Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad sit at the top of IMDb’s most-voted TV series, each carrying roughly 2.5 million user ratings. Behind them, Stranger Things holds the third spot with approximately 1.7 million votes, making it the only other television series to cross the one-million-vote threshold. These three shows are the sole members of a surprisingly exclusive club, and no other series has managed to join them.
Beyond those heavyweights, shows like The Walking Dead, Friends, The Office, and Sherlock round out the upper ranks, each pulling in hundreds of thousands to over a million votes. The sheer volume of ratings these series attract says something about their cultural reach, but as we will explore throughout this article, vote count and quality rating are two very different measurements. This piece breaks down which shows dominate the IMDb vote charts, what separates vote totals from actual ratings, how anime is quietly rewriting the record books on a per-episode level, and which new series in 2025 are climbing the ranks fastest.
Table of Contents
- Which TV Series Have Collected the Most IMDb User Votes of All Time?
- Why IMDb Vote Counts Don’t Actually Predict Ratings
- How One Piece Is Quietly Dominating Episode-Level IMDb Records
- What Drove the Most Popular TV Series of 2025 on IMDb
- The Gap Between Trending and Top-Rated in 2025
- Why Certain Shows Accumulate Votes Long After They End
- Where the IMDb Vote Race Goes From Here
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Questions
Which TV Series Have Collected the Most IMDb User Votes of All Time?
The race for most IMDb votes has been a two-horse contest for years. Game of Thrones, which ran from 2011 to 2019, holds approximately 2.5 million total user votes and carries a 9.2 out of 10 rating. Breaking Bad, airing from 2008 to 2013, matches that vote total at around 2.5 million but edges ahead on quality with a 9.5 rating. The gap between these two and everyone else is substantial. Stranger Things, Netflix’s flagship sci-fi horror series running from 2016 to 2025, sits in third with roughly 1.7 million votes and an 8.6 rating.
What makes these numbers remarkable is how few shows have reached them. Only three TV series in IMDb’s entire database have ever surpassed one million total user votes. When you consider that IMDb hosts data on hundreds of thousands of television titles, the concentration of engagement at the top is striking. The Walking Dead consistently appears in the top five when you sort by number of ratings, and legacy sitcoms like Friends and The Office maintain strong vote totals fueled by ongoing streaming viewership. But none of them have broken into that million-vote tier. Sherlock, despite having only thirteen episodes across four seasons, also ranks among the most-voted series, a testament to how devoted fanbases can punch above their weight in raw engagement numbers.
Why IMDb Vote Counts Don’t Actually Predict Ratings
A common assumption is that the most popular shows must also be the highest rated. The data says otherwise. The correlation between number of votes and IMDb rating is remarkably weak, sitting at a correlation coefficient of roughly 0.115. In statistical terms, that is barely above no relationship at all. A show can attract millions of votes and land anywhere on the rating spectrum. Game of Thrones illustrates this tension perfectly.
Despite its massive vote total and a strong 9.2 overall rating, the show’s final season drew widespread backlash, with the series finale “The Iron Throne” rated just 4.0 by users. Compare that to three of its earlier episodes, “The Rains of Castamere,” “Battle of the Bastards,” and “The Winds of Winter,” each of which holds a rare 9.9 rating. The same audience that made it one of the most-voted series ever also delivered some of IMDb’s harshest individual episode scores. If you are using vote count as a proxy for quality, you will be misled. A show with 50,000 votes and a 9.3 rating may represent a far more consistent viewing experience than a cultural juggernaut with 2.5 million votes and wild swings in episode quality. Vote count measures reach and engagement, not satisfaction.
How One Piece Is Quietly Dominating Episode-Level IMDb Records
While Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad own the overall vote totals, anime has carved out a different kind of dominance on IMDb. One Piece, Toei Animation’s long-running adaptation of Eiichiro Oda’s manga, now has 62 episodes rated 9.5 or higher on IMDb. That figure is more than quadruple Breaking Bad’s 15 episodes and Game of Thrones’ 14 episodes at the same rating threshold. The caveat is that One Piece’s per-episode vote counts are considerably lower than those of its Western counterparts.
A highly rated One Piece episode might draw tens of thousands of votes, while a top Game of Thrones episode pulls hundreds of thousands. This creates an interesting dynamic where the anime’s ratings are driven by a passionate but smaller voting pool, which can push scores higher. It does not diminish the achievement, but it does mean the comparison is not perfectly apples-to-apples. What One Piece demonstrates is that longevity and consistent storytelling can generate an extraordinary volume of top-tier episodes, even if the total audience participating in IMDb ratings remains a fraction of what mainstream Western prestige television commands.
What Drove the Most Popular TV Series of 2025 on IMDb
IMDb tracks popularity not just through votes but also through page views, measured by its MOVIEmeter ranking. In 2025, the landscape shifted noticeably. The White Lotus claimed the number one spot as the most popular series of the year, with its Season 3 premiere drawing 2.4 million viewers and climbing to 6.2 million by the finale. The Last of Us took second place, riding continued interest in its video game adaptation. Severance presented a fascinating case study in delayed momentum.
