There’s prestige television, and then there’sBoardwalk Empire.When it premiered in 2010, it contained the ingredients for one of thebest HBO original TV shows: Martin Scorsese helming the pilot, Terence Winter fresh offThe Sopranos,and Steve Buscemi taking center stage for once. What followed was a five-season saga that played out like a crime novel.
Boardwalk Empiresits at 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it earns every point. The show’s Atlantic City is decadent, dangerous, and constantly on the edge of collapse. Lavish sets, sudden bursts of brutality, and long games of political maneuvering define the story from beginning to end.
And yet,Boardwalk Empirenever got the same spotlight as its HBO siblings. It’s the kind of series that deserves a second look precisely because it slipped through the cracks.
Boardwalk Empire Is A Perfect Crime Drama From Start To Finish
The pilot wastes no time setting the bar — Scorsese brings his usual sweep of gliding cameras through crowded clubs before violence erupts in sudden, jarring bursts. The surprise isn’t that the first episode looks like a film; it’s that the series sustains that energy for five full seasons, solidifying it as one of thebest gangster shows of all time.
Enoch “Nucky” Thompson’s rise is intoxicating, but each move forward carries a cost. The show threads together family betrayal, shifting politics, and criminal alliances that make every subplot matter. Nothing feels like filler, and nothing gets left dangling.
Richard Harrow (Jack Huston) and Chalky White (Michael K. Williams) prove how deep the bench goes. Harrow’s masked sharpshooter is one of TV’s most moving portraits of war trauma, while Chalky’s fight from the back rooms of segregated clubs to power broker status charts ambition, survival, and the slow corrosion of both.
WhenBoardwalk Empire’s saddest character deathshappen and the series does end, it feels inevitable. The finale circles back to the ideas planted from the very beginning, pulling Nucky’s saga to a close with a finality that few crime dramas ever achieve.
Boardwalk Empire Was Heavily Praised For Its Depiction Of Real-Life Historical Figures
One of the show’s best tricks is the way it blurs fiction with fact. Buscemi’s Nucky is modeled on Atlantic City’s real political boss, Enoch Johnson, but thebestBoardwalk Empirecriminalssurrounding Nucky all would come to define the 20th century. Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky — they all cut their teeth here, and their stories unfold in parallel with Nucky’s.
And Stephen Graham’s Al Capone steals nearly every scene he’s in. He starts hot-headed and volatile, a street brawler desperate to be taken seriously. Season by season,Al Capone’s best momentsare layered in calculation, shaping him into the infamous boss history remembers.
Then there’s Vincent Piazza’s Lucky Luciano. who plays the long game. He begins as an ambitious underling, eager for scraps, and slowly ascends toward something far bigger. His rise is charted with patience, with each betrayal and alliance a stepping stone toward something inevitable.
By weaving them into Nucky’s personal story,Boardwalk Empiredelivers a crime saga that feels both intimate and sweeping in scope.
Boardwalk Empire Deserves To Be More Iconic Than It Is
Despite the acclaim,Boardwalk Empirenever hit the cultural highs ofGame of ThronesorBreaking Bad.It aired in the same window, competing for the same watercooler space, and was overshadowed by dragons and meth empires. Even Buscemi’s award-winning turn as Nucky didn’t give HBO the kind of antihero mascot they had in Tony Soprano.
But a decade later, the show plays like one of the network’s crown jewels. SomeBoardwalk Empirecharacters get fitting endingswhile others deserve better, but the craft holds up, and the fact that it ends with purpose makes it even more valuable in a medium littered with unfinished or fumbled finales.
For anyone hunting the next great binge,Boardwalk Empirebelongs near the top. It’s rare to find a show this grand in scope, this committed to its characters, and this bold in storytelling.
