The Best Episodes of Amazing Stories
Every episode of Amazing Stories ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Amazing Stories!
A truly amazing, fantastical, science fiction, funny and odd, and sometimes scary, sad and endearing anthology series presented by Steven Spielberg with guest appearances by many famous actors, actresses, and directors.
Top Episode Highlight
The best episode of "Amazing Stories" is "Family Dog", rated 8/10 from 608 user votes. It was directed by Brad Bird and written by Brad Bird. "Family Dog" aired on 2/16/1987 and is rated 0.3 point(s) higher than the second highest rated, "The Mission".
8.0/10 608 votes#1 - Family Dog
Season 2 Episode 16 - Aired 1987-02-16
The only animated episode of the show that's also a backdoor pilot. It has three segments: A family takes out their frustrations on their poor dog, watches their Christmas home movie, and sends the dog to guard dog school after a burglary.
Director: Brad Bird
Writer: Brad Bird
7.7/10 1,265 votes#2 - The Mission
Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 1985-11-03
During World War II, men in an air force bomber are caught in a no win scenario when their belly gunner (an amateur artist) is trapped in his seat and the plane has no wheels for landing.
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Menno Meyjes
7.7/10 558 votes#3 - Go to the Head of the Class
Season 2 Episode 8 - Aired 1986-11-21
A teacher's bizarre discipline causes two students to seek revenge with a spell culled from a rock song played backwards. Unfortunately something goes wrong when they cast the spell. When they attempt another spell to fix the problem they accidently remove the head of their teacher.
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Writer: Mick Garris, Bob Gale, Tom McLoughlin
7.6/10 886 votes#4 - Mummy Daddy
Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 1985-10-27
An actor who's playing a mummy in a horror film learns that his wife has gone into labor and rushes to be with her – without removing his costume.
Director: William Dear
Writer: Earl Pomerantz
7.6/10 305 votes#5 - Thanksgiving
Season 2 Episode 9 - Aired 1986-11-24
When a dry well yields treasures, a man cashes in, while his stepdaughter repays the kindness of the “hole people.”
Director: Todd Holland
Writer: Pierre R. Debs
7.4/10 300 votes#6 - Life on Death Row
Season 2 Episode 7 - Aired 1986-11-10
An inmate is struck by lightning. He is given miraculous healing powers that spark a last-minute attempt to save him from the electric chair.
Director: Mick Garris
Writer: Rockne S. O'Bannon
7.3/10 274 votes#7 - You Gotta Believe Me
Season 2 Episode 5 - Aired 1986-10-20
Convinced that his vivid nightmare of a Boeing 747 crashing into his house is a horrific premonition, Earl Sweet desperately tries to alter fate.
Director: Kevin Reynolds
Writer: Stu Krieger
7.2/10 369 votes#8 - Dorothy and Ben
Season 1 Episode 18 - Aired 1986-03-02
After 40 years in a coma, Ben Dumpfy awakens and discovers that he can communicate with a seven-year-old girl who is in a coma after a bike accident.
Director: Thomas Carter
Writer: Michael De Guzman
7.1/10 529 votes#9 - The Amazing Falsworth
Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 1985-11-05
A psychic showman realizes that during a performance that someone in the audience wants to commit murder. Frightened, he calls the police, and the detective shows up to investigate.
Director: Peter Hyams
Writer: Mick Garris
7.1/10 393 votes#10 - The Doll
Season 1 Episode 22 - Aired 1986-05-04
The lonely, loveless life of a shy bachelor takes an astounding turn when he buys a special doll, exquisitely hand-crafted by a mysterious German toymaker. He tries to track down the woman who modeled for it.
Director: Phil Joanou
Writer: Richard Matheson
6.9/10 627 votes#11 - Mirror, Mirror
Season 1 Episode 19 - Aired 1986-03-09
A popular horror novelist is terrorized by a strange figure in his bathroom mirror.
Director: Martin Scorsese
Writer: Joseph Minion
6.8/10 204 votes#12 - Blue Man Down
Season 2 Episode 14 - Aired 1987-01-19
Two police officers try to break up a supermarket robbery, but the younger officer is killed. A new female partner helps the other officer avenge his friends death. He later discovers that his new partner is the ghost of an officer who died 12 years earlier.
