It’s rare that a TV series doesn’t have a single bad episode in its run, but a small handful of HBO masterpieces have pulled it off. Even some of HBO’s greatest shows have the occasional miss. The Sopranos has that heavy-handed Columbus Day episode.

But, just because The Sopranos’ episodes weren’t all masterpieces, it doesn’t mean there aren’t any HBO shows with zero bad episodes. From The Wire to Chernobyl, these HBO shows are perfect from beginning to end.

The Night Of

Adapted from the British series Criminal Justice, The Night Of tells the chilling story of a college student, played by Riz Ahmed, who wakes up after a one-night stand to find his partner dead. He insists he didn’t do it, but the police don’t believe him, so it’s up to his lawyer — an Atticus Finch type played by John Turturro — to clear his name.

A show like this really has to stick the landing. It sets up a confounding mystery in the first episode, then spends the entire series building up to the final twist that will resolve that mystery. Not every whodunit show gets it right, but The Night Of nails it. It keeps you on the edge of your seat, then leaves you deeply unsettled.

Watchmen

Damon Lindelof took on the daunting task of creating a sequel to one of the most seminal pieces of literature from the 20th century: Alan Moore’s iconic graphic novel Watchmen. The original comic subverted the superhero genre by rewriting American history to include metahumans. How would the Vietnam War have turned out if the U.S. Army had its own superheroes?

Lindelof’s sequel recaptured that spirit with a thought-provoking tale of racial injustice. He swapped out the comic book’s focus on the Vietnam War with a harrowing dramatization of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. HBO’s Watchmen series is just as perfect a piece of alternate-history superhero storytelling as the classic comic it’s based on.

Barry

When HBO first picked up a series from Bill Hader about a hitman who wants to become an actor, it seemed like a gimmicky premise that wouldn’t last long. But Hader managed to turn that quirky comedic premise into a weirdly profound character study digging into the psychology of a killer and whether or not some people are unforgivable.

Barry feels like two different shows — the first two seasons play as an absurdist dark comedy, but the last two seasons play as a grim, gritty, Breaking Bad-esque drama — but there isn’t a single bad episode in the lot. Every episode is essential to tell the story of Barry Berkman’s slide into insanity, and every episode has both laughs and thrills.

The Leftovers

The Leftovers wasn’t on for long enough to go downhill. The creators and the fan base had to fight tooth and nail just to get to three seasons. Based on Tom Perrotta’s novel of the same name, The Leftovers takes place in the aftermath of a mysterious rapture-like event that can’t be explained by science or religion.

Since only 2% of the world’s population disappeared in the Sudden Departure, The Leftovers is more about the post-apocalyptic mindset than the end of the world. The world looks more or less the same, but the remaining 98% of humanity has been irreparably changed. The series follows the survivors’ attempts to move on and make sense of it.

I May Destroy You

In recent years, with projects like Richard Gadd’s Baby Reindeer and Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby, we’ve been seeing a lot of deeply personal stories about surviving sexual assault, and a lot of artists opening up about the ways they’ve coped with that devastating trauma. Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You is one of the most profound and powerful takes on this subject matter.

Coel stars as an up-and-coming writer attempting to rebuild her life after being assaulted. I May Destroy You is a masterfully crafted piece of filmmaking, from the mesmerizing soundtrack to the razor-sharp editing, and Coel’s emotionally raw, brutally honest writing is brought to life by an incredibly talented cast handling the material with the appropriate compassion and sensitivity.

Somebody Somewhere

In the past few years, Somebody Somewhere has quietly emerged as one of the best shows on TV. Bridget Everett’s standup comedy is known for being hilariously bawdy and out-there, but her HBO series is nuanced and understated. Somebody Somewhere is a show about people in all their beauty and messiness and emotional baggage.

It’s a tender, touching look at a group of human beings trying to navigate the ups and downs of life. The tone follows the characters on life’s emotional rollercoaster — sometimes, it’s hilarious; sometimes, it’s heartbreaking — and it always rings true to the bittersweetness of the everyday grind. It laughs in the face of adversity, but it’s skeptical in the face of joy.

Succession

Jesse Armstrong’s satirical drama Succession pulls off the magic trick of simultaneously mocking the one percent and making you feel bad for them. It doesn’t pull any punches in its ruthless ribbing of obscenely rich, shamelessly unscrupulous corporate executives, but it also digs into the broken human beings underneath the suits and the thousand-dollar haircuts.

The saga of the Roy family didn’t outstay its welcome for a second. Succession’s four-season run stuck around just long enough to explore all the characters in depth, fulfill all the promises made at the beginning of the story, and leave everyone in an appropriately bittersweet place. Very few shows have the quality control that Succession had from beginning to end.

Chernobyl

The Last of Us may have gotten a little hit-and-miss in its second season, but Craig Mazin’s first HBO project is as perfect a TV show as there’s ever been. Chernobyl chronicles the titular nuclear disaster from the perspectives of the radiation-poisoned power plant employees, the surrounding locals, and the soldiers and government officials sent in to clean up and suppress the truth.

Chernobyl might take a few artistic liberties with composite characters and a tightened timeline, but it pays close attention to the historical details. The cast’s powerful performances capture the fear and paranoia around the tragedy, and director Johan Renck gives the series such a palpable atmosphere that it’s as terrifying as any horror show.

The Wire

It’s rare that a TV show makes it to five seasons without a single bad episode, but that’s what makes The Wire so special. David Simon turned his years of experience as a crime reporter in Baltimore into the most realistic police procedural ever made. The Wire doesn’t peddle a Law & Order fantasy; it exists in a broken justice system.

Every episode of The Wire has a documentary-like sense of realism, each contributing a different piece to the show’s overarching journalistic study of crime and corruption in the American city. The Wire’s final season is slightly controversial, because its fake news storyline is a bit contrived, but it’s still some of the best television ever produced.

Band Of Brothers

Until Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks made Band of Brothers, it was expected that blockbuster spectacle was reserved for the big screen, and that television couldn’t be as visually stunning. That all changed with Band of Brothers, which brought the visceral war set-pieces of Spielberg and Hanks’ World War II masterpiece Saving Private Ryan to the small screen.

Band of Brothers is the quintessential WWII miniseries, and one of the greatest TV shows ever produced. It has the spectacle of Saving Private Ryan, with an epic scope and scale rarely seen on television, but since it also has another eight hours to tell its story, it digs a lot deeper into the characters on the battlefield and their psychology.