30 Best Simpsons Episodes Ranked

When it comes to beloved, long-running animated series, it can be difficult to narrow down the best handful of episodes — and in the case of "The Simpsons" in particular, the task looks next to impossible. "Long-running" doesn't quite cover it; the show has been on the air longer than many people reading this have been alive, spanning 32 seasons and an unbelievable 700-plus episodes. "The Simpsons" is by far the longest-running primetime scripted television series in history; for perspective, the next-longest running, "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," boasts "only" 22 seasons and just under 500 episodes.

The venerable website IMDb uses the votes of its registered users to rank pretty much every television episode ever made, and its top 10 episodes of "The Simpsons" shouldn't shock you in one respect: none of them were produced any later than Season Nine, after which it's widely postulated that the show became rather hit-and-miss. You may be surprised, though, to see which episodes are missing — but do keep in mind that with more than 700 episodes in its library, any non-comprehensive ranking will necessarily exclude some stone cold classics. Here, then, are the "Simpsons" installments voted as the absolute best by IMDb's users.

Many hallmarks of "The Simpsons" are seen in the 1995 episode "Bart's Comet" — Bart humiliates Principal Skinner, the entire town fights amongst itself, and Homer bullies Ned Flanders into submission. The difference between this installment and others is the looming specter of death.

Bart is ordered to arrive at school before dawn to record coordinates for Principal Skinner as he recites them from a telescope — punishment for altering a high-flying weather balloon into "Big Butt Skinner." When the principal steps away for a minute, Bart spins the telescope at random, looks through it and discovers a massive object hurtling toward Springfield. Authorities respond by having Professor Drink shoot a missile at the celestial object; instead, it hits the only bridge out of town, trapping the panicked residents of Springfield as they await their fiery deaths from above. (Not Homer — he assures his family that the comet will burn up on entry and shrink to the size of a chihuahua's head.)

Ned Flanders prepares for the worst, hunkering down with his family in their bomb shelter. Before long, the whole town has exploited nice Ned's inability to turn anyone down, and they've all squeezed inside. It's so crowded, however, they have to let one person out, and it's Ned, of course. He bravely awaits his death, singing "Que Sera Sera," joined by the townsfolk as the comet arrives, which, like Homer said, burns up, breaks down, and lands next to a chihuahua, for scale.

The U.S. in the late '90s was not nearly as relatively tolerant as it is in the 2020s. For example, same-sex marriage wasn't legal, and LGBT representation on television amounted to about zero. Ellen DeGeneres made big strides when she (and her character on "Ellen") came out as a gay woman in the spring of 1997, two months after "The Simpsons" called out homophobia on the episode "Homer's Phobia."

Homer and Marge visit a kitschy gift shop at the mall and hit it off with its proprietor John (voiced by transgressive film legend John Waters), but Homer refuses to continue the friendship any longer when Marge points out that John is probably gay. Homer, expressing a deep-seated dislike of LGBT people, becomes paranoid that the whole world has a pro-homosexual agenda, and that it's going to turn Bart gay, somehow. He sets out to ensure Bart stays straight, sitting him down for hours in front of a sexy billboard and taking him to a steel mill, the most macho place he can imagine. That backfires, because this is an all-gay steel mill, as well as a men's dance club called the Anvil.

In one last effort, Homer takes Bart hunting, but they're attacked by deer. Who saves the day? John, scaring it off with a terrifying Santa Claus robot. Homer, his life saved by a gay man, finally realizes that gay people are just, well, people.

In early 1991, "The Simpsons" was still figuring out its voice, still a slow-paced, working class family sitcom and not yet an edgy, satirical joke-fest. "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish" helped steer things to the future, while also forcing viewers to grapple with the untimely death of Homer Simpson. The family grabs a sushi dinner at the Happy Sumo, and Homer finds he actually likes it, and even orders fugu, an infamous blowfish that, if improperly prepared, can fatally poison a diner. Well, Homer gets sick and is told by Dr. Hibbert that he's got less than 22 hours to live.

