Adapted from David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, this lavish seven-part miniseries chronicles the life of Founding Father John Adams, starting with the Boston Massacre of 1770 through his years as an ambassador in Europe, then his terms as vice president and president of the United States, up to his death on July 4, 1826.
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John Adams Ratings & Reviews
- Christopher KingDecember 23, 2025Overall, I liked the presentation as it was. The attention to detail with the period aesthetics imbued the historical drama with a visualized humanity that we can't see when we read the direct accounts of the time from historical records. Often we forget that the men we regard as the "Founding Fathers" of the United States were not simply speech-giving blowhards, rather they were all human beings with flaws and families, which themselves had flaws that shaped the attitudes of the people trying to forge a new experiment of government. If I were try to articulate any criticism of HBO's John Adams it would be that it may have benefited from a different lead to play John Adams. I don't mean to criticize Paul Giamatti's performance, because all of the actors' performances and physical transformation of aging over 50 years from beginning to end were all excellent and worthy of professional accolades. What I mean is, throughout the entire presentation, every single episode, I have to admit that I was taken out of the narrative by the fact that I was watching Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney performing and was never once, absorbed so deeply in the story that I forgot that it wasn't Paul Giamatti. Again, I'm not saying he was bad, I'm just saying I didn't feel like I was watching John Adams reacting to events, I was always watching Paul Giamatti dressed up and acting like John Adams reacting to events. I understand how that can sound like a backhanded compliment, so...well....there it is.
John Adams Trivia
John Adams has 1 season.
John Adams has 7 episodes.
The key characters in John Adams are John Adams (Paul Giamatti), Abigail Adams (Laura Linney), Thomas Jefferson (Stephen Dillane).
John Adams was directed by Tom Hooper.
John Adams was produced by Steven Shareshian, David Coatsworth.
Adapted from David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, this lavish seven-part miniseries chronicles the life of Founding Father John Adams, starting with the Boston Massacre of 1770 through his years as an ambassador in Europe, then his terms as vice president and president of the United States, up to his death on July 4, 1826.
John Adams is rated TV-14.
John Adams is a Drama, Biography, History show.
John Adams has an audience rating of 8.7 out of 10.
John Adams episodes are 60m long.
No, this show was canceled after 1 season.