8.0/10627 votesLoading...#1 - Family Dog
Season 2 Episode 16 - Aired 2/16/1987
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
7.7/101,302 votesLoading...#2 - The Mission
Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 11/3/1985
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
7.7/10573 votesLoading...#3 - Go to the Head of the Class
Season 2 Episode 8 - Aired 11/21/1986
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
7.6/10913 votesLoading...#4 - Mummy Daddy
Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 10/27/1985
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
7.6/10318 votesLoading...#5 - Thanksgiving
Season 2 Episode 9 - Aired 11/24/1986
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
7.4/10312 votesLoading...#6 - Life on Death Row
Season 2 Episode 7 - Aired 11/10/1986
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
7.3/10281 votesLoading...#7 - You Gotta Believe Me
Season 2 Episode 5 - Aired 10/20/1986
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
7.2/10380 votesLoading...#8 - Dorothy and Ben
Season 1 Episode 18 - Aired 3/2/1986
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
7.2/10405 votesLoading...#9 - The Doll
Season 1 Episode 22 - Aired 5/4/1986
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
7.1/10543 votesLoading...#10 - The Amazing Falsworth
Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 11/5/1985
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
6.9/10640 votesLoading...#11 - Mirror, Mirror
Season 1 Episode 19 - Aired 3/9/1986
A popular horror novelist is terrorized by a strange figure in his bathroom mirror.
Director: Martin Scorsese
Writer: Joseph Minion
6.9/10212 votesLoading...#12 - Blue Man Down
Season 2 Episode 14 - Aired 1/19/1987
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
6.7/10371 votesLoading...#13 - No Day at the Beach
Season 1 Episode 14 - Aired 1/12/1986
A GI tries to be a hero during an amphibious assault in Italy during World War II.
Director: Lesli Linka Glatter
Writer: Mick Garris
6.7/10214 votesLoading...#14 - Lane Change
Season 2 Episode 13 - Aired 1/12/1987
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
6.6/10404 votesLoading...#15 - The Sitter
Season 1 Episode 13 - Aired 1/5/1986
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
6.6/10335 votesLoading...#16 - One For the Road
Season 1 Episode 15 - Aired 1/19/1986
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
6.6/10399 votesLoading...#17 - Gather Ye Acorns
Season 1 Episode 16 - Aired 2/2/1986
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
6.6/10392 votesLoading...#18 - Miscalculation
Season 2 Episode 2 - Aired 9/29/1986
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
6.6/10207 votesLoading...#19 - The 21-Inch Sun
Season 2 Episode 15 - Aired 2/2/1987
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
6.5/10907 votesLoading...#20 - Ghost Train
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 9/29/1985
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
6.4/10494 votesLoading...#21 - Vanessa in the Garden
Season 1 Episode 12 - Aired 12/29/1985
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
6.4/10283 votesLoading...#22 - One For the Books
Season 1 Episode 23 - Aired 5/11/1986
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
6.3/10404 votesLoading...#23 - Mr. Magic
Season 1 Episode 8 - Aired 11/17/1985
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
6.3/10433 votesLoading...#25 - Santa '85
Season 1 Episode 11 - Aired 12/15/1985
A little boy helps Santa when the legendary man is thrown in jail while delivering presents.
Director: Phil Joanou
Writer: Joshua Brand, John Falsey
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...
Genres:Sci-Fi & FantasyDramaComedyFamilyMysteryCrime
Network:NBC
Best Episodes Summary
"Family Dog" is the best rated episode of "Amazing Stories". It scored 8/10 based on 627 votes. Directed by Brad Bird and written by Brad Bird, it aired on 2/16/1987. This episode scored 0.3 points higher than the second highest rated, "The Mission".
