Ranking The Top 10 Characters From "The Sopranos"

As we get closer to the release of The Sopranos' prequel film, The Many Saints of Newark, it seemed like a good time to look back on the program's long list of incredible characters and try to trim the list down to the ten best. With so many large and bit parts alike, there are sure to be some omissions of your favorites, but I tried my best to capture a little bit of everything the show had to offer. Let's get started!

10. Artie Bucco (John Ventimiglia)

Artie is the most relatable character on The Sopranos. A normal man who just so happens to be best friends since childhood with Tony Soprano, the bald chef with the outlandish hand gestures and emotional reactions to hardship was able to teach us and thing or two about how we would look if associated with the lavish, and disgusting, lifestyles of the underworld.

Artie learns throughout the show that he isn't cut out for crime, and that many of the jealousies he exuded were pretentious and unnecessary. He's a good person with a decent heart, and deservedly gets one of the show's only non-violent character conclusions.

9. Adriana La Cerva (Drea de Matteo)

Christopher's girlfriend became so much more than a love interest in her five seasons on the show. Her loyalty to Chris eventually turned into her demise, but she was also one of the only people with the truest of intentions in her time on screen. Nothing she did was ever selfish, unless you count the money that was afforded her by association to the mob.

Her ties to the FBI as an informant during the fourth and fifth seasons painted her in a poor light to some who want TV characters to blindly follow the crime lifestyle, but she was more an embodiment of the horrors of living on the fringes of corruption.

8. Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco)

Dr. Melfi serves one of the most critical roles in TV history. With her guidance and prodding, both the audience and she herself gets to understand what makes Tony Soprano tick, or at least attempt to. Her therapy sessions get a bad rap as simultaneously dry and superfluous, but they are anything but.

It would have been nice to learn more about who Jennifer is though. We know when she wasn't being a professional psychiatrist she was a divorced mother who was searching for purpose in her personal and career life, but most of her scenes even outside of the office revolve around pushing forward Tony's story. Lorraine Bracco added some good name value to the show when it needed some in the beginning.

7. Ralph Cifaretto (Joe Pantoliano)

Ralphie is the best antagonist in the show by a good margin. He's never in direct opposition to Tony (think Phil Leotardo), but we always knew that the two were headed on a collision course for violence as their disagreements became more fruitful and plentiful.

Some of the best episodes revolved around Ralph's decision-making. He encourages Jackie Jr. to rob the card game that gets the young Aprile son killed in the third season finale, and he beats a pregnant stripper to death in one of TV's all-time stunning atrocities. He's also sexually kinky, for whatever that's worth.

6. Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri (Tony Sirico)

Paulie has got to be the funniest character on The Sopranos. From his signature use of cusses and slurs, to his stupid and immature interactions with Christopher, you always knew his ignorance would lead to a good laugh.

As the show progressed, you came to see his darker side. Paulie had no issue whacking someone in the blink of an eye, even snuffing out his mother's acquaintance for some cash and goodwill with Tony. He got on everyone's nerves and made some despicable decisions, but he was a true mobster through and through. He ended the series as one of the last men standing in the DiMeo crime syndicate.

5. Janice Soprano (Aida Turturro)

The best addition to the cast in the show's second season, Janice is both a freeloader and a feisty firecracker. Much like her brother, you can always count on her temper getting the better of her. And sometimes that anger gets her into some big trouble.

She uses people up and then spits them out, eager to take advantage of the situation a la Carmela, but without the latter's ability to introspect and feel guilt. The audience learns a lot about the Soprano family upbringing through her interactions with Tony and Livia and it gives the show yet another familial thematic element to snatch onto.

4. Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli)

Christopher tries to escape the game more than most of the others, juggling his emotions as it relates to love, career aspirations, and parental needs. He looks to Tony for guidance, but never really appreciates the things his boss begrudgingly does for him. His desire to be a filmmaker throughout the series added some of the show's best subplots (who could forget Ben Kingsley's appearance!)

He's also supremely tragic because he only understands that nobody is in his corner after it's too late to go back. By choosing Tony over his longtime love, Adriana, Chris sealed his personal demise, never to find love or purpose again. Seeing his father, Dickie, in The Many Saints of Newark will add even more context to this very complicated side-character.

3. Corrado "Junior" Soprano (Dominic Chianese)

No character transforms throughout the series quite like Uncle Junior. He wears more hats than anybody on the show, going from disgruntled faux mob boss, to cancer patient, to criminal trial courts, and eventually a nursing home for the demented. Dominic Chianese is brilliant at every turn, quick-witted and delivering lines like nobody else in North Jersey.

His final scene with Tony, in which Alzheimers has taken most of his mind and soul, will never fail to make you laugh, think, cry, or all three. He's the embodiment of the misery of the mafia, a summation of all there is to lose when one turns to a life of immorality and stealing blood money.

2. Carmela Soprano (Edie Falco)

Carmela started out as a Tony's hypocritical wife, a stay-at-home mother who painted her nails while telling her husband what to do and what bedroom to stay out of. As the series went on Edie Falco was able to pull every last string from the character to mold one of the preeminent female leads in entertainment history.

She picks and chooses what to ignore and what to lash out at, but the audience could deeply sympathize with the pain that the mob life inflicted on her throughout the series. Carmela wants what is best for her family, but she knows that would require sacrificing the conduits for that desired lifestyle. She isn't perfect, but who really is?

1. Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini)

Played with impeccable versatility by the late James Gandolfini, Tony Soprano is not only the best character from the show with his namesake, but also the template by which so many other iconic television protagonists and anti-heroes sprung from.

He started out as a depressed mobster going to therapy, and ended as a, well, depressed mobster who is disowned by his therapist. That's always been the biggest theme of Chase's masterwork: bad people get trapped in their jarring circumstances and self-misery, locked into a personal hellscape for perpetuity.

It's the astounding aura and confusing likability that makes Tony stand out over everyone else every single time he's on the screen. He has complete command over the room, but no authority over his own emotions and grievances. He's the engine to the machine, and so much of modern TV lore is in his debt. And when you owe him money, you better pay up.