TV's Best Series Finales Ever, Ranked

Just as all TV series aren't created equal, neither are all series finales. Many are fine, a few are quite poor, but some are no less than fantastic.

The TVLine staff dug in its heels and took a long, hard look at our ranking of the greatest series finales ever, and gave it a freshening-up. The result is a robust, exciting revisiting of the 25 Best Series Finales of All Time, including the utterly sublime swan songs of gritty dramas, big-hearted comedies and several genre-TV favorites.

Review our picks below and then hit the comments with the truly grand finales that you're glad to see included — as well as those you would have singled out yourself!

18. Angel

Heaven help us, we still get chills when we think of "Not Fade Away," in which the heroic vampire and his crew made the most of what they feared would be their last day on earth before doing battle with the Senior Partners' Circle of the Black Thorn. "Let's go to work!" cried Angel. Sure worked for us!

16. The Big Bang Theory

Now that's what we call going out with a bang! The CBS comedy concluded its 12-season run with a two-parter in which newly-minted Nobel Prize winner Sheldon not only apologized to his friends for his insensitivity, he professed his love for them — and inadvertently told the world that Leonard and Penny were expecting while he was at it!

12. Breaking Bad

We could write pages about what made the acclaimed AMC drama's finale "Felina" so wicked good. But the part we loved best was cancer-stricken schoolteacher-turned-druglord Walter White admitting to wife Skyler that he hadn't dealt meth for their family. "I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it." And how.

10. Cheers

We'll always hoist a glass to "One for the Road" — and Sam Malone's decision to forsake his chance at a reunion with old flame Diane Chambers to remain in Boston with his true love: the gang at the bar.

5. Friday Night Lights

Though the NBC/DirecTV drama was always about much more than football, it really scored with "Always." Back then, TVLine's Michael Ausiello called the series ender — which gave a happy ending to the Taylors as the clock ran out — "spectacularly satisfying yet utterly gut-wrenching."

8. M*A*S*H

Never afraid to remind viewers that war is hell, the long-running CBS comedy didn't just say a funny "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" with its Alan Alda-directed finale. It also forced Hawkeye to unearth repressed memories of a refugee woman smothering her clucking chicken crying infant to keep their bus from being discovered by enemy soldiers.

3. Newhart

The last episode of Bob Newhart's 1982-90 comedy was a dream come true: After being KO'd by a golf ball, innkeeper Dick Loudon woke up as the funnyman's old Bob Newhart Show character — in bed with his wife from that series, Suzanne Pleshette's Emily! The entirety of Newhart had been a dream!

1. Six Feet Under

"Everyone's Waiting" did the near impossible: Just two episodes after the death of Peter Krause's Nate, it flashed forward to the demises of all of the major characters on HBO's beloved funeral-home drama, yet managed to feel more uplifting than downbeat. Miraculous.

7. St. Elsewhere

"What's he thinking about?" Donald Westphall wondered in "The Last One" as he looked at son Tommy, who had autism. The answer, we gleaned, was the goings-on at St. Eligius, a replica of which we saw inside the snow globe that so fascinated the boy. And we had to give both the kid — and the show — props for imagination!

6. The Leftovers

After three seasons, the HBO drama — arguably one of the most daring series in television history — gave us a last gift before its Sudden Departure: It allowed "The Book of Nora" to boil down its whole surreal plot to a poignant love story between two characters for whom we'd come to care almost desperately.

4. The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Sad as it was that the Six O'Clock News team (save Ted Baxter!) was fired in "The Last Show," the episode still felt like as warm a hug as Mary Richards and her friends shared before she mustered up the courage to turn the world on with her smile one final time.

20. The O.C.

Thankfully, the Fox soap didn't sign off with "Goodbye from the O.C., bitch!" Rather, "The End's Not Near, It's Here" was a sweet, nostalgic affair that, in addition to letting us know that Seth Cohen and Summer Roberts eventually tied the knot, gave us a big hint that Ryan Atwood was going to do for another kid what the Cohens had done for him.

2. The Shield

Crime doesn't pay. So Michael Chiklis' Vic Mackey learned in the FX drama's near-perfect swan song, "Family Meeting," as the corrupt cop not only lost his kids and the last of his friends but was — shudder — forced to accept a desk job.

9. The Wire

There was never anything simple about this blue-chip HBO drama. So we were gratified that there was nothing simple about the episode with which it concluded, either. Dishing out endings happy (Bubbles, finally clean) and heartbreaking (Dukie shooting up), "-30-" allowed the series to keep it real to the end.

