Breaking Bad is a crime drama franchise created by American filmmaker Vince Gilligan. It started with the television series Breaking Bad (2008–13), and is followed by a prequel/sequel series, Better Call Saul (2015–22), and a sequel film, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019). The following is an abridged list of characters appearing across the productions.

Walter Hartwell White (also known by his alias Heisenberg) (played by Bryan Cranston) is an overqualified high school chemistry teacher from Albuquerque, New Mexico. After being diagnosed with lung cancer, he starts manufacturing methamphetamine to provide for his family upon his death. Knowing nothing about the drug trade, he enlists the aid of his former student, Jesse Pinkman, to sell the meth he produces. Walter's scientific knowledge and dedication to quality leads him to produce crystal meth that is purer and more potent than any competitors'. To avoid the tedious collection of pseudoephedrine required for production, Walter devises an alternative chemical process utilizing methylamine, giving his product a distinctive blue color. His methamphetamine, which is given the street name "Blue Sky", dominates the market, leading to confrontations with established drug makers and dealers.

Walter is initially opposed to the use of violence, but gradually comes to see it as a necessity. He also comes to find his new status as a drug lord psychologically rewarding, leading him to become increasingly willing to resort to criminal acts such as theft, extortion, money laundering, depraved indifference, and murder. Walter's descent, Macbeth-like, into the criminal underworld unearths immense levels of deeply repressed ambition, rage, resentment, vanity, and an increasing ruthlessness which alienates him from his family and colleagues.

Skyler White (née Lambert) (played by Anna Gunn) is Walter's wife. She has had several meager sources of income: writing short stories, selling items on eBay, working as a bookkeeper, and ultimately helping her husband launder money. Skyler and Walter have a son, Walter Jr., and an infant daughter, Holly. Skyler and Walt's marriage becomes increasingly strained due to his unexplained absences and bizarre behavior, ultimately leading to their separation. In season 3, she deduces that Walter is a drug dealer, resolving to divorce him and keep him away from their children. Yet, when Walter implores her to understand his reasons for manufacturing meth, Skyler relents in her opposition to his presence within their home. She also begins getting involved in Walter's criminal life, using his money to pay for her brother-in-law Hank's medical bills following an attack on his life. After meeting Saul Goodman, Skyler concocts a plan to feasibly launder Walter's money through a car wash where he had recently worked part time. The plan is successful, and in seasons 4 and 5, Skyler launders Walter's money through the car wash, though she remains deeply unhappy about their situation. In the final 2 seasons, she becomes increasingly fearful of Walter given that he is slowly becoming more of a hardened criminal. After Walter kills Gus Fring, Skyler's fears are fully realized, and she attempts to distance their children from her and Walter, staging a suicide attempt so that Hank and her sister Marie will temporarily take their children in. She tells Walter that she will be a complicit partner in whatever capacity so long as their children are not living with them. When Walter quits the drug business, he and Skyler begin rebuilding their relationship and their family life until Hank discovers Walt is Heisenberg. When in the episode "Buried", Skyler's DEA brother-in-law Hank tells her he is on to Walt but needs her help to provide sufficient evidence to build a successful case, Skyler replies that she needs a lawyer and later tells Walt they should remain quiet. When Hank is killed, she and Walter fight, and he abducts Holly. Walter uses this as a chance to exonerate Skyler in the eyes of the law, absolving her of any complicity during his drug operations. She is permitted to keep their children; however, she is told that she must find valuable information for the authorities to use against Walter. In the series finale, Walter visits Skyler a final time, admitting to her that his meth business was for him rather than the family; he provides her with the coordinates of Hank and Steve Gomez's whereabouts, imploring her to use them as her escape from his ordeal.

In the episode "Breaking Bad" of Better Call Saul, Skyler is mentioned to have gotten a successful plea deal with the prosecutors.

Jesse Bruce Pinkman (played by Aaron Paul) is a small-time methamphetamine user, manufacturer, and dealer. In high school, he was an indifferent student in Walter White's chemistry class. Now in his mid-20s, Jesse is Walt's business partner in the meth trade. Jesse is impulsive, hedonistic, and uneducated beyond high school, but he is financially ambitious and streetwise. He talks in playful slang, likes to wear garish clothing that follow the latest trends in youth culture, plays video games, listens to rap and rock music, takes recreational drugs, and drives lowriders. Walt treats Jesse like a foolish son in constant need of stern correction. Jesse's own family kicked him out of their house because of his drug use. Despite the friction between them, he and Walt have a deep bond of loyalty. As a result of his relationship with Walt, Jesse becomes an excellent meth cook, ultimately leading others to exploit him. Despite his criminal lifestyle, Jesse is far more empathetic than Walt. He is horrified by the brutality at the higher levels of the drug trade particularly during later seasons, but remains involved with Walt out of necessity and loyalty. He is very protective of children; his desire to keep children out of the violent drug world gives rise to several key events throughout the series. He wrestles with feelings of guilt about the deaths, all drug-related, of people he has been associated with. Towards the end of the fifth season he is overwhelmed by guilt and his "blood money." Realizing how much pain he has caused for money leads him to attempt to give bundles of cash from his final payoff to people he knows and then throw them from his car window onto random lawns and porches. In El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, Jesse departs for a new life in Alaska.

Henry R. Schrader (played by Dean Norris) is Walt and Skyler's brother-in-law and Marie's husband, who works as a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent. He is involved in investigating a meth dealer known as "Heisenberg", unaware for over a year that his prey is actually Walter. Hank has a cavalier exterior, but in reality the dark side of his job affects him more than he cares to admit leading him to suffer from anxiety and post-traumatic stress. In the course of his work, Hank is promoted to El Paso, Texas from Albuquerque for a short time but experiences a traumatic event and moves back to Albuquerque. Despite his brashness, Hank is highly competent at his job and cares deeply about his family. Hank is eventually promoted to Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the DEA in Albuquerque but is still determined to solve the "Heisenberg" case, which ultimately leads to his demise.

Hank also had guest appearances in the fifth season of Better Call Saul. When Domingo "Krazy-8" Molina is arrested, Jimmy McGill bargains with Hank to make Domingo his confidential informant, which allows Lalo Salamanca to feed information on Gus Fring's operations to the DEA.