Director: Paul Michael Glaser
Writer: Jacob Epstein
6.7/10 361 votes#13 - No Day at the Beach
Season 1 Episode 14 - Aired 1986-01-12
A GI tries to be a hero during an amphibious assault in Italy during World War II.
Director: Lesli Linka Glatter
Writer: Mick Garris
6.7/10 205 votes#14 - Lane Change
Season 2 Episode 13 - Aired 1987-01-12
One stormy night on a deserted highway, a distraught wife driving toward an impending divorce glimpses her past through the windshield after picking up a mysterious woman who ran out of gas.
Director: Ken Kwapis
Writer: Ali Marie Matheson
6.6/10 397 votes#15 - The Sitter
Season 1 Episode 13 - Aired 1986-01-05
Two young boys get the best of every sitter in town, until they meet one who uses voodoo to settle them down.
Director: Joan Darling
Writer: Mick Garris
6.6/10 327 votes#16 - One For the Road
Season 1 Episode 15 - Aired 1986-01-19
During the Depression, several bar patrons hope to get insurance money by tricking a man into signing a policy with the hope that he will drink himself to death.
Director: Thomas Carter
Writer: James D. Bissell
6.6/10 389 votes#17 - Gather Ye Acorns
Season 1 Episode 16 - Aired 1986-02-02
On the advice from a mysterious little man, an 18-year-old boy begins to collect rare comics and toys. When he sells them as an old man, he gains wealth and happiness.
Director: Norman Reynolds
Writer: Stu Krieger
6.6/10 382 votes#18 - Miscalculation
Season 2 Episode 2 - Aired 1986-09-29
Nerdy collegiate Phil unsuccessfully tries every trick in the book to meet girls. Then he discovers a potion that makes gorgeous magazine pin-ups spring to life. Unfortunately, he can't guess the right ratio to use, so his experiments backfire in a freaky way.
Director: Tom Holland
Writer: Michael McDowell
6.6/10 195 votes#19 - The 21-Inch Sun
Season 2 Episode 15 - Aired 1987-02-02
A sitcom scriptwriter, who's suffering from writer's block, discovers that his house plant has miraculously gained sentience and a funny bone after being left in front of a TV while old sitcoms were playing. The plant ghostwrites for him.
Director: Nick Castle
Writer: Bruce Kirschbaum
6.5/10 879 votes#20 - Ghost Train
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 1985-09-29
Ohpa Globe is happy to see his son's new house, but when he sees that the home is built on ghost train tracks, he changes his focus. To his family's chagrin, he is convinced it is his destiny to die in those cornfields, to board a train he inadvertently caused to crash 75 years ago! He tells his nine-year old grandson he still has his ticket for the old "Highball Express", and that arriving train will careen through their house!
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Frank Deese
6.4/10 483 votes#21 - Vanessa in the Garden
Season 1 Episode 12 - Aired 1985-12-29
When an artist is devastated by the death of his wife, he finds a way for her to live on in his painting.
Director: Clint Eastwood
Writer: Steven Spielberg
6.4/10 273 votes#22 - One For the Books
Season 1 Episode 23 - Aired 1986-05-11
An elderly college janitor amazes himself, his wife and the scientific community when his brain turns into a sponge that soaks up more and more incredible knowledge of every subject taught at the school - until a shocking event changes everything.
Director: Lesli Linka Glatter
Writer: Richard Matheson
6.3/10 396 votes#23 - Mr. Magic
Season 1 Episode 8 - Aired 1985-11-17
A fading illusionist has a last shot at greatness thanks to a deck of magic playing cards.
Director: Donald Petrie
Writer: Joshua Brand, John Falsey
6.3/10 463 votes#24 - Remote Control Man
Season 1 Episode 10 - Aired 1985-12-08
A henpecked man finds comfort in a unique television set that bring lifelike images to him.
Director: Bob Clark
Writer: Douglas Lloyd McIntosh
6.3/10 424 votes#25 - Santa '85
Season 1 Episode 11 - Aired 1985-12-15
A little boy helps Santa when the legendary man is thrown in jail while delivering presents.
Director: Phil Joanou
Writer: Joshua Brand, John Falsey