21. Friends

Though "The Last One" broke up the old gang by sending Monica and Chandler to the suburbs with their adopted twins, it also reunited Ross and Rachel, and left us with the comforting sense that the six BFFs would always be there for one another, even if the show would no longer be there for us.

24. Superstore

Despite rushing to the finish line, the NBC comedy's farewell managed to give fans everything they wanted and then some. No sooner had Jonah and Amy reconciled were we treated to a series of flash-forwards inspired by another finale at the top of this list, which revealed that Amy and Jonah eventually tied the knot, Glenn had reopened Sturgis & Sons (and employed Cheyenne and Mateo) and all the former Cloud 9 associates — well, except for Elias — remained good friends.

19. The Fugitive

Dr. Richard Kimble's 120-episode odyssey came to a thrilling close some 54 years ago, in a two-parter the first drew the accused wife-killer, pursuer Lt. Gerard and the elusive One-Armed Man to Los Angeles, and then brought the tale full-circle back to Stafford, Indiana. There, atop an amusement park tower, Kimble got the confession he had long sought, before Gerard shot the One-Armed Man, who then fell to his death.

17. 12 Monkeys

However difficult it is to craft a satisfying series finale, take that and triple it for a time-traveling genre show full of complicated mythology. And yet, the Syfy series completely nailed the landing with a conclusion that felt carefully crafted and completely earned. When the final minutes echoed the pilot's opening scene, we were left a bit breathless at how beautifully the story came full circle.

14. Star Trek: The Next Generation

What better way to wrap the sci-fi franchise's first offshoot than with a throwback to TNG's premiere? Capt. Picard time-jumped among three distinct eras of his life, only to realize that humanity's trial — which Q kicked off in the series' premiere, "Encounter at Farpoint" — was still underway. Of course, Jean-Luc came out on top, avoiding the Enterprise's eventual destruction and even fitting in a poker game with his crew before the credits rolled. 

13. ER

A wonderful mix of nostalgia and future possibilities, "And in the End" brought back together old friends/colleagues Carter, Benton, Corday, Lewis and Weaver, while also shepherding in the ER's next generation of docs. And who should be among them but the late Dr. Greene's daughter Rachel! We can think of no more perfect, full circle ending than Carter turning around and asking the prospective med student if she's coming to treat a critical patient as the show's iconic theme song started to play. 

11. Halt and Catch Fire

Sad as it was to see Joe walk away from those he cared for most, it was exactly what was needed to bring the series full circle. Our once-reptilian protagonist had endured the pain of becoming human and all of the loss that entails. And emerging from the dust of Gordon's demise, and Joe and Cameron's on-again/off-again romance, was the rebirth of Cameron and Donna's working relationship, which, over time, had become the very best part of the show.

23. Parenthood

Parenthood wouldn't be Parenthood if it didn't make us cry — and the NBC dramedy's finale certainly brought on the waterworks. But even though the Bravermans lost patriarch Zeek in the final episode, the hour wasn't weighed down by grief and heartache. Rather, with the help of a several-year time jump, the finale became a beautiful (and, yes, ugly cry-inducing) celebration of love, family and the joyous moments that can be found even in the most difficult times.

22. The Americans

Just when we expected FX's Cold War spy drama to go out in a hail of bullets, with multiple characters getting killed off, it ended on an appropriately restrained note instead, with an elegantly constructed, magnificently heart-wrenching finale. It packed plenty of epic emotional moments, too — Stan finds out! Paige gets off the train! — before dealing married Soviet spies Philip and Elizabeth Jennings perhaps a fate worse than death: starting a new life in their Russian homeland after leaving their children behind in Reagan's America.

25. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Capping a rather unexpectedly stellar season, and across an at-times thrilling two hours, the series-ender served up great fights (including Daisy versus a Quake-ified younger Malick), timey-wimey exposition dumps (Fitz has been where/when all season long?!), incredibly heartwarming reveals (Hey, Alya!) and, in the closing act, a parade of perfect, individual epilogues... and at least a hint of Marvel-ous, out-of-this-world fan service (S.W.O.R.D., anyone?).

15. The Good Place

NBC's afterlife comedy wrapped up on a beautifully philosophical note, with Eleanor and her fellow humans all separately deciding to end their eternal existences by walking through a door in a serene redwood forest. (Even heaven gets old after a while, it seems.) We laughed, we cried... it was forking lovely.