Items24The creator’s order
  1. 1From the Earth to the Moon (1998)From the Earth to the Moon (1998) 8.6/10 on IMDbFirst aired Apr 5, 1998Twelve hour-long episodes, the biggest commitment here, so plan on two a night for most of the week. Tom Hanks produced this history of the space program from the first Mercury flights to Apollo 17, drawn largely from Andrew Chaikin's book A Man on the Moon, three years before he produced Band of…0
  2. 2The Corner (2000)The Corner (2000) 8.5/10 on IMDbFirst aired Apr 16, 2000Six episodes, and some of the heaviest hours on this list in plain human cost. Adapted from David Simon and Ed Burns's nonfiction book about a year around one West Baltimore drug corner, it tells a true story using the real people's names, which makes the addiction and the family damage impossible…0
  3. 3Band of Brothers (2001)Band of Brothers (2001) 9.4/10 on IMDbFirst aired Sep 9, 2001Ten episodes following one company of paratroopers, Easy Company, from training in Georgia to the end of the war in Europe. It comes from Stephen E. Ambrose's book, which drew on interviews with the survivors, and that grounding shows in small details of rank, friendship and exhaustion rather than…0
  4. 4Angels in America (2003)Angels in America (2003) 8.1/10 on IMDbFirst aired Dec 7, 2003Six one-hour chapters, first shown as two three-hour nights a week apart, so a two-evening plan works as well as a week. Tony Kushner adapted his own Pulitzer-winning play about AIDS in mid-1980s New York, and Mike Nichols directed a cast led by Al Pacino as Roy Cohn and Meryl Streep as Hannah…0
  5. 5John Adams (2008)John Adams (2008) 8.4/10 on IMDbFirst aired Mar 16, 2008Seven long parts built on David McCullough's biography, starting with the Boston Massacre of 1770 and following Adams through his years in Europe and in office. Paul Giamatti plays him as prickly, vain and stubbornly honest, and Laura Linney's Abigail is his equal in every scene they share, which…0
  6. 6Generation Kill (2008)Generation Kill (2008) 8.4/10 on IMDbFirst aired Jul 13, 2008Seven episodes on the first 40 days of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as seen by a Marine reconnaissance battalion and the Rolling Stone reporter riding with them. David Simon and Ed Burns adapted Evan Wright's book about his time embedded with the unit, and they keep his eye for boredom, bad orders…0
  7. 7The Pacific (2010)The Pacific (2010) 8.3/10 on IMDbFirst aired Mar 14, 2010Ten episodes, and a harder watch than Band of Brothers, its companion piece. Instead of one company it follows three Marines, Robert Leckie, Eugene Sledge and John Basilone, drawing mainly on Sledge's With the Old Breed and Leckie's Helmet for My Pillow. That split focus makes it feel more…0
  8. 8Mildred Pierce (2011)Mildred Pierce (2011) 7.6/10 on IMDbFirst aired Mar 27, 2011Five episodes with no crime or battle at their center, but no less gripping for it. Todd Haynes adapted James M. Cain's 1941 novel about a Depression-era mother who leaves her husband, builds a restaurant business from nothing and spoils a daughter who repays her badly. Kate Winslet won the Emmy…0
  9. 9Olive Kitteridge (2014)Olive Kitteridge (2014) 8.2/10 on IMDbFirst aired Nov 2, 2014Only four parts, the shortest commitment on this list, and each one jumps ahead in time across 25 years of one marriage in a small Maine town. Lisa Cholodenko directed all four from Elizabeth Strout's 2008 novel, with Frances McDormand as Olive and Richard Jenkins as her patient husband,…0
  10. 10Show Me a Hero (2015)Show Me a Hero (2015) 7.9/10 on IMDbFirst aired Aug 16, 2015Six parts that HBO aired as two-hour blocks on consecutive Sundays, so three evenings will do it. Based on Lisa Belkin's nonfiction book, it covers the Yonkers housing fight that began when federal courts ordered public housing built on the white, middle-class side of the city. Oscar Isaac won a…0