D&D 5E Rating 5e adventures - best for my group?

In a few weeks I'll be needing to introduce a new campaign to my players. Whether or not we stay with 5e is up in the air, but I'd like to have some options to present them.
I'm looking for something that can be straightforward and kinda episodic since we play biweekly and sometimes story details are forgotten between sessions.
Also we need to avoid Storm King's Thunder and Curse of Strahd (as we've already played those).
What are your thoughts of some of the better campaigns out there?

How long do you want the campaign to last, and how long are your play sessions?

Lost Mines of Phandelver (I have DMed it twice) is still the best official WoTC 5E adventure. Even experienced groups will enjoy it. Although it covers only levels 1-5, if you do all the side-quests it can easily run a few months. Great for casual play - straightforward and episodic, but freedom to explore is there if you want it.

Horde of the Dragon Queen (I have read but never played) is actually kind of underrated. Episodic and fairly easy to run, though it requires more work from the DM than LMoP does. Its flaw is that it has the drawbacks of a railroad (little freedom of a choice) but often fails to include the virtues of a railroad (depth, specificity, and detail). Still, I think there's some very good stuff in there and it's often unfairly maligned.

Rise of Tiamat and Princes of Apocalypse I've neither read nor played.

Tales of the Yawning Portal...I mean, it's certainly episodic. I would not enjoy running all the dungeons in this book. I did run Sunless Citadel for my players and they enjoyed it (and it's very easy to run). I question whether some of the adventures included really meet the criteria of being "best of." A good purchase for plug-in dungeons; I think running it through as a campaign would be boring.

Out of the Abyss (Have used some pieces of it in homebrew campaign) has some excellent ideas, characters, set-pieces and locations. Whether it all really holds together as a campaign is another story. There is some amazing content in this adventure, but the book is miserably organized and the burden on the DM to sort it out is considerable.

Tomb of Annihilation - I'm 15 sessions into this as a player and I think it's great, with the caveat that it's hard to say how much of that is due to my DM being excellent. So far, I love many of the locations, encounters, and exploration. I felt it bogged down a little early on in Port Nyanzaru, but picked up quickly once we entered the jungle. Haven't read it myself, but my sense is that it requires considerable prep from the DM, though perhaps not quite as burdensome as SKT or OotA. More sandbox than episodic.

Waterdeep: Dragon Heist - i did a full review here.

Some will disagree due to the front end work involved but I like running Out of the Abyss. I may be a DM in the minority that actually enjoys the preparation away from the table and the group seems to really enjoy the campaign.

My group also meets every other week and have little to no experience with the Underdark which I feel is part of the draw for them. Every player is different though so I would survey them first to see what type of campaign they would enjoy including details like environment, setting, combat/role-play preferences, etc.

As mentioned above, prep can be overwhelming for some but, since this is now an older campaign for 5E, there are a lot of aids out there on the web if you do a web search. I am not the most creative person which is why I like to run ready-made official campaigns but I found a lot of stuff to "customize" the adventure so it doesn't have that generic, stale, railroady feel that you often get with pre-packaged adventure campaigns.

Lost Mine of Phandelver is also quite good though it will only get the players to Level 4 or 5. There is material on the DMs Guild for little cost that is set in the area around Phandalin. I ran one group to level 9 after Lost Mine...using this material.

As a player I enjoyed Tomb of Annilation. It was a bit of a railroad since I played at the local Hobby Store under AL rules but it was still fun.

Lost mines is awesome. Avoid Rise of Tiamat/Horde of the Dragon Queen. Those were a bit wonky, which I suppose was to be expected for one of the first official campaigns. If you do, be advised that it's entirely plausible for the part to get a super powerful greatsword at lower levels that may throw off your player balance (if such things are important to you).

Tormyr said:

How long do you want the campaign to last, and how long are your play sessions?

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Our play sessions are around 3.5 hours of actual play.
How long the campaign should last? I don't know the answer, except I think the players would like to see their characters reach kinda high levels.

I forgot to add we also have played Lost Mines.

ToA can provide many many weeks of episodic jungle exploration not at all related to the main plot. Especially if you:
A) Completely scrap the opening set-up of being recruited to put a stop to the Death Curse. This removes the time pressure & lets the players actually enjoy the setting. Don't worry, you can always add this back in later if desired.
B) Put in more work than just running it merely section by section. Don't be afraid to make stuff up, expand on things, throw dungeons/ruins from other sources in if they seem to fit.

My Thur group spent 9 months of weekly play sessions! trekking around Chult as explorers & fighting dinosaurs. Late Sept & Oct saw them exploring the ruined city of Omu, fighting the Yuan-Ti, & discovering the actual Tomb (and how to open it).
Nov/Dec will finally be exploring the Tomb.

And there's numerous ways to segue into some other adventure entirely if needed. A pirate port, a crashed airship, the main port town, a mystically shrouded/removed-from-this-plane holy city, assorted NPCs & ideas....

So invest in a big map of Chult, a bunch of plastic dinosaurs (and some yuan-ti), & start thinking in terms of an Indiana Jones movie!

Retreater said:

Our play sessions are around 3.5 hours of actual play.
How long the campaign should last? I don't know the answer, except I think the players would like to see their characters reach kinda high levels.

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Then you might like to take a look at War of the Burning Sky​, a 12-adventure campaign saga for 5e that runs from level 3 to 20. In each adventure the heroes participate in missions that steer the Resistance's success in their struggle against the might of the Ragesian empire. The heroes will make decisions on which morally grey (or worse) characters to ally with, and success will be the greatest for those who do not just address the problems on the surface but dig deeper. The campaign and player's guides are free to download, so you can get a better idea of what they are about.

https://wotbsadventurepath.com/

I think that almost no matter what you choose to run be ready to use the AP as a guidebook and less a road map.
I ran Horse of the Dragon Queen as a road map. Wound up meh.
Rise of Tiamat as a guidebook. Going reaaally well.
If I could go back and redo HoTDQ less closely to the book I think it would be great.