The Best Episodes of MacGyver
Every episode of MacGyver ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of MacGyver!
He's everyone's favorite action hero... but he's a hero with a difference. Angus MacGyver is a secret agent whose wits are his deadliest weapon. Armed with only a knapsack filled with everyday items he picks up along the way, he improvises his way out of every peril the bad guys throw at him. Making a bomb out of chewing gum? Fixing a speeding car's breaks... while he's riding in it? Using soda pop to cook up tear gas? That's all in a day's adventures for MacGyver. He's part Boy Scout, part genius. And all hero.
Top Episode Highlight
The best episode of "MacGyver" is "The Widowmaker", rated 8.4/10 from 439 user votes. It was directed by Michael Vejar and written by N/A. "The Widowmaker" aired on 11/16/1987 and is rated 0.2 point(s) higher than the second highest rated, "Partners".
8.4/10 439 votes#1 - The Widowmaker
Season 3 Episode 8 - Aired 1987-11-16
MacGyver is forced out of his grief over the tragic death of a friend by a madman with a score to settle from their past association.
Director: Michael Vejar
Writer: N/A
8.2/10 385 votes#2 - Partners
Season 2 Episode 18 - Aired 1987-03-02
MacGyver and Pete meet at a wrecking yard, both thinking that the other one arranged the meeting. Soon an unknown assailant captures them inside a big truck. Their only clue is an obituary for them and Jack Dalton.
Director: Cliff Bole
Writer: Bill Froehlich
8.2/10 360 votes#3 - The Invisible Killer
Season 4 Episode 15 - Aired 1989-04-10
MacGyver heads up a trip with four other Phoenix Foundation employees into the wilderness as part of a stress reduction program. After discovering that a prison bus accident has freed several prisoners, the employees begin to question each other's behavior. MacGyver must now figure out which man, if any, is not to be trusted before it's too late.
Director: Dana Elcar
Writer: Chris Haddock
8.1/10 403 votes#4 - Phoenix Under Siege
Season 2 Episode 11 - Aired 1987-01-05
While retrieving tickets for a hockey game at the Phoenix Foundation, MacGyver and his grandpa Harry get caught in the middle of a woman's plot to blow up the building using a bomb that she herself made. They try to escape, but are locked in. Now they must figure another way out before she activates the bomb.
Director: Gilbert M. Shilton
Writer: N/A
8.1/10 366 votes#5 - Hell Week
Season 3 Episode 9 - Aired 1987-11-23
A desperate physics student goes off the deep end and boobytraps a college lab when he fails to win a science competition and to live up to his father's high expectations.
Director: James L. Conway
Writer: Leonard Mlodinow
8.1/10 360 votes#6 - Cleo Rocks
Season 4 Episode 9 - Aired 1989-02-06
Penny Parker's big chance in a major professional role is threatened from two directions: a money shortage and several deaths linked to the musical she is set to perform in.
Director: Chuck Bowman
Writer: N/A
8.1/10 346 votes#7 - Halloween Knights
Season 5 Episode 6 - Aired 1989-10-30
An old nemsis enlists MacGyver's help to rescue someone important to him—and she's scheduled to be executed during a Halloween Party put on by a professional assassination organization.
Director: Charles Correll
Writer: N/A
8.0/10 462 votes#8 - Countdown
Season 1 Episode 14 - Aired 1986-02-05
A mysterious person who calls himself "Viking" has just bombed the cruise ship Victoria, underway in the North Pacific Ocean. He demands six million dollars or another bomb will go off within hours. So MacGyver gets called in, along with his old Vietnam bomb-defusal partner, Charlie Robinson, to disarm it. But when they get there, they find out there's more than one bomb on the ship. Complications arise when MacGyver's partner sets off one of the bombs, and the bomber decides that DXS operated in bad faith and refuses to hand over the bomb-disarming instructions after he gets the extortion money.
Director: Stan Jolley
Writer: David Ketchum, Tony DiMarco
8.0/10 353 votes#9 - The Negotiator
Season 3 Episode 15 - Aired 1988-03-07
MacGyver becomes infatuated with a woman while conducting environmental-impact studies. However, what MacGyver does not know is that the woman was hired to "persuade" him to skip the studies—and if necessary, kill him.
Director: Charles Correll
Writer: N/A
8.0/10 394 votes#10 - The Secret of Parker House
Season 4 Episode 1 - Aired 1988-10-31
MacGyver accompanies Penny Parker to an old house she inherited from her Aunt Betty, who mysteriously died 30 years before. When strange things start happening, Penny is sure that the house is haunted.
Director: Michael Vejar
Writer: N/A
7.9/10 413 votes#11 - The Assassin
Season 1 Episode 22 - Aired 1986-05-07
Posing as a watchmaker who manufactures bomb timers, MacGyver manages to catch a master killer—Piedra—before he attempts an assassination on a high-profile target. However, Piedra isn't about to be stopped for long.
