Every Main Character On The Big Bang Theory, Ranked

"The Big Bang Theory," the hit CBS sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady that ran for twelve seasons and the same number of years, introduced a colorful cast of characters during its run, including a whole host of supporting players. Still, when push comes to shove, the show focuses on seven main characters: Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki), Penny Hofstadter (Kaley Cuoco), Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar), Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg), Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik), and Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz (Melissa Rauch), to be specific.

Though Bialik and Rauch's characters didn't fully join the show until it was already established, Amy and Bernadette quickly became a vital part of the show in their own right, and that begs the question: which main character is the best main character on "The Big Bang Theory?" Obviously, this is seriously subjective; not every person has the same favorite character at the end of the day. When push comes to shove, though, some main characters are just ... better than others.

For this ranking, we've considered the character's overall evolution and trajectory, their innate qualities that don't really change throughout "The Big Bang Theory," and basically whether or not you'd even consider hanging out with this character if they were real. At the end of the day, some characters on "The Big Bang Theory" exhibit real growth, and others stay standing still in a way that feels frustrating by the series' conclusion. Here are all seven of the main characters of "The Big Bang Theory," ranked.

Sorry, Sheldon Cooper — you are, without a doubt, the most irritating main character on "The Big Bang Theory," and it's not close. A theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology, Sheldon is a stubborn, irascible, and irksome man with a severe superiority complex, in that he essentially thinks his friends and loved ones are morons because they don't have his innate intelligence, his natural skill in sciences, or his number of advance degrees. (That's not editorializing; Sheldon expresses this sentiment all the time during "The Big Bang Theory.") Beyond that, Sheldon's obsession with rules is a legitimate social hurdle; the "roommate agreement" he demands that Leonard sign throughout their time sharing an apartment is nothing short of unhinged, and any tiny change to Sheldon's normal routine sends him into a tailspin. This would be fine if Sheldon was capable of regulating his own emotions or could cut his friends some slack from time to time, but Sheldon is incapable of both of these things.

Throughout "The Big Bang Theory," it's unfortunately true that Sheldon is particularly gross to women, and his relationship with Amy Farrah Fowler — the woman who becomes his wife — is an especially egregious example, largely because all of Amy's attempts at physical intimacy are so brutally rebuffed by Sheldon that it's downright depressing. Penny is, truly, the only character who helps Sheldon improve at all, but that improvement is marginal; Sheldon is still royally pissing his friends off in the series finale, despite the heartfelt speech he delivers to win them all back as he wins a Nobel Prize alongside Amy for their shared work in super asymmetry. Sheldon is, honestly, a pain in the butt. That's just the way it is.

Leonard Hofstadter might be the unofficial co-lead of "The Big Bang Theory" alongside Sheldon Cooper, but that doesn't mean he's a fun character on-screen. On the contrary, Leonard is a whiny, self-absorbed, and entitled guy who tends to get so wrapped up in his own mental gymnastics that he ignores the needs of the people in his orbit. An experimental physicist who works alongside Sheldon at CalTech — but constantly has his intelligence insulted by his own best friend despite his own series of advance degrees — Leonard is a stereotypical "nice guy," but that term can be misleading; Leonard is, quite frequently, not nice at all.

Yes, he has his moments. Early in the series, when Penny is drunk and depressed and tries to kiss Leonard, he fends off her advances, correctly noting that it would be wrong to hook up with her at that exact moment. When Leonard and Penny get together, though? Oh man. Leonard objectifies her, shows a complete lack of respect for her work and her intelligence — the guy fully revises one of her papers for community college because he has so little faith in her — and pressures her into huge steps like saying "I love you" and even marriage. To make matters even worse, he cheats on her while he's away on a research expedition and only tells her the truth about this entire situation as they're about to get married. Leonard is a menace, and it's not just because Johnny Galecki is egregiously bad at fake eating. Leonard is a difficult friend, partner, and human being across the board, and it's incredibly frustrating to watch him with Penny at times — because she deserves better.

When we first meet Howard Wolowitz on "The Big Bang Theory," he's a massive and wholly irredeemable sleazebag. Not only is he weird to Penny right out of the gate, but his whole deal is that Howard — an engineer at CalTech who, as Sheldon Cooper constantly mentions, does not have a PhD — is terrible with women but is strangely desperate to be a womanizer of some kind. The way this manifests is that Howard is just ... gross. He gives Penny a teddy bear with a camera in one of its eyes so he can secretly watch her change. He uses a camera attached to a drone to it and spy on a house where contestants on "America's Next Top Model" happen to be living at the time. He drives a remote-controlled car with a camera attached to it (are you noticing a theme her, per chance?!) under Penny's skirt when she shows up at Sheldon and Leonard's apartment. Howard is an unrepentant creep for a lot of "The Big Bang Theory," but admittedly, when he meets Bernadette Rostenkowski (before she takes on the last name of Wolowitz too), he does change for the better.

The reason that Howard ranks slightly above Leonard Hofstadter and Sheldon on this list is because even though Howard maintains some of his less attractive characteristics, he steps up and becomes a genuinely good partner to Bernadette after they get married at the very end of Season 5. That's not to say he's not without flaws by then; Howard, who spent his life being babied by his unseen mother Mrs. Wolowitz (voiced by the late Carol Ann Susi), still needs mother from Bernadette. Still, he's a loving partner and husband and an adoring father to their two children, landing him a bit higher on this list than some of his peers.

