Best Television Series Drama

The Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Drama is an award bestowed every year to honor the best drama television series. It is given during the Golden Globe Awards ceremony conducted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA). The accolade marks as a token of honor for the winning series recognizing it as an exceptionally fine drama television series that has earned its position as the best in the category for that year. Other series which are also eligible for this category are documentary series and mini-series.

The HFPA started honoring outstanding television works from the 13th Golden Globe Awards held in February 1956 and first presented this category as the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series on March 5, 1962, during the 19th Golden Globe Awards. The then ABC aired television sitcom My Three Sons won the award that year tied with the CBS aired panel game show What's My Line? Name of winners were only announced in 1962 and 1963 while starting from 1964 names of nominees are also announced. In the ensuing years, at times genres like drama, comedy and variety were considered separately for awards presentation while at other times these genres were grouped in a single category. From the 27^th Golden Globe Awards held in 1970, the HFPA started recognizing the Drama and Musical or Comedy genres separately and began presenting the awards in the Best Musical/Comedy Series and Best Drama Series categories. The ABC aired medical drama television series Marcus Welby, M.D. won the Best Television Series – Drama award that year.

The critically acclaimed AMC aired period drama television series Mad Men, counted among the greatest television series of all time, holds the record of winning most awards in the category with 3, tying with the Fox aired hit science fiction drama television series The X-Files. Mad Men won all its three awards in a row in 2008, 2009 and 2010; while The X-Files won its first award in 1995 and the other two consecutively in 1997 and 1998. These are followed by The Crown, Hill Street Blues, Homeland, L.A. Law, Northern Exposure, Succession and Murder, She Wrote, all of which have won the award twice. Among them Hill Street Blues, Homeland, L.A. Law, Northern Exposure and Murder, She Wrote won their respective awards consecutively.

The NBC aired medical drama television series ER, which emerged as the second longest running primetime medical drama in the history of US television, bagged the maximum number of nominations in the category, that is 7, however never won the award. Several other series garnered multiple nominations in the category which includes notable ones like L.A. Law and Murder, She Wrote with 6 nominations each; 24, The Crown and NYPD Blue with 5 nominations each; and Hill Street Blues, Lou Grant, Mad Men and The X-Files with 4 nominations each among others. NBC, as a network, has bagged most awards in this category with 13. It is followed by CBS with 11 awards, ABC with 11 awards and HBO with 6 awards among others.

List of Winners - Golden Globes Best Television Series Drama