After a three-year hiatus between its first and second seasons, the Apple TV Plus series returned and dominated IMDb’s top three for its entire ten-week run. That kind of sustained popularity after such a long gap is unusual and speaks to the show’s word-of-mouth strength during the interim. Wednesday Season 2 also performed strongly, ranking fourth on Netflix’s all-time most popular English-language shows list with 118.8 million views. The tradeoff worth noting here is that page-view popularity and vote counts measure different things. A show can trend heavily on IMDb’s MOVIEmeter during its release window without necessarily accumulating the kind of lifetime vote totals that Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad have built over a decade of availability.
The Gap Between Trending and Top-Rated in 2025
The highest-rated new TV shows of 2025 were not necessarily the ones generating the most page views. When Life Gives You Tangerines, a Netflix Korean drama, claimed the top spot for highest-rated new series of the year and reached number 74 on IMDb’s all-time Top 250 list. The Pitt, a medical drama, took second and climbed even higher to number 42 on the Top 250. Dexter: Resurrection set a Paramount Plus streaming record and landed at number 27 on the Top 250.
None of these shows led the MOVIEmeter popularity charts. That disconnect reinforces a pattern worth understanding if you rely on IMDb data to decide what to watch. The most-talked-about show in a given week may not be the one that audiences rate most highly, and a show that quietly earns a 9.0 rating from a smaller but devoted audience can represent a better viewing experience than the show dominating social media. Squid Game, Monster, and Adolescence all appeared among the notable popular entries of 2025, but their ratings told a more nuanced story than their trending status suggested. If you are chasing quality rather than cultural conversation, sorting by rating rather than popularity will serve you better.
Why Certain Shows Accumulate Votes Long After They End
Breaking Bad ended in 2013, yet it continues to accumulate votes at a pace that keeps it neck and neck with Game of Thrones. The same holds for Friends, which wrapped in 2004 but maintains a massive and growing vote total decades later. Streaming availability is the primary engine behind this phenomenon.
When Netflix picked up Breaking Bad, it introduced the show to millions of viewers who had never watched it during its original AMC run, and each new viewer who rates the show adds to its lifetime total. This creates a compounding advantage for shows that land on major streaming platforms. A series that exists only on a niche service or behind a less accessible paywall will accumulate votes more slowly, regardless of its quality. It is one reason why IMDb’s most-voted list skews heavily toward shows that have had wide, sustained streaming distribution across multiple platforms and regions.
Where the IMDb Vote Race Goes From Here
The question of whether any currently airing series will challenge Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad’s roughly 2.5 million vote totals remains open. Stranger Things, even with its final season in 2025, sits at 1.7 million and may not close the gap. The fragmentation of streaming audiences across an ever-growing number of platforms makes it harder for any single show to achieve the concentrated cultural dominance that drove those earlier vote totals.
The more likely shift is that IMDb’s most-voted rankings will increasingly reflect global viewing habits. Korean dramas, anime, and non-English-language series are gaining traction on the platform at an accelerating rate. A show like When Life Gives You Tangerines reaching the all-time Top 250 signals that the next series to challenge the vote count record may not come from an American network or streaming service at all. The infrastructure of global distribution is finally catching up to the reality of global viewership.
Conclusion
Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad remain the undisputed leaders in IMDb vote totals, each hovering around 2.5 million ratings. Stranger Things is the only other series to have crossed the one-million mark. Beyond the raw numbers, the data reveals that vote count and rating quality are nearly uncorrelated, that anime series like One Piece are dominating episode-level records through sheer volume of highly rated installments, and that 2025’s most popular and highest-rated shows were often entirely different lists.
For anyone using IMDb as a guide for what to watch next, the takeaway is straightforward. Sort by number of votes if you want to find culturally significant television that millions of people have engaged with. Sort by rating if you want to find the shows that audiences actually loved. The two lists overlap less than you might expect, and understanding that distinction is the most useful thing IMDb’s data can teach you.
Frequently Asked Questions
What TV series has the most IMDb votes of all time?
Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad are effectively tied, each with approximately 2.5 million user votes. Breaking Bad holds the higher rating at 9.5 compared to Game of Thrones at 9.2.
How many TV series have surpassed one million IMDb votes?
Only three: Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, and Stranger Things. No other television series has crossed that threshold.
Does having more IMDb votes mean a show is better rated?
No. The correlation between vote count and rating is very weak, at roughly 0.115. Popularity and perceived quality are largely independent metrics on IMDb.
Which anime has the most highly rated episodes on IMDb?
One Piece holds 62 episodes rated 9.5 or higher, more than quadruple Breaking Bad’s 15 and Game of Thrones’ 14 episodes at that same rating level. However, its per-episode vote counts are lower than those Western series.
What was the most popular TV series on IMDb in 2025?
The White Lotus topped the MOVIEmeter rankings as the most popular series of 2025 by page views, with its Season 3 finale drawing 6.2 million viewers.
What was the highest-rated new TV show of 2025 on IMDb?
When Life Gives You Tangerines, a Netflix Korean drama, was the top-rated new series of 2025 and reached number 74 on IMDb’s all-time Top 250 list.