Amy Farrah Fowler is not perfect, and she's not terrible — which is what lands her firmly in the middle of the pack here. Introduced as a neuroscientist whose mother forces her to try to meet potential suitors occasionally, Amy is sort of a "female Sheldon" at first glance, but wisely, the writers for "The Big Bang Theory" leaned into her weirder tendencies and really let her shine. (Making her a neuroscientist is also a nice touch, considering that Mayim Bialik is also a neuroscientist in real life.) Instead of being socially awkward and reserved, Amy eventually became her own distinct character separate from Sheldon — even though the two are always linked, because their romance defines most of the show's narrative and they end up married with two children — especially through her friendship with Penny and Bernadette.

Unfortunately, some of Amy's more off-putting character traits come out when Penny is involved — her "girl crush" on Penny is played for laughs even though she clearly makes Penny feel really uncomfortable a lot of the time — but on a show that was largely characterized by male characters for its first few seasons, it's great to see "The Big Bang Theory" evolve the dynamic betwen Amy, Penny, and Bernadette to the point where you practically want to jump into your TV and hang out with them. Plus, Amy is legitimately endearing with these two girls that she clearly reveres and admires, whether she's wedding-dress shopping with them for her upcoming marriage to Sheldon or going out for a girls' night and getting absolutely sloshed off just a drink or two. At the end of the day, Amy is a great addition to "The Big Bang Theory," and a perfect match for Sheldon and her two girlfriends.

Raj Koothrappali is definitely one of the best main characters on "The Big Bang Theory," and the show also does him so dirty. Here's how. The first mean thing the writers do to Raj — an astrophysicist who works at CalTech with the rest of his buddies — is give him "selective mutism," meaning that he's so intimidated by women writ large that he can't speak around them at all, including Penny. Worse still, Raj can talk to women and overcome his selective mutism if he's very, very drunk, which is just a frankly bizarre choice for this genuinely big-hearted character.

Once you put that stuff aside — especially because, at a certain point, the writers figure out that one main character remaining perpetually silent is sort of insane and Raj starts talking around Penny as well as Amy and Bernadette — it's quite easy to love Raj. An unabashed and hopeless romantic who always cries when he watches "Bridget Jones's Diary" and ultimately adopts a tiny dog he names Cinnamon, Raj is a giant sweetheart ... and even though the writers stumble again when they nearly pair him and Penny up in a misguided hookup in the show's season 4 finale, the friendship that eventually builds between Raj and Penny is truly adorable (at one point, they even get matching shirts!). Poor Raj is often the butt of the joke when it comes to his friends, whether they're dunking on his Indian heritage or "feminine" qualities, but there's no question that, out of the main male characters on "The Big Bang Theory," Raj is the kindest and sweetest of them all. It's truly too bad that the show leaves him single at the very end, but that's certainly not Raj's fault.

Introduced in Season 3 alongside Amy Farrah Fowler, Bernadette Rostenkowski goes through a pretty massive character evolution on "The Big Bang Theory." When we first meet her, she's a waitress with Penny at the Cheesecake Factory and is on the quiet side, though she opens up to Howard about her difficult mother when Penny sets them up on a blind date in that aforementioned third season. Before long, though, Bernadette comes into her own and starts opening up amongst her friends and her eventual husband Howard, and that's when we learn who Bernadette really is: a strong, no-nonsense, brilliant microbiologist who worked as a waitress until she could pay for her graduate degree and get a high-paying job at a pharmaceutical company.

Not only is Bernadette incredibly funny, from the high-pitched, often squeaky voice that Melissa Rauch invented for the character to her increasingly deranged mentions of the horrifying experiments she apparently performs at work, but she's an ideal foil for manchild Howard, who ultimately has to rise to her level in order to be a half-decent partner to such a strong woman. Some people would uncharitably describe Bernadette as a "bully," but that's not fair; she does often know better than most other people in the room, and when it comes to her friends and loved ones, she uses her fierce nature and her passion to protect them and care for them. Bernadette is one of the best additions to "The Big Bang Theory," and once the show's writers realized just how intimidating the diminutive Rauch can be as a performer, they changed the character of Bernadette for the better, a move that ultimately also changed the character of Howard for the better.

Penny — who doesn't get her own last name until she marries Leonard Hofstadter — is the best main character on "The Big Bang Theory" without question — because not only does she serve as an audience surrogate for the entire series, but her evolution throughout the show is legitimately great. At first, Penny is simply the gorgeous blonde girl trying to become a famous actress who's just moved in across the hall from roommates Sheldon and Leonard; Sheldon is baffled by her mere presence and views her as an obvious intellectual inferior, and Leonard falls in love with her more or less immediately. Unsurprisingly, the relationship between Penny and Leonard makes up the bulk of Penny's storylines on "The Big Bang Theory" as the couple gets together, breaks up, gets back together, gets married twice, and finds out they're expecting a baby in the series finale ... but there's so much more to Penny than her relationship with Leonard. Not only does she become a successful pharmaceutical sales representative by the show's end, but she's integral to the show's structure.

Let's circle back to that audience surrogate thing. Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, and Raj are all guys with advanced degrees who work in highly complicated scientific fields, which isn't a characteristic shared by the vast majority of the world — and thus, not a characteristic shared by every "Big Bang Theory" fan. That's why Penny helps us understand these guys, and in doing so, she also helps them understand the world. Add in the fact that Penny's bond with Sheldon might just be the most important relationship in the entire show, and again, you've got the best character by a landslide.

"The Big Bang Theory" is streaming on HBO Max now.