15 Best TV Episodes Of All Time, Ranked According To IMDb Users

Alongside, or perhaps even above, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic user scores, IMDb’s 10-point rating system remains a reliable way to gauge a television show’s reputation with general audience. This is especially true for single television episodes, which are individually catalogued and automatically ranked by the site more consistently than its peers.

There are some notable quirks in its aggregated ranking of the 15 best TV episodes of all time, based on entries with at least 10,000 reviews. Every episode — save for the one occupying the top slot — has a 9.9 rating, creating a 15-way tie. This tie is apparently broken by a more specific, weighted scoring system that is invisible to users. For example, despite having more reviews than some episodes in the top 15, the Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode “Victory and Death” is the only 9.9-rated entry excluded. The list also appears to be biased toward programs that were popular in the late-2000s and 2010s, particularly prestige dramas and, to a lesser extent, anime (we’ll save you the heartbreak — “The Sopranos,” “The Office,” and “The Bear” are nowhere to be found). There is also a noticeable disconnect between placement on this list and success at the Primetime Emmy Awards.

Even with those limitations, the list remains a strong snapshot of the most popular and widely praised TV episodes ever made. Inclusions range from a beloved children’s fantasy series from the 2000s to a queer sports drama that aired just last year.

From its sleeper-hit first season in 2015, “Mr. Robot” earned a reputation among TV fans as one of the most uniquely unsettling and unpredictable programs airing at the time. “407 Proxy Authentication Required” somehow manages to push those qualities even further for a devastatingly revealing chapter in Elliot Alderson’s life.

In the 2019 episode, written and directed by series creator Sam Esmail for the final season, Rami Malek’s psychologically tormented hacktivist is forced to reunite with his unhinged former drug dealer, Fernando Vera (Elliot Villar), after Vera kidnaps his therapist, Krista Gordon (Gloria Reuben). Intent on forcing the partnership he envisions with Elliot, Vera uses Krista as a means of ransacking his psyche — which results in Elliot remembering the dark truth behind his creation of the Mr. Robot persona (Christian Slater).

“407 Proxy Authentication Required” is first and foremost a showcase of Malek’s impressive range as the emotionally constrained Elliot. Awards-wise, the script most notably earned Esmail his first episodic WGA nomination, though he ultimately lost to Will Tracy’s “Succession” episode “Tern Haven”. Still, it beautifully rewarded steadfast fans of the series, and its enduring prominence in IMDb’s rankings shows that they were eager to return the favor.

The first of three “Game of Thrones” mentions on this list, the Season 6 finale “The Winds of Winter” ended an uneven run of episodes with a bang. Literally.

Its crowning achievement is the explosive ascension of Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) to a position of absolute, unchallenged power in King’s Landing — her rivals and most passionate critics having been engulfed in a blaze of Wildfire. The sequence is eerily thrilling, the climactic emerald explosion rendered in a fashion that’s all at once visually dazzling and horrifying. It wouldn’t work without Headey’s careful handling of Cersei’s punishing character arc throughout Season 6. “The Winds of Winter” earned Headey her third Primetime Emmy Award nomination for the series in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. She ultimately lost to “Downton Abbey’s” Maggie Smith.

Beyond Cersei’s storyline, the episode carries tremendous momentum that created strong anticipation for the then-upcoming seventh season. Though the remainder of the series struggled to live up to this moment, “The Winds of Winter” should still be counted as one of the most exciting and successful season finales ever made.

Our second “Game of Thrones” episode is interestingly that which directly precedes “The Winds of Winter” – the epic, gritty grudge match that was “Battle of the Bastards.” It gloriously depicts the first and final confrontation between the vile Ramsay Bolton (a suitably cruel final bow for Iwan Rheon) and Jon Snow (Kit Harington), with the latter emerging victorious and further cementing himself as the series’ heroic anchor.

Both episodes were written by series creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and directed by future “House of the Dragon” showrunner Miguel Sapochnik. All three men were awarded Emmys for their work on “Battle of the Bastards” in the writing and directing categories. The episode also earned Harington a supporting actor nomination, though the award ultimately went to Ben Mendelsohn for “Bloodline.”

The fact that “Battle of the Bastards” and “The Winds of Winter” are not only both on this list but ranked next to each other is worth noting. It’s possible that the former episode was so astonishing for fans that this enthusiasm, reflected in IMDb reviews, carried over into the latter. That said, there’s no denying that the two episodes together deservedly represent the final crest of the series’ dominance — perhaps even that of prestige appointment television as a whole.

While this list leans toward prestige dramas released at the height of the Peak TV era, “Heated Rivalry” proves that IMDb users will still show up for a standout episode in the 2020s. The breakout Canadian queer hockey drama broke into the top fifteen list in its first season on Crave via the episode “I’ll Believe in Anything.”