After cycling through the five stages of grief in a few seconds, Homer makes a bucket list. But he runs into some problems on his final day on Earth — he oversleeps and making peace with his needy father takes up too much time, and then he gets thrown in jail and hits up Moe's for a final beer.

Homer ultimately has just enough time to "be intamit with Marge" (so reads his list), and bid farewell to his sleeping children. He comforts himself in his final moments with the Bible — a book on tape version, as barked by Larry King. Miraculously, and as viewers could likely have predicted, Homer lives. He swears to use this gift wisely, to always "live life to the fullest." The episode's final image: Homer watching bowling on TV and eating pork rinds.

There's a small and recurring tradition in TV comedies of small towns engaged in a bitter cold war with a hated, rival town. On "Parks and Recreation," Pawnee hates Eagleton, there was no love lost between Arlen and McMaynerberry on "King of the Hill," and on "The Simpsons," the hatred is mutual between Springfield and Shelbyville. In the 1995 episode "Lemon of Troy," viewers finally learn why the two towns hate each other so much, and what that nastiness can inspire.

Bart runs into Milhouse selling lemonade one day, and takes him to his lemon source: Springfield's beloved old town lemon tree, planted where town founder Jebediah Springfield started his namesake city. But alas, the tree has been stolen and the culprits are clearly those jerks from Shelbyville. Determined to head into enemy territory to retrieve the tree, the Springfield youth hear from Grampa Simpson the source of the rivalry: Jebediah Springfield and fellow pioneer Shelbyville Manhattan suffered a rift because the latter wanted to live in a place where people had the right to marry their attractive cousins; Springfield didn't share his opinion, and they started neighboring towns instead. The kids get the tree back and are treated as heroes, while in Shelbyville, the story goes that the lemon tree was kicked out of town because it was haunted.

The concept of someone as incompetent, self-serving, and just plain stupid as Homer Simpson being trusted with billions of dollars worth of spaceflight technology and the lives of astronauts should be terrifying. But it's actually hilarious, because the 1994 episode "Deep Space Homer" is among "Simpsons" viewers' biggest favorites. Due to waning public interest in the space program, NASA sends Homer Simpson and his drinking buddy, Barney Gumble, into space. Why these two laze-abouts? Because Homer prank calls NASA from Moe's to complain that their last shuttle launch was boring, and after the agency traces the call, they hire Barney, who Homer blames for the call. When he confesses, NASA recruits him, too.

Only Homer successfully completes the prep, however — one sip of pre-launch celebratory champagne sends a newly sober Barney back into the depths of alcoholism, and he absconds with a NASA jet pack. Homer then heads to the cosmos with real-life astronaut Buzz Aldrin, but just about destroys the entire shuttle when he opens up a bag of smuggled potato chips and breaks an ant farm, sending crumbs and ants into the vehicle's precarious instrument panels. Homer and Aldrin get home safely thanks to some quick thinking and a savvily utilized carbon rod ... which winds up on the cover of "Time" instead of Homer.

In cartoon land, time must behave differently. That's the only explanation for why nobody on "The Simpsons" seems to age, or how Homer Simpson has enough time in the day to pursue his various "lifelong dreams" or passing whims to try out other careers and odd side hustles. He's briefly held down dozens of random extra jobs, and the first test balloon into this running bit remains the most popular with "Simpsons" viewers — when Homer bought a snow-clearing rig and proclaimed himself "Mr. Plow."

Perhaps fans just love all the accoutrements of Homer's "Mr. Plow" persona, or the memorable episode bits — such as how Marge thinks it's sexy when Homer wears nothing but his "Mr. Plow" branded jacket and underpants, or the so-dumb-it's-smart jingle from a low-budget, late-night TV commercial: "Mr. Plow, that's my name. That name again is Mr. Plow." It's also possible that "Simpsons" viewers enjoyed it when Barney, Homer's barfly best friend, got up and did something with his life for a change, which in this case was to launch the rival "Plow King." But then he got famous pop star Linda Ronstadt to sing his jingle, which audaciously accuses Homer of being an alcoholic. At any rate, "Mr. Plow" is a fun episode, except for all the times when Homer faces real danger in the line of duty.

