TV Show Tier List: Make Yours in About 7 Taps, No Grid (2026)

How to Make a TV Show Tier List

Pick the shows you have actually watched, then answer one matchup at a time: this show or that one. Your order builds itself, and the top five slots become S, A, B, C and D. That is the whole method, and you can run it on this page in about 7 taps without installing anything. The two alternatives, dragging titles around a grid and scoring each show out of ten, both ask you to decide the order first and then record it. Head-to-head asks you the only question you can reliably answer, which of these two, and does the ordering for you. Shortlist runs the same mechanic across a whole watch history; the demo below runs it on five shows.

A TV show tier list is a ranked grouping of series into labelled bands, conventionally S at the top through D at the bottom, where placement reflects your own judgment rather than an aggregate score. It differs from a ratings log in that every show is placed relative to the others, so no two shows can quietly tie.

Make your tier list right here

Five shows, head-to-head. Tap the one you prefer and we will build your order, then label it S through D.

Which do you prefer?

Game of Thrones

2011

VS

Breaking Bad

2008

Tap your favorite

Why TV Shows Are Harder to Rank Than Movies

A film is one object. A series is a collection of objects released years apart under one name, and that breaks scoring in a way it never breaks for film. A show might have three perfect seasons and a finale that torches them. Another starts slow and becomes a masterpiece in year three. Asked for a number out of ten, you have to average those into a single figure, and the average describes none of them.

Game of Thrones is the clearest case. Whatever you think seasons 1 to 4 were worth and whatever you think seasons 7 and 8 were worth, no single number carries both, which is why the same show gets rated 9 and 4 by people who broadly agree about it. Head-to-head sidesteps the problem entirely: "is Game of Thrones better than Succession?" is answerable even when "what is Game of Thronesout of ten?" is not, because you are weighing two complete experiences against each other instead of compressing one into a scalar. The uneven show either wins the matchup or it does not, and its position ends up encoding your real verdict.

How Many Comparisons a TV Tier List Actually Takes

The usual objection to head-to-head is that it must take forever, because comparing every pair of 20 shows is 190 matchups. It does not, because the ranker never compares every pair: each new show is slotted in by binary insertion, so it is only ever measured against the midpoint of the run it is being placed into.

Here is what that costs. These are not estimates: we ran the ranker on this page over known preference orders and counted the taps. The 5-to-8-show figures are exhaustive, covering every possible order (all 120 orders of 5 shows, all 40,320 of 8). The larger sets are sampled over 20,000 random orders each, so the ranges are observed rather than proven bounds.

So a 20-show tier list is roughly 62 taps rather than 190, about a third of the naive cost, and a 50-show list is 217 rather than 1,225. The cost grows close to n log n, not n squared, which is the reason this method stays usable at the size a real watch history reaches.

How to Build a Bigger TV Tier List with Shortlist

Five shows is a demo. Shortlist is a free app for iPhone and Android that runs the same mechanic across everything you have watched:

1. Add the shows you've watched: Shortlist's database covers everything from prestige dramas to anime to reality TV.
2. Compare two shows at a time: Tap the one you prefer. No sliders, no stars, no overthinking.
3. Your ranking builds itself: After 10-20 comparisons, your TV tier list takes real shape. Every position is earned.
4. Share the receipts: Send your ranking to the friend who keeps insisting Lost was peak television.

Build your TV tier list

Free on iPhone and Android. Rank movies and shows together or separately.