For the uninitiated, “Heated Rivalry” follows two closeted gay hockey players, Japanese-Canadian Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Russian Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), as they navigate a passionate yet tumultuous love affair and their individual sexual identities against the backdrop of a very public professional rivalry. We won’t spoil too much about “I’ll Believe in Anything” — the show is so new it has yet to even be considered for most major awards — but suffice it to say that this episode is beautifully written and directed by series creator Jacob Tierney, and is a pivotal point in their relationship.

As will also be the case with the other two anime entries on this list, it can be difficult to fully summarize the complex context of this episode, given how intricate and expansive anime storylines can be. That makes it all the more reason for potential new fans to give a series like “Hunter x Hunter” a try for themselves.

Taking place within the larger “Chimera Ant” arc of the series, which pushes the heroes into surprisingly dark territory for a shonen anime, the major dramatic thrust of “Anger and Light” is the psychological fracturing and sacrifice of Gon Freecss, the series’ protagonist (voiced by Megumi Han). Forced to finally accept the death of his mentor, Gon undergoes a self-destructive transformation to gain enough power to kill his enemy. It’s a deceptively clichéd climax that actually twists shonen tropes to explore the cost of trauma, black-and-white morality, and relentless violence.

One of, if not the most critically acclaimed series of all time — as well as the only series to technically surpass “Game of Thrones” in terms of presence on this list (we’ll explain why a bit further down) — it should be no surprise to readers to see “Breaking Bad” represented here. Fascinatingly, its lowest-ranked entry here is its milestone episode, the series finale “Felina.”

Written and directed by series creator Vince Gilligan, “Felina” finds Walter White (Bryan Cranston) at the end of his two-year transformation from a bitter, terminally ill chemistry teacher to a drug lord. Now a fugitive managing his recurrent cancer with few resources and a waning will to live, he spends what little time he has left trying to do right, or his version of it, by the people who once made his life worth living.

Rapturously satisfying in how it delivers emotional closure without sacrificing the dark thrills that made the series the defining crime drama of the 2010s, “Felina” is righteously considered a near-perfect series finale. It earned Gilligan two Emmy nominations for writing and directing. He won neither, losing the former to the scribe behind another “Breaking Bad” episode on this list and the latter to Cary Joji Fukunaga for the “True Detective” Season 1 episode “Who Goes There?”

The final “Game of Thrones” entry on this list is “The Rains of Castamere.” Written by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss and directed by David Nutter, of “Supernatural,” “The Mentalist,” and “Arrowverse” fame. This Season 3 episode shocked new fans of George R. R. Martin’s universe, depicting the bloody “Red Wedding” that saw the Northern Rebellion quashed by the sudden slaughter of its proponents, including Robb and Catelyn Stark (Richard Madden and Michelle Fairley, respectively).

Despite losing the writing Emmy to “Homeland” scribe Henry Bromell (“Q&A”), “The Rains of Castamere” established “Game of Thrones” as the most unpredictable and exciting series on television at the time. It marked a pivotal moment for both the series’ overarching plot and its growing cultural ubiquity. The episode didn’t just surprise viewers; it fundamentally changed the way audiences engaged with the series. After the Red Wedding, no character felt safe, and no storyline felt predictable.

An episode so full of charged, iconic visuals — including one obvious moment we would have loved to include above – “Face Off” belongs right alongside “The Winds of Winter” as one of the greatest season finales ever made. Bringing the penultimate season of “Breaking Bad” to a similarly fiery close, it sees Walter White expertly maneuver and manipulate his way through the final, deadly movements of his multi-season contest for power against his peerless adversary Gus Fring (a career-defining role for Giancarlo Esposito).

Vince Gilligan, who wrote and directed the episode, was nominated in the directing category for his work on “Face Off,” losing to Tim Van Patten’s “Boardwalk Empire” episode “To the Lost.” Mark Margolis, who played Hector Salamanca, the cartel boss who sacrifices himself to exact vengeance against Fring, was also nominated for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series, losing to Jeremy Davies for “Justified.”

So far, spoilers have been handled lightly, avoiding overexplaining every plot point while assuming most readers are generally aware of the major twists in shows like “Game of Thrones” and “Breaking Bad.” However, when it comes to the “Code Geass” episode “Re;,” it’s simply impossible for us to continue without spoiling one of the greatest twists in the history of anime. This is your spoiler warning. If you haven’t seen it yet, feel free to scroll to the next section before reading further.

The series finale of “Code Geass” masterfully subverts everything the viewer thought they knew about the story so far by recontextualizing the moral corruption of its antiheroic protagonist, Lelouch (Jun Fukuyama), an exiled revolutionary who uses his supernatural abilities to dominate the entirety of a fractured world. Once he succeeds in becoming an all-powerful tyrant, “Re;” reveals that Lelouch’s villainous quest was actually a calculated act of martyrdom, wanting to unite the world against a single villain — one who would ultimately be vanquished in a carefully executed, artificially symbolic assassination. It’s an undeniably daring way to end a story, and one that anime fans have been talking about for 15 years.

