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Arts feature

Why The Sopranos remains the greatest gangster drama of all time

The Sopranos – the greatest television show in history – far outshines its progenitors, says Tanya Gold

18 September 2021

9:00 AM

18 September 2021

9:00 AM

The Sopranos is called the greatest television show in history. It is the tale of Anthony ‘Tony’ Soprano, a middle-aged man in psychotherapy who also happens to run a New Jersey crime family. Anthony means ‘priceless’; the choice of name is surely deliberate. The Sopranos is complex — all masterpieces are — but it is fundamentally about greed: for money; for sex (the crew inhabit the Bada Bing! lap-dancing club, where breasts are landscape); for alcohol; for power; for the base drug of food.

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