# What is the best soap opera of all time?

> Daytime and prime time, British and American and Australian, still running and long finished. Two at a time, one pick each, and the order is whatever the voters decide.

*By YPB Team · Published September 16, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-soap-opera-of-all-time*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **General Hospital**
   On air since 1963 and the longest-running scripted drama in American television.
2. **Days of Our Lives**
   Salem, the Horton family and an hourglass that has been turning since 1965.
3. **The Young and the Restless**
   The most-watched daytime drama in the United States for over three decades.
4. **The Bold and the Beautiful**
   Half an hour a day about a Los Angeles fashion dynasty, and the most-watched soap worldwide.
5. **Coronation Street**
   Britain's longest-running soap, on ITV since 1960, filmed in a fictional Salford street.
6. **EastEnders**
   Albert Square, the BBC's answer to Corrie, running since 1985 and built on the doof-doof cliffhanger.
7. **Emmerdale**
   Started as a farming drama in 1972 and survived a plane crash that wiped out half the village.
8. **Neighbours**
   Ramsay Street, cancelled in 2022, brought back in 2023, and the launchpad for half of Australian pop.
9. **Home and Away**
   Summer Bay since 1988, and Australia's most exported piece of television.
10. **As the World Turns**
   CBS, 1956 to 2010, the show that invented the daytime cliffhanger and the long pause.
11. **Guiding Light**
   Began on radio in 1937 and ran until 2009, the longest story ever told in any medium.
12. **One Life to Live**
   Llanview, 1968 to 2013, the first daytime soap to build a genuinely multiracial cast.
13. **Another World**
   Bay City, 1964 to 1999, the show that spun off Somerset and Texas.
14. **Dallas**
   Southfork, the Ewings, and the 1980 cliffhanger that had the world asking who shot J.R.
15. **Dynasty**
   The Carringtons, the Colbys, and the shoulder pads that defined 1980s prime time.
16. **Passions**
   NBC, 1999 to 2008, a soap that added witchcraft and a living doll and somehow made it work.

Tags: tv shows, soap opera