30 Best Twilight Zone Episodes Ranked

From 1959 to 1964, the original "Twilight Zone" — hosted by Rod Serling — delighted and unsettled viewers with episodes that could be scary, mind-bending, provocative, and even sweet. Chances are, you still remember some of those famous plots and twist endings. And if you don't, you've seen them referenced or parodied numerous times, or you've seen other shows and movies that were influenced by them. By this point, "The Twilight Zone" is part of the collective culture.

But it's more than a television landmark. It's also an incredibly enjoyable series, one with a range of concerns and stories that feature something for everyone. There's a reason why "Twilight Zone" holiday marathons are a long-standing tradition. This is a show you could curl up with for hours at a time. And if you want to go ahead and have a personal marathon of your own, here's a ranking of 30 episodes we'd suggest including.

What happens once you're at the top of your game? That's one of the questions explored in "A Game of Pool," where professional pool player Jesse Cardiff (Jack Klugman) takes on the legendary "Fats" Brown (Jonathan Winters) ... a legend who's been dead for years.

If Jesse loses, he'll die too, but this isn't really an episode about having to play for your life. Instead, it's about the conversation between Jesse and Fats on this long night, as they stay neck and neck with each other until the very end. It's about what makes you the best at what you do and what happens after your triumphant victory is over. Here, there's obviously a metaphysical, otherworldly twist, but anyone in a highly competitive field will recognize the universal truths of "A Game of Pool." This is a quieter "Twilight Zone" episode, and its philosophy and performances make it shine.

A few years after the end of World War I, a weak and soaked-through David Ellington (H.M. Wynant) seeks shelter in a hermitage, one where the monks are reluctant to offer him any hospitality. David finds out why when he stumbles across the source of the unearthly howling that wails through the castle: The monks are holding someone prisoner.

The man (Robin Hughes) claims that head monk Brother Jerome (John Carradine) imprisoned him only out of jealousy and madness. Jerome, needless to say, offers a completely different story, saying the imprisoned man is the devil himself. And if he gets free again, the world will get much worse.

"The Howling Man" is atmospheric and full of dread, and the potency of David's dilemma and the inevitability of the ending make it pack a wallop.

Mirrors are fundamentally eerie. Don't believe us? Watch the most jolting scene in "Mirror Image."

Vera Miles plays Millicent Barnes, a young woman stuck at a bus stop in the small hours of the morning. Something's wrong — whatever she does, people keep telling her it's the second (or third or fourth) time she's done it. It's like reality itself is playing tricks on her. To try to clear her head, she goes into the restroom to splash some water on her face, and as the door swings behind her, she sees a doubled reflection. She's standing at the sink ... but she's also sitting back on the bench.

"Mirror Image" alludes to parallel realities, but the idea of your double slowly intruding into your life and taking it over doesn't need any scientific backing to be sinister. The uncanny, nightmarish quality of this episode makes it get right under your skin.

One of the smartest and most viscerally unsettling episodes of "The Twilight Zone," "Shadow Play" asks two questions most of us would rather not think about: What if, night after night, you dreamed of your own execution? Or what if you were only a character in someone else's dream?

That's the situation the characters of "Shadow Play" find themselves in. Death Row inmate Adam Grant (Dennis Weaver) struggles to get the people around him to understand that this is all his horrible recurring nightmare and that his death will mean theirs. Weaver turns in a great, nervy performance, but what really makes this episode work is how it plays with audience expectations. Grant can point out all the little ways the world around him is too convenient, too streamlined, and they're all part of how TV shows and movies normally work.

"Shadow Play" is as thought-provoking as it is compelling, and it's definitely an episode you'll keep thinking about long after the credits have rolled.

"A Stop at Willoughby" looks at a man who's fundamentally ill-suited for the world he's in. Gart Williams (James Daly) is an advertising executive, but he's just not meant for a high-powered life governed by what his boss calls the need to "push, push, push." And things aren't any better at home, where his icy wife (Patricia Donahue) derides him for his sentimentality and sensitivity.

But when he dozes off on the train, Gart keeps having dreams of stopping in an idyllic little town called Willoughby. It's a quaint and sunny place somewhere in the past, and the rhythms of life seem more relaxed there — perfect for Gart. But what would it mean to escape there? The result is both poignant and interestingly ambiguous.

As eerie and chilling as a good campfire tale, "The Hitch-Hiker" catches a ride with Nan Adams (Inger Stevens), a young woman on a cross-country drive. She passes a hitchhiker (Leonard Strong), who's a little drab and mousy, with a plain and placid face, so he should seem benign — except everywhere she goes, no matter what route she takes, he's already there. Always with his thumb out. Always waiting for her. Soon, she starts to crack under the pressure.

"The Hitch-Hiker" is simple in a way that makes it universal. On a long and lonely drive, it's hard not to think about it — and even harder not to shiver.

Nostalgia is understandable, but does it really lead you anywhere good? "Walking Distance" explores that question in a nuanced and unsentimental way. Stressed ad agency VP Martin Sloan (Gig Young) takes a country drive and winds up stopping at a service station close to his old hometown, which he hasn't visited in years. Impulsively, he strolls on in ... and finds himself walking into his own childhood. It's a world of ice cream sodas and carousels and bandstands, and all Martin wants to do is sink into it. But he frightens his childhood self and confuses and alarms his parents, leading him to find out that it's not that simple.

"Walking Distance" will resonate with anyone who's ever wearily longed to go back to a simpler time in their life. Its firm — but compassionately expressed — stance on the danger of too much nostalgia gives this episode considerable staying power.

Unlike most "Twilight Zone" episodes, "The Silence" doesn't have any supernatural or science fictional elements. What it has instead is a diabolical plot — farfetched but, if you buy in, completely engrossing.

