Critics Poll: ‘Breaking Bad' Named Best TV Series of the 2010s

Editor’s note — I’ve added 20 more lists to this poll, which was originally published in 2020. We now have a total 105 lists tallied. Some minor changes in the top 10: “Fleabag” has dropped a spot, “Twin Peaks: The Return” rises one.

In the last decade of television, we saw many changes as to what actually constitutes TV and what doesn’t.

With streaming giants such as Netflix, Amazon, and HULU crashing the party and blurring the lines between TV and cinema, networks such as FX, HBO, and AMC upped their game and gave more creative freedom to creators such as Vince Gilligan, Matthew Weiner, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and David Lynch.

What was created by these, and many other visionaries, was small screen quality unlike any we’d ever seen before. Risk-taking was the norm, there was an attempt to break the mold of what television was supposed to look and be like.

With that said, Gilligan’s “Breaking Bad” has been named the best TV series of the 2010s, at least according to over 100 critics, journalists, and bloggers. Gilligan’s gangster saga, which was included in almost half the ballots submitted (45), barely squeezed by its closest competitors, Weiner’s’“Mad Men” (37) and Waller-Bridge's “Fleabag” (25).

“Breaking Bad” was such a profoundly important benchmark in not just television but popular culture, that a spin-off of it, “Better Call Saul,” almost cracked the top 10.

In the poll, votes were fairly spread out among the submissions. Participants included leading critics from IndieWire, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, USA Today, The A.V. Club, Forbes, The New York Times and Rolling Stone.

Critics were asked to submit a list of five shows, unranked, released 2010 and 2019, that they believed were the very best of the decade. Shows like “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men,” despite having premiered in the previous decade, were eligible because the majority of their series runs happened in the 2010s.

However, as expected, there were a few critics in the poll that refused to include them due to their unadorned opinion that they shouldn’t count as being part of the 2010s. However, others couldn’t help themselves in mentioning shows that had just begun their run in the last year of the decade (“Succession,” “Barry,” and “Fleabag”).

As you scroll through the results, you will notice that David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks: The Return” garnered the sixth highest vote total. This makes Lynch’s surreal work the only title to make our best of the decade movie and TV polls. In a separate poll, t was named the 17th best film of the 2010s.

1. Breaking Bad (AMC)
2. Mad Men (AMC)
3. The Leftovers (HBO)
4. Fleabag (BBC)
5. Game of Thrones (HBO)
6. Twin Peaks: The Return (Showtime)
7. The Americans (FX)
8. Atlanta (FX)
9. Bojack Horseman (Netflix)
10. Veep (HBO)

11. Better Call Saul (AMC)
12. Justified (FX)
13. Parks and Recreation (NBC)
14. Hannibal (NBC)
15. The Good Wife (CBS)
16. Succession (HBO)
17. Enlightened (HBO)
18. American Crime Story (FX)
19. Rectify (SundanceTV)
20. The Good Place (NBC)

POLL PARTICIPANTS