breakout. The show that proved hospital television could carry weight.
  17. NYPD Blue (1993)
    Steven Bochco and David Milch's police procedural pushing against broadcast censorship with language and content that had not been on American television before. Won Best Drama in 1995. Dennis Franz won four Emmys.
  18. Picket Fences (1992)
    David E. Kelley's drama about the small town of Rome, Wisconsin. Won Best Drama twice. Tom Skerritt and Kathy Baker, both Emmy winners. A show that mixed legal and social satire before Kelley refined the formula.
  19. Northern Exposure (1990)
    A New York doctor assigned to a tiny Alaskan town. Won Best Drama in 1992. A show about the friction between two American ideas of how to live, told with warmth and a sense of the absurd.
  20. L.A. Law (1986)
    A Los Angeles law firm by Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher. Won Best Drama four times. Adult sexual politics and social issues on network drama in the 1980s. The show that proved network television could be sophisticated and still get ratings.
  21. thirtysomething (1987)
    Baby boomer couples in their 30s in suburban Philadelphia. Won Best Drama in 1988. The show that proved ordinary domestic life was interesting enough to watch and gave American television a model for the adult ensemble drama.
  22. Cagney & Lacey (1982)
  23. Hill Street Blues (1981)
    A police precinct by Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll. Won Best Drama four consecutive years. Changed what American drama could look like: ensemble casts, serial storylines, handheld camera, moral ambiguity. The template for every serious American drama that followed.
  24. Lou Grant (1977)
  25. The Rockford Files (1974)
  26. Upstairs, Downstairs (1971)
  27. Police Story (1973)
  28. The Waltons (1972)
  29. Elizabeth R (1971)
  30. The Bold Ones: The Senator (1970)
  31. Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969)