The 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME

A - F

The Ed Sullivan Show

Article Tools

For someone under 40, seeing Ed Sullivan on a television screen is astonishing. Stooped, brusque and imposing, he seems not only pre-televisual, but prehistoric. (His contemporaries nicknamed him "Old Stone Face.") This guy brought us The Beatles? And yet for over two decades Sullivan defined pop culture every Sunday night. By making comfortable older viewers who had grown up before TV, the square Sullivan bridged the generation gap like a Soviet-bloc leader transitioning from socialism to runaway capitalism. Then the revolution overtook him; The Rolling Stones mocked him, The Doors defied him and the young audience finally clicked away from him. But not before he established TV as America's new arbiter of taste and tastelessness.

Video

How I Chose The List

Adding to this list would be easy; taking shows off is the tricky part. How did I settle on this list? I set a few guidelines...

Talk Back

What is your all-time favorite TV show?

Which films should have been included and weren't? Did we leave off any of your favorites? Were any shows on the list more influential than others? Tell us what you think

Blogs

Tuned In

TIME's TV critic James Poniewozik blogs daily on all visual media. Join the discussion here

A - F

From Abbott and Costello to Friends

G - M

From General Hospital to Mystery Science Theater 3000

N - S

From The Odd Couple to Survivor

T - Z

From Taxi to Your Show of Shows

100 Best Movies

Presenting the 100 best films as chosen by TIME's movie critics Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel

All-TIME 100 Albums

A list of the greatest and most influential records ever by Josh Tyrangiel and Alan Light

100 Best Novels

TIME critics Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo pick the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present