Which is better, Boardwalk Empire or The Sopranos?
Both are HBO mob dramas. Both were run by Terence Winter — one as a writer, one as the boss. And the argument about which is better has been running since roughly the day Boardwalk Empire premiered in 2010.
The consensus answer is The Sopranos, and the awards record backs it up: 21 Emmys across six seasons, including Outstanding Drama Series in 2004 and 2007. Boardwalk Empire won 20 Emmys on 57 nominations, but lost Outstanding Drama both times it was nominated and won exactly one acting award in five years.
The tale of the tape
- The Sopranos — 86 episodes over six seasons, 1999 to 2007, created by David Chase. Named the best-written series of all time by the Writers Guild of America.
- Boardwalk Empire — 56 episodes over five seasons, 2010 to 2014, created by Terence Winter, who wrote 25 episodes of The Sopranos and won four Emmys there.
- The pilot gap — Martin Scorsese directed Boardwalk's first episode on an $18 million budget and won the 2011 Emmy for Outstanding Directing. Nothing on The Sopranos ever cost close to that.
- Acting hardware — James Gandolfini won Lead Actor three years running from 2000. Steve Buscemi was nominated twice for Nucky Thompson and never won, though he took the Golden Globe in 2011.
What Boardwalk does better
Production, without much argument. The reconstructed Atlantic City boardwalk, the costume work, the 1920s Chicago and New York detail — Boardwalk won Emmys for art direction, costumes, casting, cinematography, and editing repeatedly. It also has a wider canvas: Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Arnold Rothstein, and a federal government inventing itself around Prohibition, rather than one man in a New Jersey basement.
Its supporting bench is deep. Michael Shannon's ruined Prohibition agent, Jack Huston's Richard Harrow, Michael Kenneth Williams as Chalky White, and Bobby Cannavale's Gyp Rosetti, which won the show's only acting Emmy in 2013.
What The Sopranos does better
Everything that isn't set dressing. Chase built the series around interiority — therapy sessions, dream sequences, a lead character the audience is never allowed to comfortably root for. Boardwalk's Nucky is a fascinating operator; Tony Soprano is a psychological case study that reshaped what television drama was allowed to do.
The writing is also funnier and stranger. "Pine Barrens," which Winter co-wrote, is closer to a Beckett play than a crime procedural.
So which should you watch first?
The Sopranos, if you're picking one. Boardwalk Empire, if you've already done The Sopranos and want the period-piece version with a bigger budget and a colder center. They're not really in competition — Winter has said the greatest thing about television is seeing a story idea reach the screen within months, and he clearly used the first show to learn how to build the second.
For the record: Boardwalk Empire's final season jumps to 1931 and flashes back to Nucky's childhood, which is either the boldest swing in the series or the moment it lost the plot, depending entirely on who you ask.