Remodeling basement. Trying to figure out how to get 1 dimmer switch to control 4 lights in a series. Tried and can't get it to work. Any suggestions?

Run your hot/black off the switch to each box and connect a pig tail from the black to the light. Run your white/neutral to each box and again connect each light to the white with pig tail. You may say this is a series of light but they are not connected "in series" they are parallel.