Director: Charles Correll
Writer: N/A
7.9/10 416 votes#12 - The Human Factor
Season 2 Episode 1 - Aired 1986-09-22
MacGyver and Pete are testing a new security system at the Strategic Research Development Administration. MacGyver successfully bypasses the security and meets Dr. Jill Ludlam, the system's designer. She tries to turn off the security system, but it doesn't realize that it was just a test. MacGyver and Dr. Ludlam are then forced to find a way out, as the security system, named Sandy, tries to destroy the "intruders."
Director: Charles Correll
Writer: N/A
7.9/10 414 votes#13 - Ghost Ship
Season 3 Episode 4 - Aired 1987-10-19
While mapping the wilderness for the Phoenix foundation, MacGyver stumbles on a deserted ship and finds a runaway girl who tells him that the rest of crew was driven away by Bigfoot.
Director: Michael Vejar
Writer: N/A
7.9/10 311 votes#14 - The Legend of the Holy Rose (2)
Season 5 Episode 2 - Aired 1989-09-25
MacGyver and an old friend dash around the world searching for the artifacts necessary to locate the Holy Grail, just one step ahead of a ruthless man on the same trail.
Director: Charles Correll
Writer: N/A
7.9/10 297 votes#15 - Cease Fire
Season 5 Episode 4 - Aired 1989-10-09
During some tough negotiations between two neighbouring states, one side plants a sniper in the vicinity. When Mac discovers the sniper, he fights him, but loses the man and the accusations go out against Mac. Wounded and forced to run, he hides at a private girls' school, where one of the young ladies becomes his only hope to prevent further bloodshed.
Director: Bill Gereghty
Writer: Chris Haddock
7.9/10 317 votes#16 - Passages
Season 5 Episode 21 - Aired 1990-04-30
Frantic with worry about his gravely-ill Grandpa Harry, MacGyver experiences a strange near-death phenomena, seeing his parents again, when he's injured by a man who's stolen an ancient Egyptian relic.
Director: Bill Gereghty
Writer: N/A
7.9/10 300 votes#17 - Lesson in Evil
Season 6 Episode 6 - Aired 1990-10-29
Dr. Zito returns to menace MacGyver and Murphy when he escapes after his latest sanity hearing, leaving a series of nasty clues designed to give Mac a crash course in evil.
Director: Bill Gereghty
Writer: N/A
7.9/10 308 votes#18 - The Stringer
Season 7 Episode 13 - Aired 1992-04-25
While working with Chinese dissidents to expose illegal labor camps, MacGyver gets unexpected help from a young photojournalist who claims to be his son!
Director: Michael Vejar
Writer: N/A
7.8/10 2,313 votes#19 - Pilot
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 1985-09-29
When a science lab studying the ozone layer mysteriously explodes, MacGyver is called in to rescue the scientists that are trapped underground. It's soon discovered that the explosion cracked a tank of sulfuric acid, and MacGyver is in a race against time before the Army uses a missile to seal up the base.
Director: Jerrold Freedman
Writer: Thackary Pallor
7.8/10 300 votes#20 - The Survivors
Season 4 Episode 6 - Aired 1989-01-09
While on assignment to test field agents for the Phoenix Foundation, MacGyver and Pete discover the wreckage of a DEA plane shot down by dangerous drug smugglers.
Director: Michael Caffey
Writer: N/A
7.8/10 315 votes#21 - Deadly Dreams
Season 4 Episode 7 - Aired 1989-01-16
MacGyver gets involved in the search for an escaped serial killer. Soon he comes to the conclusion that the killer had help from another prisoner—an even more sinister man.
Director: Les Landau
Writer: N/A
7.8/10 328 votes#22 - The Legend of the Holy Rose (1)
Season 5 Episode 1 - Aired 1989-09-18
MacGyver and an old friend dash around the world searching for the artifacts necessary to locate the Holy Grail, just one step ahead of a ruthless man on the same trail, who will do anything to get to it before they do.
Director: Michael Caffey
Writer: N/A
7.8/10 289 votes#23 - Strictly Business
Season 6 Episode 19 - Aired 1991-04-08
Murdoc wants to come out of retirement, but his former employers at Homicide International request that he take out MacGyver as a demonstration of his sincere desire to rejoin them.
Director: Michael Vejar
Writer: N/A
7.7/10 475 votes#24 - Target MacGyver
Season 1 Episode 10 - Aired 1985-12-22
After blowing away a nuclear facility under the control of an aggressive world leader, MacGyver returns home for some peace and quiet, only to find his boss waiting for him. He advises MacGyver that a contract is out on his life and he needs to skip town for awhile.
Director: Ernest Pintoff
Writer: Terry Nation
7.7/10 361 votes#25 - Three For the Road
Season 2 Episode 10 - Aired 1986-12-15
A retired actor and his wife stop at a motel on the way to Los Angeles. MacGyver rescues them from a drunkard who nearly makes a mark on their car. MacGyver is supposed to meet a mobster-turned-informant at the motel, but the meeting goes wrong. The mob shows up and kills MacGyver's friend before he can give MacGyver what he promised. Instead the bag lands in the old couple's car, where the old actor finds it and discovers it full of money.
Director: Alan Crosland, Jr.
Writer: N/A