While it's almost universally agreed upon that "The Simpsons" is funny, on occasion it can display more tender emotions. The 1995 episode "And Maggie Makes Three" is just such an occasion. After thumbing through the family's photo albums, Lisa wonders why they lack pictures of baby Maggie. It's not, as one might assume, because Homer was too lazy to take photos and place them in an album.

In a flashback to two years earlier, the Simpsons are debt-free, enabling Homer to quit his loathed job at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant in spectacular fashion — he drums on Mr. Burns' bald head and literally burns a bridge as he leaves the grounds. He moves on to his dream job, albeit a lower-paying one, working at the local bowling alley. In celebration, Homer and Marge get frisky, which results in an unexpected and unplanned pregnancy. With another mouth to feed, Homer is forced to return to the power plant and plead to be rehired. The vindictive and nasty Mr. Burns takes him back, with the caveat that Homer places a huge plaque near his desk that reads, "Don't forget: You're here forever." In order to make work tolerable, and to remind himself why he goes to a job he hates, Homer brings in every last picture of Maggie to put up on his wall and to obscure the sign so that it reads, "Do it for her." (No, you're crying.)

Homer Simpson is a lot of things — lazy, selfish, gluttonous, ignorant, a terrible father — but he isn't a lascivious man who tries to grope women who aren't his wife. That's the gist of the 1994 "Simpsons" episode "Homer Badman," in which the devoted husband must prove his innocence in a sexual harassment scandal that explodes into widespread tabloid coverage and public hatred.

Wanting to go to a candy expo and unable to secure any of their usual babysitters because they all hate Bart, Homer and Marge hire graduate student Ashley Grant. After the convention — from which Homer pilfered dozens of pounds of candy — he drives Ashley home. As she exits the car, he finds the one stolen sweet treat unaccounted for, a one-of-a-kind Venus de Milo in gummy form. It's stuck to the rear end of an unaware Ashley, and a drooling Homer reaches out for it, which she misinterprets as a crude advance.

Aghast, Ashley shows up to the Simpson home the next day with an angry mob that doesn't believe Homer's story. Then sleazy TV shows like "Rock Bottom" and a TV movie paint Homer as a predator, too. Ironically, it's surreptitious, illegal, and seedy behavior that exonerates Homer and clears his reputation. Groundskeeper Willie comes forward, admitting that he secretly tapes stuff all over Springfield, and he produces a video clearly showing Homer had interest in the "sweet, sweet candy" on Ashley, and not Ashley.

Homer Simpson's stated, excessive weight of 239 pounds is the result of years of gluttonous consumption of donuts, fast food, bacon, and beer. He's also very lazy, and these deadly sins come together when Homer seeks to get out of a mandatory daily calisthenics activity at work. He learns that if he qualifies as disabled, he can skip the exercise and work from home — and morbid obesity is the disability he pursues. He dangerously overeats and quickly reaches his goal eight of 300 pounds thanks to Krusty Burger fish sandwiches (and a bit of play-clay), and despite Marge's fretting and lack of attraction to this new, muumuu-clad Homer, he gets a workstation installed in the living room and works about as hard as he does at the power plant — which is to say, not at all.

Homer's negligence leads to a core meltdown, and he rushes there to save the day, hijacking an ice cream truck (and eating its contents). He avoids mass catastrophe by falling into the gas storage tank, where the very large vent hole is filled perfectly by Homer's rotund body. Bart points out the irony that "for once, Dad's butt prevented the spread of toxic" fumes. Mr. Burns promises Homer to make him thin again, but after about a minute of frustrating calisthenics, he agrees to pay for liposuction and Homer turns back into regular, slightly overweight Homer.