Colonel Archie Taylor (Franchot Tone) is so irritated with the constant chatter of a young man in his club that he suggests an outlandish wager. If Jamie Tennyson (Liam Sullivan) can stay silent for one year — in a glass cell in the club's basement; just go with it — then Colonel Taylor will give him $500,000, money that Tennyson desperately needs due to his beloved wife's intemperate spending. But as Tennyson proves more resilient in his silence than Taylor ever expected, a troubling possibility emerges: Taylor may not have the money to cover his bet.

Part psychological thriller and part tragedy, "The Silence" breaks the usual "Twilight Zone" mold to excellent results.

In "Living Doll," a new toy sends an already dysfunctional family straight into the Twilight Zone. Erich (Telly Savalas) takes out his personal frustrations by launching into tirades and withholding love from his stepdaughter, Christie. But in Christie's new doll, Talky Tina, Erich has met his match. She looks like an ordinary toy, but when she's alone with Erich, she says things like, "My name is Talky Tina, and I don't think I like you."

We're not used to rooting for terrifying talking dolls. But while "Living Doll" plays off horror tropes, Talky Tina is closer to a protector or an avenger than she is a menace. (Although, as the end suggests, it may be best to stay on her good side.) The real monster in "Living Doll" is emotional abuse, and it's explored with a satisfying combination of scares, sensitivity, and wish fulfillment.

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" both is and isn't a "Twilight Zone" episode. As Rod Serling explains in his introduction, the episode is actually an award-winning French film that he wanted to present as part of the series. And it's easy to see why this historical piece spoke to him.

Peyton Farquhar awaits execution at the hands of the Union Army. The process of getting the noose around his neck and setting up the eerily whimsical seesaw drop seems to go on forever — and then Farquahr is hanged. And the rope snaps, sending him plunging into the river. Even with his escape uncertain and the Army still pursuing him, he can't help noticing and luxuriating in the natural world around him. For the first time, he really feels all the pleasures of being alive. But as fast he runs, he can't escape the Twilight Zone.

Lean, effective, and beautifully shot, this one may not have started in the "Twilight Zone" writers' room, but it certainly belongs on the show.

An Army major wakes up to find himself imprisoned in a round, featureless room. His companions — a clown, a ballet dancer, a hobo, and a bagpiper — have all been there much longer, and they've wearily accepted their confinement and all the strangeness that comes with it. None of them know their names or remember their pasts. None of them need to eat, drink, or sleep. Every once in a while, an enormous bell rings outside their prison.

What is going on? Who are they? What are they doing there? The major (William Windom) can't accept that they just don't know, and eventually, he hits on an idea that may let them see over the room's wall.

"Five Characters in Search of an Exit" puts an existentialist spin on an old flight of fancy, making it one of the signature "Twilight Zone" episodes.

"Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" is set almost entirely in a little roadside diner, where bus passengers are grabbing a bite to eat and a cup of coffee before they get back on the road. But there's a wrench thrown into the works. A UFO seems to crash-land in a nearby pond, and there are footsteps in the snow — footsteps that go straight from the pond to the diner. And while there were only six passengers on the bus, there are seven in the restaurant. They all claim they belong, but did one of them catch a different kind of ride?

"Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" is a playful episode that turns out to have an unexpected bite to it.

Kids are great. But they can also be capricious, impulsive, and destructive. Their curiosity encompasses wonder and imagination, but it can also lead to questions like, "What happens if I aim this magnifying glass at an ant?"

"It's a Good Life" knows all of this, and it uses it as the backdrop to what might be the series' scariest episode. It stars Anthony (Billy Mumy), a 6-year-old boy with nearly godlike powers. Anthony can do whatever he wants, so the miserable adults around him need to keep up their fixed smiles and make sure to think happy thoughts.

It's hard to think of a worse situation to be stuck in, and the actors all do a great job conveying their exhaustion and despair. This is as dark as "The Twilight Zone" gets, and we just hope Anthony doesn't learn we ranked it just a little shy of the No. 1 spot.

"Eye of the Beholder" is one of the most famous "Twilight Zone" episodes ever and with just cause. Even if you guess the twist — or, for that matter, go in spoiled by decades of pop culture references — you're still left with a tour de force of an episode, one grounded in strong performances, clever direction, and thought-provoking themes.

Janet (played by Maxine Stuart and Donna Douglas) is on her eleventh hospital stay. Her face is swathed in bandages, and she's stuck in limbo, waiting to know if this time — on the last try she's legally allowed — she will be "normal" instead of "ugly." If this latest treatment doesn't adjust Janet's features, then she's out of options. She can go into exile with "others of her kind" ... or she can be executed by a state so obsessed with conformity that doubting its value qualifies as treason.

"Eye of the Beholder" is a quintessential "Twilight Zone" episode that shapes what the show means to people.

A sadly timeless allegory, "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" is a study of how swiftly and brutally we can descend into suspicion, scapegoating, and violence. The suburban Maple Street is as ordinary as can be ... until a mysterious, humming shape flashes overhead, and the lights go out. Even the cars won't start. When a boy insists that he's read stories just like this one, stories about alien invaders who look just like us, everyone laughs it off — at first.

But soon, the people of Maple Street start pointing fingers. Stargazing and ham radios are dragged out as evidence of questionable behavior, proof that someone is not "like us." It gets even worse once things start working again. Why is he so special that his car gets to start? Why did the power come back on at their house?

"The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" obviously works as a fable about McCarthyism, but it can apply equally well to more current situations. Until people learn better, this one will feel universal, and it hasn't lost any of its potency yet.