Best TV Shows to Include in Your Tier List

If you're looking for shows worth ranking, these are the ones that consistently land in S-tier conversations:

• Breaking Bad: The "perfect five-season arc" benchmark
• The Sopranos: Often called the greatest show of all time
• The Wire: Critic favorite for decades
• Succession: The 2020s prestige TV peak
• Game of Thrones: A tier list landmine because of seasons 7-8
• Mad Men: Slow-burn perfection
• The Bear: Modern best-of contender
• Better Call Saul: The rare prequel that earns its place
• Severance: Best new show of the decade?
• Fleabag: Two seasons, both perfect
• Arcane: Animation that broke the prestige ceiling
• Atlanta: Genre-bending and weirdly underrated

TV Tier List Categories That Always Spark Debate

Generic "all TV ever" lists are exhausting. Narrow tier lists generate the best conversations:

• Best TV Shows of 2026: Settle this year before the awards do
• HBO Original Series: Sopranos vs. Wire vs. Succession vs. GoT
• Sitcoms Tier List: Office vs. Parks vs. 30 Rock vs. Always Sunny
• Anime Tier List: Attack on Titan, Death Note, Cowboy Bebop, Frieren
• Reality TV Tier List: Survivor, Love Island, The Traitors
• Prestige Drama Tier List: The shows your friend with the Letterboxd account loves
• Shows You Quit: A reverse tier list of bailed-on series

How TV Tier Lists Beat Star Ratings

Star ratings on TV apps create the same problem ratings always do: everything good ends up at 4.2-4.5 stars, and you can't tell what someone actually loved most. A tier list with even five entries gives more useful information than a hundred ratings.

When you commit to a ranked order, you can't hide behind "they're all great." You have to choose. That's why tier lists became the dominant way to talk about TV online: they force a verdict, and the verdict is shareable.

Two different things get scored around this page. The S to D labels on the ranking above are yours: they come out of the taps you just made and nothing else, so nobody else's opinion is mixed in. The score you see in the app is that same idea at a larger scale: it is built from the head-to-head comparisons you make, scaled to 0 to 10, not from critic averages. How Shortlist scores work sets out the whole method.

Movie Tier List vs. TV Tier List: Use Both

Most people end up making both. Movies and TV reward different things: a movie has two hours to make its case, a show has 50+. They shouldn't compete in the same list. Shortlist lets you keep movie rankings and TV rankings separate, then mash them together when you want to argue about whether a great season of TV beats a great film.

Already started? Check out our movie tier list guide for the film-specific version, or our comparison of movie ranking apps if you're deciding between Shortlist, Letterboxd, and the rest. If you would rather rank a finished franchise than an open-ended watch history, the Marvel movies tier list and the Christopher Nolan tier list both publish a full ranking you can argue with.

TV Show Tier List FAQ

How do you make a TV show tier list?

Pick the shows you have actually watched, then decide their order and group them into tiers, usually S, A, B, C and D. There are three ways to do the deciding: drag titles around a grid, score each show on its own out of five or ten, or answer head-to-head matchups and let the order build itself. You can make one on this page in about 7 taps without installing anything.

How many comparisons does it take to rank a TV tier list?

Fewer than most people expect, because you never compare every pair. Ranking 5 shows takes 6 to 8 head-to-head picks, 10 shows takes about 22, and 20 shows takes about 62. Comparing every possible pair of 20 shows would be 190 matchups, so the method asks for roughly a third of that. These are measured figures from the ranker this page runs, not estimates.

How do you rank a show whose seasons are wildly uneven?

Rank the whole show as one object and let the matchup absorb the unevenness. A score out of ten forces you to average a great run and a bad finale into a single number, which is where Game of Thrones breaks every rating system. The question "is Game of Thrones better than Succession?" is answerable even when "what is Game of Thrones out of ten?" is not, because you are comparing two complete experiences rather than scoring one in isolation.

Should movies and TV shows go in the same tier list?

Keep them separate first, then merge if you want the argument. A film has about two hours to make its case and a series often has fifty or more, so the two reward different things and a mixed list tends to collapse into "long things beat short things." Shortlist keeps movie rankings and TV rankings apart and lets you combine them deliberately.

Is there a TV show tier list maker for Android?

Yes. Shortlist has been on Google Play since July 2026, alongside the iPhone app, so head-to-head TV ranking is no longer iOS only. The ranker on this page needs no install at all and runs in any mobile or desktop browser.