After a long summer following a cliffhanger ending, viewers of "The Simpsons," as well as everyone in the town of Springfield, finally found out "Who Shot Mr. Burns" in the second part of this two-part riff on the "Who Shot J.R.?" craze from "Dallas" in 1980. Springfield Police, along with smartypants Lisa Simpson, discover that nearly every prominent figure in town had motive to harm wicked power plant tycoon C. Montgomery Burns, left for dead on a sundial in the town square shortly after he blocked out the sun. Smithers, arrested after confessing in a church confessional booth, thought he did the deed while drunk, but he actually shot Jasper's wooden leg. Willie's arthritic fingers preclude him from firing a gun, while Moe is exonerated by polygraph.

After drinking warm cream, Chief Wiggum has a "Twin Peaks"-esque dream and is inspired to look for more clues, and he finds an eyelash on Burns' suit that has Simpson DNA. Just then, the nearly dead Burns emerges from a coma and calls out "Homer Simpson!" Homer escapes police custody, and, still furious that Mr. Burns never remembers his name, holds a gun to his boss' head. It certainly doesn't look good for Homer, but then it turns out all Burns can say is "Homer Simpson." When he regains cognitive abilities, he identifies his would-be murderer: little Maggie Simpson. Well, a gun fell in her hands and it fired at Burns, at least.

The Wrap cited "Last Exit to Springfield" as the best episode in the history of "The Simpsons." That's subjective, but it's hard to argue that it isn't the most "Simpsons" episode of all time. It addresses the struggles of blue-collar people, includes some of the worst things Mr. Burns has ever done, and the sight gags, lines, and bits flow furiously. It opens with a segment of the "McBain" in-universe action franchise, paralleling a drug lord with Mr. Burns, who all but admits he had his nuclear power plant's union leader murdered. He decides that his workers' contract is nothing but "flimshaw!" and he cuts the dental plan.

Meanwhile, a sadistic dentist scares Ralph Wiggum into flossing by showing him "The Big Book of British Smiles," then informs Lisa that she needs braces. At his next union meeting, where the dental plan has been exchanged for a keg of beer, Homer slowly realizes that to lose the dental plan means he'll have to pay for Lisa's braces — so he becomes union leader, and Mr. Burns mistakes his incompetence for masterful negotiation skills. The plant workers strike, and Lisa, outfitted with braces so old that she can't get them wet (following a "Yellow Submarine"-inspired laughing gas sequence) inspires with pro-labor fight songs. Mr. Burns shuts off the town's power in response, and is flabbergasted that the workers don't back down. He restores the dental plan, and Lisa gets better braces. The whole family laughs hysterically, not over the absurdity of the events, but because the dentist left the gas on.

It's always an event when "The Simpsons are going to..." wherever it is they're headed in a travel episode, setting up fish-out-of-water hijinks and a chance for some hyper-local mockery at the expense of a particular locale. In the "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson," the family ventures to New York City, a long bus journey, but a cheap one at a mere $9 a person. Homer is reluctant to go — he visited New York as a teenager, and he was mugged, fell in a manhole, and attacked by CHUDs. Once arrived, most of the family has a great time — Bart visits the wacky offices of MAD Magazine and Marge loves Broadway's "Kickin' It: A Musical Journey Through the Betty Ford Center."

Homer's time in the Big Apple is, once again, an ordeal. He's supposed to wait at the World Trade Center (Barney abandoned it there after a wild night) for a police officer to take the boot off the wheel. But then he drinks too many cans of crab juice, has to find a bathroom in one of the towers, and misses their arrival. Finally, he swipes a jackhammer from a construction worker and recklessly removes the boot himself, grabs his family, and high-tails it out of New York, seething as he drives while trash flies through his ruined windshield into his face. Naturally, "Theme from 'New York New York'" plays.

Pretty much very episode to ever feature Bart's deadly nemesis Sideshow Bob (Kelsey Grammer) is a classic, but season 5's "Cape Feare" is special. A parody of the 1962 noir classic Cape Fear and its 1991 Martin Scorsese-directed remake, the episode sees the Simpsons entering the Witness Protection Program when Bob, who is plainly and unapologetically still obsessed with killing Bart, is released from prison. Taking on the surname Thompson (a brilliant gag involves a cop trying futilely to drill Homer's new name into his thick head), the family relocates to scenic Terror Lake, with Bob tagging along under their car.

