With the launch of HBO Max, there is a new streaming service with many series and movies. Especially a gangster series should be seen by anyone who loves series like Breaking Bad or Mad Men.
Every week, new series are released on various platforms. With HBO Max, a new streamer has also launched in Germany, offering some movies and series. But the first thing you should watch is a classic series: The Sopranos.
Originally, the series aired between 1999 and 2007 and has 86 episodes spread over 6 seasons. The series follows Tony Soprano, who as the new boss of the Mafia family not only has to solve business
problems. His own family and health also present him with challenges.
Though this sounds quite familiar, The Sopranos tackles the gangster theme so well that it still feels fresh today. Not only is it the best series of all time for me, it also had a significant impact on television as a whole.
The themes still feel modern
Although the series is almost as old as I am and ended over 18 years ago, it can still easily compete with many of today’s series, and even surpass them. At first glance, it appears to be a classic mafia story. It’s about intrigues within the family and other gangs that need to be dealt with.
The Sopranos has a great sense of balance. There are moments that are so funny that it almost feels like a comedy series. Yet this never detracts from the tragic moments; they actually feel more effective because we get to know multiple facets of the many characters.
All of them are well portrayed by the actors, especially Tony Soprano played by the late James Gandolfini. He shows why series with antagonists can be so popular: You know he does terrible things and is just a bad person, yet he has such charm that you can’t look away and you still root for him.
Over the 6 seasons, relationships develop that feel realistic without the series constantly having to force-feed the audience how the characters are connected. But the true strength of The Sopranos lies in the different layers of the story.
Social issues within the mafia construct
The mafia elements are just the surface of The Sopranos. At its core, the series deals with many social issues that are still relevant today. The common thread is Tony’s psyche. He suffers from panic attacks, to the extent that he has to see a psychiatrist. In doing so, it addresses the taboo nature of the topic in such an environment, but also does so elegantly and ironically with sensitivity.
It utilizes the prevailing toxic masculinity of such a mafia clan to address mental illness, false role models, and even the relationship with parents, without spoon-feeding it to the audience. For those who want it, they get a well-acted and strongly staged mafia series, but for those looking to delve deeper into the consequences, they also receive social critique.
It does not point fingers at the viewers; instead, it shows the effect of the characters’ behavior on others. And the escalation that all of this can lead to. Even here, it doesn’t package everything in dramatic or emotional scenes. The Sopranos shows all facets: grief, anger, joy, or despair.
As a result, The Sopranos is never too heavy fare
that you can’t just watch it during your downtime. The series respects that the viewers can think for themselves about what they have seen.
Sopranos is an important milestone and likely one of the reasons why the television landscape is as it is today.
The villain as a charming
protagonist
Not only because of its quality is The Sopranos considered one of the most important series of all time. It placed a complex anti-hero at the forefront and established a then-rare television format. Life.com described the series in 2021 based on critics Matt Zoller Seitz (New York Magazine) and Alan Sepinwall (Rolling Stone) as follows:
Many of the most innovative features of the series have now become common conventions of television – anti-heroic or even outright villainous main characters, ongoing storylines instead of individual episodes, and the recognition that real life includes moral gray areas and unresolved storylines.
Tony was one of the first television protagonists who, as an anti-hero, was clearly a bad person but had multiple facets. A characteristic that can later be seen in many series such as Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, or Mad Men.
Vince Gilligan, the creator of Breaking Bad, even said in an interview with Daily Beast:
Our series owes a lot to The Sopranos, like all other series that have a flawed or somewhat antagonistic protagonist at the center […] Without The Sopranos, Breaking Bad would have been, in my opinion, not only harder to sell—it would have been absolutely impossible to sell.
So it is worth watching The Sopranos, not only for the quality of the series but also to see how a milestone in television history paved the way for today’s productions back in 1999.
In addition to the new streaming service HBO Max, there are of course also the old familiar ones in Germany. In 2025, Netflix will again release countless series. Keeping track of them is not always easy. Here are 5 of the most exciting: 5 Netflix series from 2025 that no one should miss
