Saying goodbye to a great television series is never simple. After years of living inside another world, caring about characters as though they were real people, the final episode carries an almost unfair amount of weight. It has to close stories, honor what the show stood for, and somehow feel both inevitable and surprising at once.
The best finales tend to share a few qualities: cultural impact, fan reaction, narrative resolution, and a legacy that continues to shape how we judge endings today. The entries below span decades and genres, ranging from episodes watched by more than a hundred million people to quiet, intimate sendoffs that never trended but never stopped resonating.
M*A*S*H – “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” (1983)
The most watched series finale in American television history remains the 1983 finale of M*A*S*H, titled “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen.” Viewed by nearly 106 million viewers and drawing 77 percent of those watching television at the time, it held the record for most watched telecast of all time for decades. That kind of cultural gravity is hard to overstate. Cities reportedly saw water pressure drop during commercial breaks because nobody wanted to miss a single minute.
The series ended after 256 episodes with “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen,” which depicted the final days of the Korean War conflict, the celebrations and pack-down after the ceasefire, the many tearful farewells between characters, and, most memorably, Hawkeye’s climactic helicopter goodbye. The best and biggest lump-in-the-throat moment is saved for the end, when Alan Alda’s surgeon Hawkeye Pierce is flying off in a chopper and sees from the air the word “goodbye” spelled out in stones on the ground by his best friend B.J. Hunnicutt.
The Sopranos – “Made in America” (2007)
The Sopranos ends in a truly stupefying fashion with Tony Soprano meeting his family in a diner for dinner. The tension builds with every person who walks by, and then an abrupt cut to black closes what is arguably the greatest series of all time. While polarizing upon release, “Made in America” has since come to be celebrated as one of the finest chapters of American television this century.
The Sopranos’ finale caused millions of viewers to temporarily believe they had lost cable service due to an abrupt blackout. The ambiguity surrounding Tony’s fate has kept fans entrenched in speculation and discussion ever since the episode aired in 2007. It is rewarding and precise where it needs to be, but bold and subversive in other regards, conjuring a daring series finale that has become truly timeless and iconic.
Six Feet Under – “Everyone’s Waiting” (2005)
Six Feet Under’s season five finale, “Everyone’s Waiting,” has a claim to be the best TV series finale on a notable metric: its IMDb rating. The episode currently holds a 9.9 on the site, with over 14,000 reviews. That score is not a fluke. The episode was met with critical acclaim from both critics and viewers alike, and is often cited as one of the finest series finales in the history of television.
In a bold and emotional move, the final minutes of the series revealed the future deaths of all its major characters in a haunting, beautiful montage that has since become iconic. The ending montage skips forward in time, showing how each of the main characters eventually dies, closing out their arcs in deeply personal and sometimes tragic ways. The seven-minute montage is set to Sia’s “Breathe Me” and begins with Claire saying goodbye to her family and driving to her new life in New York City, then jumps ahead to show the future lives and eventual deaths of all the main characters.
Breaking Bad – “Felina” (2013)
Often cited as the gold standard for great TV endings, “Felina” delivered precise, methodical closure. Walter White’s arc concluded exactly as promised, balancing justice, consequence, and character payoff in a finale praised for its discipline and emotional restraint. There’s a reason viewers still rewatch it. Every detail was planted, and every thread paid off.
For five seasons, Breaking Bad explored the duality of good and evil that lurks in all of us while following the descent of a simple family man into a hardened criminal. As the show wrapped up its fifth and final season, audiences were left wondering if there were any redeeming qualities left to Walter White, the once mild-mannered chemistry teacher turned power-hungry egotist. The finale answered that question with devastating clarity and a kind of dark satisfaction that few shows ever manage.
Cheers – “One for the Road” (1993)
The second-most-watched series finale in American television history was the 1993 finale of the NBC comedy Cheers, titled “One for the Road,” watched by somewhere between 80 and 93 million viewers while drawing 64 percent of all TVs turned on at the time. The NBC show made it 11 seasons and 270 episodes, and over that time it won 28 Emmys.
Cheers ended its run with a finale that captured the show’s incredible writing style. The finale saw Diane return to rekindle her romance with Sam, and the two plan to go off and get married, giving them the happy ending many fans wanted. However, as the episode comes to an end, Sam realizes that the life he has built at Cheers and the family he has made there is all the happiness he needs. Simple, honest, and completely earned.
Friends – “The Last One” (2004)
The Friends finale drew more than 52 million viewers. Its viewership numbers dwarf those of all finales since the start of the new millennium and seem particularly impressive in light of the increased media options available since the 1990s “event” finales of Cheers and Seinfeld. For a sitcom in the early streaming era, those numbers were a genuine cultural event.
What made the heartwarming Friends finale so note-perfect is that viewers were leaving the characters better and more grown-up than when they first met them. On-and-off couple Ross and Rachel were on for good; Monica and Chandler had left their selfishness behind and were now the parents of twins; Phoebe was happily married; and Joey was still Joey. This emotional farewell felt like saying goodbye to real friends, and it remains one of the most rewatched classic TV finales.