Bob manages to corner Bart alone aboard the family's riverboat, but Bart — noticing that on its current course, the boat will soon arrive in Springfield — comes up with an amazing final request. He asks Bob to perform the score of the Gilbert and Sullivan opera H.M.S. Pinafore in its entirety, stalling him just long enough for the lazy river to deliver him into the waiting arms of the Springfield police.

The episode contains far too many classic gags to discuss here, but here's an interesting tidbit: the show's writers had difficulty stretching it out to a full 22 minutes. They remedied the situation by recycling an older couch gag (the longest in the show's history) and extending a bit of physical comedy wherein Sideshow Bob steps on a rake, sending the poor guy through a seemingly endless gauntlet of rakes. The gag would be referenced frequently throughout the show's history, such as in the season 12 episode "Day of the Jackanapes," in which Bob steps on a rake before uttering, "Rakes... my old arch-enemy."

The Simpsons season 6 concluded with the first part of the two-part episode, "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" which was modeled in part on the cliffhanger of the season 3 finale of the primetime soap opera Dallas (which had all of America wondering "Who shot J.R.?" for the better part of a year). The second part is, of course, also great (IMDb ranks it eleventh all-time), but part one is brilliant for how it deliberately sets up the central crime, dropping clues all the while, as the megalomaniac Mr. Burns methodically goes about pissing off literally everybody in Springfield.

It all begins when Burns uses slant drilling to siphon off a rich oil deposit recently discovered underneath Springfield Elementary, causing a domino effect which bankrupts the school, shuts down Moe's Tavern, and destroys the Springfield Retirement Castle. Having secured a virtual energy monopoly in the town, Burns unveils his master plan: to construct a giant disc that will block out the Sun, leaving all of Springfield totally dependent on him. 

On top of these dastardly deeds, he enrages Homer by constantly forgetting his name, destroys Bart's treehouse (which even injures poor Santa's Little Helper), and even fires Smithers. The episode concludes with Burns activating his sun blocker at a town hall meeting, before exiting through an alley to be shot by... parties unknown. He then collapses on the town sundial, with his position giving a strong clue as to who his assailant was. We won't spoil the solution of the 25-year old mystery, but we will say that despite Burns' assertion early in the episode, taking candy from a baby isn't always as easy as one might think.

The Simpsons episode voted the best ever by IMDb's users is also, without question, the absolute darkest installment of the whole series: season 8's "Homer's Enemy," in which a new hire at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, Frank Grimes (voiced by Hank Azaria) strikes up a vendetta against Homer that ends... poorly for him. A level-headed, sensible man, Grimes (or "Grimey," as Homer calls him to his endless annoyance) becomes increasingly enraged over the fact that Homer is well-liked and lives a comfortable life, despite his obvious and flagrant incompetence. Grimes declares himself to be Homer's enemy — but of course, his every attempt to cut the buffoon down to size backfires terribly.

This culminates in a classic sequence late in the third act, in which Grimes — halfway out of his mind with rage and exasperation — goes nuts in the power plant, mimicking and brutally mocking Homer's typical behavior. ("I can be lazy too!" he screams at some random employees while mooning them. "Look at me! I'm a worthless employee, just like Homer Simpson! Give me a promotion!") His rampage goes on for several minutes while his co-workers look on in confusion, until finally, he happens across a set of high voltage wires. "What's this? Extremely high voltage," he says. "Well, I don't need safety gloves, because I'm Homer Simp-" He grabs the wires with his bare hands, there's a crackling sound — and we smash cut to Grimes' grave.

Yep, that's right — the whole town is at Grimes' funeral, including Homer, who falls asleep as Reverend Lovejoy eulogizes "Frank Grimes, or Grimey, as he liked to be called." It's a jaw-dropping conclusion to an episode that reminds us that, at its best, The Simpsons could be mercilessly funny — not to mention just plain merciless.