15 Best AMC TV Shows, Ranked

Once primarily reliant on broadcasting classic movies, AMC has steadily branched into producing its own original television programming for decades. More impressively, some of its earliest originals have been widely regarded among the best television series of the 21st century, joining in the wave of prestige TV. This distinction has diversified as AMC's programming slate has expanded, spreading from dramas to horror shows and surreal comedy. In the past several years, AMC really has become a platform for top-shelf television within the realm of basic cable and its streaming service AMC+.

Simply put, we're big fans of AMC and its growing library of original shows, but there are a handful that rise above the rest. With that in mind, we've compiled our personal favorites, and we're ready to share what makes each of these particular series so special. Here are the 15 best AMC TV shows, ranked in order, that you should check out or revisit for your next binge.

A joint production between the BBC and AMC, the 2022 medical dramedy "This Is Going to Hurt" is based on the 2017 memoir by Adam Kay. Set in a public British hospital in 2006, the series follows a group of young doctors working in the hospital's obstetrics and gynecology ward. Whishaw stars as Kay, whose work, along with that of his colleagues, goes under-appreciated and often without the support they need. The ensemble's medical work is juxtaposed with their personal lives and how the characters' working condition affects their outlook and mental health.

"This Is Going to Hurt" places audiences right in the thick of the hospital-based action, instilling a deep empathy for its exhausted, thankless main characters. Ben Whishaw delivers a stellar lead performance, while also capturing the heartbreaking nature of Kay's work. Joining him is a solid ensemble cast, with Ambika Mod as the biggest standout, playing Kay's colleague Shruti Acharya. Filled with appropriately wry humor, as the Brits are known to pull off masterfully, with genuine heart under the surface, "This Is Going to Hurt" is sharply crafted dramedy.

Alexander Rose's 2007 nonfiction historical book "Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring" was adapted into this historical drama in 2014. Set during the height of the American Revolution, the show focuses on Long Island farmer Abraham Woodhull (Jamie Bell) and his childhood friends. As the Revolutionary War escalates, Woodhull and his friends form the Culper Ring, a spy network assisting the Continental Army, when the British gain the upper hand in the conflict. The ring's activities help turn the tide of the war as Woodhull and his allies become increasingly involved and daring in their wartime exploits.

"Turn: Washington's Spies" is a show that steadily improves as it goes, with the quality increasing with the story's scope. The series combines espionage spectacle with period piece aesthetics, with the raised stakes adding to the audience's overall investment. Leading the ensemble is Bell, in a laser-focused performance, an unassuming farmer who becomes a pivotal figure in a prolonged war. A swashbuckling take on the espionage genre, "Turn: Washington's Spies" uses its historical basis and setting well in providing a cloak-and-dagger perspective on the American Revolution.

AMC has built up quite the library of original horror series, including the anthology series "The Terror," which premiered in 2018. Each season follows a standalone story, rotating casts and principal creative teams with every installment. The first season is based on Dan Simmons' 2007 novel where the show gets its name, chronicling an ill-fated 19th century expedition to find the Northwest Passage. The second season features an original story set primarily in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II, with detainees haunted by figures drawn from Japanese folklore and history.

Blending atmospheric period piece trappings and regionalized paranormal frights, "The Terror" always weaves fascinating scary stories. While the supernatural menace is certainly present, the show's use of historical real-world horrors gives it an added edge. This is elevated by each season's stellar cast and talent behind the camera, with acclaimed filmmaker Karyn Kusama set to work on the upcoming Season 3. A consistently haunting ride through dark historical stories with a supernatural twist, "The Terror" is always a television event when a new season debuts.

Another BBC co-production with AMC, "The Little Drummer Girl" adapts British author John le Carré's novel of the same name. Set in 1979, the show stars Florence Pugh as English actor Charlie Ross, who develops a romantic interest in Gadi Becker (Alexander Skarsgård), unaware that he's secretly a Mossad operative. Noticing Charlie's talents, Gadi and his colleague Martin Kurtz (Michael Shannon) decide to recruit her into infiltrating a terrorist cell active in Europe. This leads to a whirlwind mission across the continent, with the morally compromised nature of the assignment taking a visible toll on Charlie.

Acclaimed South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook directed all six episodes of "The Little Drummer Girl," giving it a nuanced and cinematic quality. Like much of le Carré's work, this is a thinking person's spy story, with messy moral dilemmas and methodical pacing rewarding the viewer by its back half. Pugh takes full advantage of these complexities while the show sumptuously utilizes its moody European backdrops. Boasting one of her best performances to date, "The Little Drummer Girl" provides Pugh with an espionage thrill ride years before she became Black Widow.

The 2007 Danish series "The Killing" was loosely remade for American television in 2011, transposing the story to Seattle. This version has police detectives Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos) and Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman) investigating the murder of a local teenage girl. This investigation is paralleled by the murder's impact on the impact, particularly the girl's family and how they react to ongoing revelations from the case. The last two seasons of the series focus on different murder mysteries that Linden and Holder find themselves too closely connected to on a personal level.