Seinfeld – “The Finale” (1998)
The third most-watched American TV series finale in television history, Seinfeld’s controversial 1998 episode “The Finale” was watched by 76.3 million people, drawing 67 percent of all televisions turned on at the time. The audience showed up, but the reception was complicated. When the Sopranos concluded back in 2007 there was controversy, but when Seinfeld concluded, the sudden and unexpected nature of its ending had viewers staring at the TV, mouth agape.
Aptly named “The Finale,” Seinfeld’s last episode sees many previously wronged characters come back as Jerry and his friends stand trial for violating the Good Samaritan law. Many fans felt the episode was a departure from the comedy of the series that unnecessarily saw the main characters go from being selfish individuals to genuinely unfeeling and inhuman figures. However, some fans view the trial and the gang’s sentencing to one year in jail as a rewarding dose of comeuppance given their unfriendly nature over the series’ nine seasons.
The Wire – “-30-” (2008)
Despite having a few ups and downs throughout its run, The Wire is deservedly remembered as one of the most important and high-quality television shows of all time. Many would argue that its best episode is its series finale, “-30-.” The episode is ambitious, moving, unafraid to tie storylines and character arcs together, and the perfect way to end a series like The Wire.
True to its mission, The Wire ended quietly, showing how institutions persist regardless of individuals. Its realism and restraint helped solidify its reputation as one of television’s greatest achievements. The finale dished out endings both happy and heartbreaking, allowing the series to keep it real until the very end. That unflinching commitment to authenticity is exactly what made it one of the most respected finales in drama television history.
Succession – “With Open Eyes” (2023)
When it was announced that Succession, which explores the conflicts of the Roy family and the media conglomerate they control, would be ending with its fourth season, fans were as shocked as they were excited to see how the story would wrap up. It was perhaps for the best that it didn’t go on for longer, because the final season of the show happened to be among the highest-rated seasons of television on IMDb.
Full of unpredictable surprises with exquisite payoffs to arcs set up years before, the finale was lauded for how tense, funny, and emotionally crushing it was. Though some found the open-endedness a little underwhelming, most thought it was perfectly in line with all that Succession had proved to be up to that point. Cold, ruthless, and thematically perfect, the finale stayed true to the show’s core message about power and inheritance. Its final choice shocked viewers, yet felt entirely inevitable.
Mad Men – “Person to Person” (2015)
Mad Men’s ending is one of TV’s most-discussed series finales, bringing the story of Don Draper to an ambiguous and unexpected conclusion. Created by Matthew Weiner, Mad Men took place primarily in the 1960s and ran for seven seasons, coming to an end in 2015 with its reputation as one of the best shows of the 21st century still intact. The final chapter opens with Don Draper at a California meditation retreat, and the closing image still divides viewers. The series cuts from Don’s calm smile during a group exercise to the real-life Coca-Cola “Hilltop” commercial, a move that interrogates whether he has genuinely changed or simply returned to his talent for advertising.
Subtle, thematic, and deeply symbolic, this finale perfectly matched the show’s tone. Don Draper’s ambiguous resolution reinforced Mad Men’s meditation on identity, advertising, and reinvention. The choice to end on a private smile and a public ad keeps the finale alive in discussion. The show remains studied in classes about television, and its ending is taught as an example of storytelling that trusts the audience to decide.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show – “The Last Show” (1977)
Every member of the cast was flawless, delivering both pathos and punch lines with crack timing. For the show’s finale, the new owners of small-time Minneapolis TV station WJM fire the entire news team except Ted Knight’s dim-bulb anchorman Ted Baxter. Tears flowed and hugs were dispensed, but since this was The Mary Tyler Moore Show, even those minor-key moments were turned into comedy fodder.
A pioneering ending that redefined how television said goodbye, “The Last Show” set the template for comedy finales that followed. A decade after The Fugitive, The Mary Tyler Moore Show provided a finale that became the gold standard for the industry. Today it would be unthinkable for a successful, long-running TV series not to provide a finale, and it is quite a task for writers to come up with an ending that stays true to the show and satisfies faithful viewers while also being unforgettable.
The Leftovers – “The Book of Nora” (2017)
After three seasons, the HBO drama gave viewers one 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 viewers had come to care almost desperately. For a show built on grief and inexplicable loss, that pivot to intimate human connection felt right in a way that was almost shocking.
The finale changes The Leftovers from a series about a hypothesis to one of the great tales of romance in the history of the medium. This was always a story about how Kevin and Nora created their own paradise, not like Adam and Eve at the start of humanity but towards the end of it, instilling lives anew. Modern endings like this one are dissected in real time through memes, podcasts, and long-form analysis, and the pressure is higher than ever for finales to satisfy devoted fans while standing up to relentless scrutiny.