The only reason why “Breaking Bad” technically beats out “Game of Thrones” is that, in addition to having three entries on this list, the former series is also strongly represented by its triumphant spinoff, “Better Call Saul.” However, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” could challenge that, having produced multiple 9.8/10 episodes in its first season.

The Season 6 episode “Plan and Execution,” written and directed by Vince Gilligan’s former “Lone Gunman” collaborator Thomas Schnauz, finally brings the Sandpiper class-action lawsuit to a close while escalating the self-destruction of Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) to a point from which he can’t return. While “Better Call Saul” had always distinguished itself from “Breaking Bad” by balancing its criminal thrills with quieter explorations of moral rot, this episode helped to solidify the series overall as a grand psychological tragedy. Schnauz and Odenkirk were both nominated for Emmys for their work on the episode.

This might be the most surprising inclusion on this list for most readers — though few will argue it’s undeserved. Despite being a children’s animated series, “Avatar: The Last Airbender” proved time and time again that it had the imagination and narrative depth to be one of the greatest fantasy series ever made. Its series finale surpassed the high bar the series had already set for itself with a perfectly paced four-part epic (comprising half the series’ six top-rated episodes on IMDb) that culminated in “Avatar Aang.”

The dramatic question at the heart of “Sozin’s Comet” is not simply whether or not Aang (Zach Tyler Eisen) is strong enough to defeat Fire Lord Ozai (Mark Hamill), but whether he should kill him if given the chance. With its final episode, “Avatar” rejects dominance through execution, instead restoring justice to the Four Nations by offering it to even the show’s greatest villains. It is not hyperbole to posit that “Avatar Aang” might be the greatest children’s television episode of all time.

According to IMDb, the highest-rated anime episode of all time is the “Vinland Saga” Season 1 finale “End of the Prologue,” which likely ranks above its peers for two reasons. Narratively, it’s immensely satisfying and employs an elegantly subtle level of complexity and restraint that attracts older anime fans; structurally and tonally, it’s every bit as audacious as the season finales of prestige dramas on HBO and AMC.

“Vinland Saga” is a historical epic that follows young would-be Viking Thorfinn (Yūto Uemura) as he embarks on a quest to avenge the death of his father at the hands of the villainous Askeladd (Naoya Uchida). Rather than default to the most predictable climax of this boilerplate premise, “End of the Prologue” brilliantly flips the game board with a single kill, recontextualizing the series’ past and future as something greater than a revenge fantasy — a bloody, challenging exploration of war, purpose, and the psychological cost of power.

The highest-ranked animated episode on this list fittingly comes from one of the most critically acclaimed animated series of all time. At first glance, Netflix’s “BoJack Horseman” can seem like a middle-of-the-road adult animated sitcom, but it stunned audiences with a willingness to engage serious, complex subject matter that rivaled most live-action dramas and expanded with each new season.

By the sixth and final season in 2020, audiences were primed for a heartbreaking yet genuinely disturbing episode like “The View from Halfway Down,” which finds the titular horse from “Horsin’ Around” (voiced by Will Arnett) pulled into a vivid dream that confronts him with the ghosts of his personal and professional life. Crafted by director Amy Winfrey of “Making Friends” and writer Alison Tafel of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” to describe this uncomfortably liminal experience as haunting would be an understatement, with the reading of its titular poem in particular standing out among the series’ finest moments.

Given that neither “The Sopranos” via “Pine Barrens” (9.7) nor “The Wire” via “Middle Ground” (9.6) made this list, it’s notable that at least one defining HBO drama broke through at the No. 2 slot.

The inclusion of the “Six Feet Under” episode “Everyone’s Waiting” would be more than expected on any other list of the best TV episodes of all time. It’s commonly regarded as the best series finale ever broadcast. Having spent the previous five seasons unflinchingly embracing the ugliness and beauty of both life and death, Alan Ball’s seminal series finally allows the Fishers to rest in peace by celebrating a rare, perfect moment of joy — before exploring how each of them will eventually shuffle off this mortal coil.

Ball was nominated for two Emmys for writing and directing the episode. He ultimately lost both, with the directing award going to Terence Winter for the “Sopranos” episode “Members Only.”

There is only one TV episode in the history of IMDb that has been able to maintain a perfect 10 rating, and it will shock very few of you to learn that it’s “Ozymandias.” This Season 5 episode of “Breaking Bad,” directed by future “Knives Out” helmer Rian Johnson and written by “Anne with an E” creator Moira Walley-Beckett, is best remembered for its opening sequence, in which Walter White is forced to watch as his associates execute his brother-in-law Hank (Dean Norris).

Breathtakingly cinematic in its visual presentation and spiritually apocalyptic in its moment-to-moment storytelling, “Ozymandias” is an hour of television without equal. It earned Walley-Beckett an Emmy for writing, with Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn also taking home awards for their performances as Walter and Skylar White. Regardless of where it falls on personal lists, many viewers agree with IMDb users that this ranks among the greatest TV episodes of all time.