There is a sinister atmosphere that permeates throughout the American version of "The Killing," with the show's lighting amping up the tension and neo-noir sensibilities. Though audiences were understandably frustrated by the first mystery stretching into two seasons, appreciating the full breadth of the show now makes that prolonged storytelling forgivable. "The Killing" was picked up by Netflix for its fourth and final season, but those first two seasons are still the series at its best. One of the best modern detective TV shows ever made, "The Killing" dialed up the ominous atmosphere behind its compelling murder mystery.

There needs to be more wacky comedies and low-stakes shows backed by prestige programming productions on television. One show that fulfilled this criteria was the short-lived AMC dramedy "Lodge 49," which ran for two seasons and premiered in 2018. The series stars Wyatt Russell as Dud, a former surfer in Long Beach trying to find his way after the loss of his dad and the family business. This search for a place to belong leads Dud to join an enigmatic fraternal order, with Dud good-naturedly stumbling through their vaunted traditions and secrets.

Right down to his physical appearance, Russell's Dud evokes Jeff Bridges' absurdly lackadaisical "Big Lebowski" character the Dude. But it's clear that "Lodge 49" is very much its own slacker story set throughout Southern California, leaning more into existential musings about life and purpose. These philosophies are all refracted through Dud's perspective, whose easygoing energy veers the narrative into the outright surreal. Powered by a peak performance from Russell, "Lodge 49" is one of the most overlooked shows from AMC's original programming and deserves far more love.

Before working with the BBC to adapt John le Carré's "The Little Drummer Girl," AMC co-produced another le Carré adaptation with them with "The Night Manager." The show updates the novel's setting to the aftermath of the Egyptian 2011 revolution and the subsequent political intrigue. The story centers on hotel manager and former British soldier Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston), who was involved in the Egyptian revolution before relocating to Europe. Because of this involvement, Pine is recruited to infiltrate a syndicate run by arms dealer Dickie Roper (Hugh Laurie) and bring him down.

"The Night Manager" does le Carré's tale justice with its own smartly written take on the classic spy story. At the series' center is the mental duel between Pine and Roper, brought to life by Hiddleston and Laurie, with both actors at the height of their powers. Nearly a decade after its debut, "The Night Manager" was renewed for two additional seasons with Hiddleston returning, albeit with the show coming to Prime Video. Even so, the series not only provided AMC with a taut espionage thriller but signaled the beginning of a fruitful partnership with the BBC.

Based on the "Leaphorn & Chee" crime novels of author Tony Hillerman, "Dark Winds" is a psychological thriller starring Hillerman's classic characters. Zahn McClarnon plays police officer Joe Leaphorn with Kiowa Gordon playing his newest deputy Jim Chee. Together, with police sergeant Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten), the group keeps the peace in Navajo County in the 1970s. This duty places them against terrorists and mysterious cults endangering the indigenous people living throughout the American Southwest.

There is a reliable quality to "Dark Winds," from its strong ensemble cast to how it steadily ratchets up the suspense and intensity. At the center of it all is McClarnon, who also executive-produces the series, playing Joe Leaphorn as obsessively driven but fundamentally haunted by all that life has cost him. This is technically a period piece show, but often feels quite contemporary, leaning more into the rich Southwest environments where it's filmed. A neo-Western with prominent thriller elements, "Dark Winds" is expertly done crime television, even providing the late Robert Redford with his final acting credit.

While the 1994 movie adaptation of "Interview With the Vampire" certainly has its fans, it still felt like Anne Rice's horror novels hadn't quite gotten the adaptation that they deserved. That all changed with the debut of AMC's television version of the books, starting in 2022. The series has Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) recount to journalist Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian) how he was transformed into a vampire by Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid). But as Molloy reviews Louis' tale of how this undead conflict escalated in 1910s New Orleans, he notices inconsistencies in the blood-soaked story.

AMC's campy "Interview With the Vampire" adaptation goes gleefully over-the-top to great effect, without compromising the story or characters. Watching Anderson and Reid play off of each other is a pure delight, while the series definitely brings the blood and fury fans have come to expect. Fueled by the show's success, a wave of subsequent Rice adaptations followed, linked together in the Immortal Universe, starting with "Mayfair Witches." The best realization of Rice's work on-screen to date, "Interview With the Vampire" makes vampire television fun again.

Just when period piece television Westerns felt played out, the 2011 series "Hell on Wheels" breathed fresh life into the well-worn archetypes. Set in the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War, Confederate veteran Cullen Bohannon (Anson Mount) joins the Union Pacific Railroad Company as it builds the Transcontinental Railroad. Bohannon secretly hopes his work will lead him to the Union soldiers responsible for the deaths of wife and son, plotting his revenge. As the construction crew progresses through increasingly dangerous conditions, they are joined by a mobile encampment of illicit figures, nicknamed Hell on Wheels.

"Hell on Wheels" takes a familiar revenge story set-up and finds interesting directions for its ensemble cast as they advance westward. This is a story of the end of the Wild West, but not without plenty of violence along the way. As Bohannon becomes an unlikely leader among the railroad workers, he genuinely becomes invested in the project and its crew, evolving deeply throughout the show. An overlooked Western that Anson Mount fans need to watch, "Hell on Wheels" consistently delivered the frontier thrills.

In the wake of all the spin-offs, it's easy to forget just how great the original "Walking Dead" series truly was. Based on the comic book by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard, the show opens with the world overcome by a sudden zombie apocalypse. As Sheriff Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) reunites with his family outside of Atlanta, they lead a small group of survivors to find a safe haven from the undead. However, Rick's group quickly discovers that their fellow surviving humans are just as dangerous as the zombie hordes.

There is an unrelenting grim intensity to "The Walking Dead" that makes the show best appreciated in doses rather than a lengthy binge. Peppered with major character deaths and gory showdowns, this is a horror series that doesn't pull its punches, even on basic cable. Running for 11 seasons, the show also rarely loses momentum, keeping audiences invested with its extensive ensemble cast and gripping plot development. Completely revitalizing the zombie sub-genre, "The Walking Dead" deserves all the success the franchise has since received.

The rise of personal computing and domestic internet use in the '80s and '90s serves as the backdrop for "Halt and Catch Fire." The show centers on Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace), a shadowy businessman who hires a small team of engineers and programmers to reverse-engineer an IBM PC to create their own clone. Later seasons follow Joe's colleague Cameron Howe (Mackenzie Davis) start her own gaming company, branching into early online communities. Unfolding over a decade or so, the show has Joe and his associates overcome setbacks as the technology industry increasingly pivots to internet-based software.

While "Halt and Catch Fire" is ostensibly about the technology business, it's really a story that teaches us how to live with failure. Joe might come off as a charismatic, well-groomed slickster, but underneath the facade, he's an incredibly damaged individual trying to sell his idea of himself as much as his product. The show only improves as it widens its focus beyond Joe, chronicling the ensemble's professional and personal ups-and-downs as they find their place in the industry. Darkly stylish with an impressive ensemble cast, "Halt and Catch Fire" is a superb workplace drama.

Naturally, you knew that "Breaking Bad" was going to show up somewhere on a ranking like this. The crime drama follows high school chemistry teacher Walter White (Bryan Cranston) as he begins producing meth to provide for his family after he's diagnosed with cancer. To help with the manufacture and sale of the potent blue meth, White teams up with local ne'er-do-well Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). As White becomes increasingly drawn into the criminal underworld, he quickly embraces and abuses the power it gives him to murderous lengths.

"Breaking Bad" isn't so much the story of how a good man turns bad, but how quickly someone will drop their morals when given the opportunity. This is masterfully depicted by Cranston, creating the ultimate television antihero in Walter White, who doesn't realize how far gone he is until it's too late. Series creator and showrunner Vince Gilligan expertly guides the story along, operating under the simple rule to let the characters carry the story to its natural conclusion. These characters led audiences in a thoroughly gripping tale, with "Breaking Bad" providing audiences with five seasons of excellent crime television that never lost sight of its protagonist's conflicted humanity.

The other obvious choice that was always going to make an appearance is "Mad Men," which brought AMC's original programming to widespread attention. The series follows New York advertising executive Don Draper (Jon Hamm) from 1960 to 1970. Draper is prone to significant vices which derail his personal and professional life on numerous occasions, but always finds a way to maneuver himself back to his career. Filling out the ensemble are Draper's colleagues at the advertising agency, each with their own foibles that develop as the decade progresses.

Running for seven seasons, "Mad Men" provides an immersive vision of the '60s through the lens of upper-class figures in New York. This isn't a show concerned about heroes and villains so much as characters that make mistakes and grow -– or don't -– just as all people do. With that approach, the series is at once a period piece workplace drama but also stays largely relatable, showcasing the ugly side of its glamorous executives at work and home. A richly developed look at life in the rapidly changing '60s, "Mad Men" brought AMC to the prestige television table where it continues to remain.

While many consider "Breaking Bad" superior compared to "Better Call Saul," this writer's personal take is that the 2015 spin-off series is better. The show shifts the franchise focus to morally compromised criminal defense attorney Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), who served as a key partner in Walter White and Jesse Pinkman's criminal enterprise. The series primarily takes place earlier in the "Breaking Bad" timeline, revealing how Goodman began his law career, initially under his true name as Jimmy McGill. This puts him at odds with people in his personal life, especially as he becomes increasingly involved with dangerous criminals around Albuquerque.

Coming off "Breaking Bad," Vince Gilligan and the spin-off's co-creator Peter Gould were still firing on all cylinders creatively with the rest of the crew. This informed "Better Call Saul" diving right back into the crime drama's world, more self-assured and tightly plotted as it explored its protagonist's backstory. Unlike Walter White, there are no bones about whether Jimmy McGill is a good person or not, despite his best efforts. Watching McGill steadily transform into Goodman is richly told crime tragedy, punctuated by severe and shocking consequences that are impossible to look away from.