9.4/10275 votesLoading...#1 - Shady Deal at Sunny Acres
Season 2 Episode 10 - Aired 11/23/1958
Bret, helpless against a crafty banker (John Dehner) who robbed him, bides his time — while Bart and friends set up an elaborate con game.
Director: Leslie H. Martinson
Writer: N/A
9.0/10268 votesLoading...#2 - Gun-shy
Season 2 Episode 16 - Aired 1/11/1959
Bret, seeking buried Confederate treasure in Elwood, Kansas, keeps running afoul of U.S. Marshal Mort Dooley. The marshal keeps running Bret out of town. Bret, in turn, keeps outwitting the lawman.
Director: Leslie H. Martinson
Writer: N/A
8.8/10184 votesLoading...#3 - The Saga of Waco Williams
Season 2 Episode 21 - Aired 2/15/1959
Bret and his buddy Waco Williams (Wayde Preston) ride straight into trouble in Bent City, where they are suspected of being cattle rustlers.
Director: Leslie H. Martinson
Writer: N/A
8.8/10112 votesLoading...#4 - Greenbacks, Unlimited
Season 3 Episode 26 - Aired 3/13/1960
Bank robber Big Ed Murphy is at his wit's end: someone keeps beating him to the loot — and that someone is Bret.
Director: Arthur Lubin
Writer: N/A
8.7/10122 votesLoading...#5 - Maverick Springs
Season 3 Episode 13 - Aired 12/6/1959
Bret is gired by a weathly texan to save her brother Mark from a conniving woman named Melanie. Posing as a Texas Colonel, Bret realizes that he's up against a master crook. With Mark's help and brother Bart's arrival as a weathly Easterner, they set up a scheme to catch the girl and almost outsmart themselves with their own cleverness.
Director: Arthur Lubin
Writer: N/A
8.5/10172 votesLoading...#6 - The Quick and the Dead
Season 1 Episode 12 - Aired 12/8/1957
The only person who can clear Bret of a robbery charge has been marked for death by the notorious gunfighter/gambler Doc Holliday.
Director: Douglas Heyes
Writer: Douglas Heyes
8.5/10150 votesLoading...#7 - The Day They Hanged Bret Maverick
Season 2 Episode 1 - Aired 9/21/1958
Bret attends a hanging under very uncomfortable conditions: he's the intended victim.
Director: Douglas Heyes
Writer: Douglas Heyes
8.5/10164 votesLoading...#8 - Pappy
Season 3 Episode 1 - Aired 9/13/1959
Beau Maverick (played by James Garner), father of Bret and Bart announces that he is getting married. The Maverick boys discover that the marriage is a business arrangement, not a love commitment. The young girl, Josephine St. Cloud is being forced by her father to marry the older Beau Maverick. The brothers set out to sabotage the wedding plans, not knowing that Beau Maverick already had a plan.
Director: Montgomery Pittman
Writer: Montgomery Pittman
8.5/10118 votesLoading...#9 - Full House
Season 3 Episode 7 - Aired 10/25/1959
Bret Maverick runs into a notorious bunch of bank robbers; Cole Younger, Billy The Kid, Sam Bass, Jesse James, Frank James, Jim Dalton, Black Bart, Ben Thompson and Belle Starr. The outlaws believe that Bret is the infamous Foxy Smith, a well known bad guy. When the outlaws discover Bret's true identity, they force him to do the robbery in Denver. Bret ends up in a mint of trouble.
Director: Robert Gordon
Writer: N/A
8.5/10106 votesLoading...#10 - Hadley's Hunters
Season 4 Episode 2 - Aired 9/25/1960
Bart meets a comical sheriff (Edgar Buchanan) who is dead serious about killing him.
Director: Leslie H. Martinson
Writer: N/A
8.5/1087 votesLoading...#11 - Three Queens Full
Season 5 Episode 4 - Aired 11/12/1961
Bart must either face two years in jail or chaperone three brides to their intendeds — the sons of wealthy Joe Wheelwright (Jim Backus).
Director: Michael O'Herlihy
Writer: N/A
8.4/10114 votesLoading...#12 - Holiday at Hollow Rock
Season 2 Episode 13 - Aired 12/14/1958
After he's cheated in a crooked card game, Bret tries to even the score by beating his opponent — and the odds — in a horse race.
Director: Richard L. Bare
Writer: N/A
8.4/10102 votesLoading...#13 - Game of Chance
Season 2 Episode 15 - Aired 1/4/1959
Bret and Bart are pursuing the same woman. What's the attraction? The $10,000 she copped from them.
Director: James V. Kern
Writer: N/A
8.4/10134 votesLoading...#14 - The Rivals
Season 2 Episode 18 - Aired 1/25/1959
Lydia Linley is a young heiress who yearns for a man like Sydney Carton of A Tale of Two Cities - "a man of warmth, imagination, courage, and a sense of adventure." Jack Vandergelt III (Roger Moore) is in love with Lydia but knows she will have nothing to do with him because he is rich. Vandergelt hires Bret Maverick to switch identities with him in hopes that Lydia will love and accept him for who he is before she realizes he is a Vandergelt. The plan goes smoothly until Jack Vandergelt's father unexpectedly arrives in town.
Director: Leslie H. Martinson
Writer: N/A
8.4/10101 votesLoading...#15 - A Tale of Three Cities
Season 3 Episode 6 - Aired 10/18/1959
Bart has trouble retrieving his poker winnings from thieves. But help is on the way — from the local Ladies Aid Society.
Director: Leslie H. Martinson
Writer: N/A
8.4/1067 votesLoading...#16 - The Art Lovers
Season 5 Episode 2 - Aired 10/1/1961
When investors put the squeeze on railroad owner Paul Sutton, Bart tries to help by dealing with them directly — in a friendly card game.
Director: Michael O'Herlihy
Writer: N/A
8.3/10167 votesLoading...#17 - Rope of Cards
Season 1 Episode 17 - Aired 1/19/1958
It's shades of 12 Angry Men when Bret becomes the lone holdout for a not guilty verdict in a murder trial. He has to use a long shot card trick to convince the other jurors that the defendant might be innocent.
Director: Richard L. Bare
Writer: N/A
8.3/10136 votesLoading...#18 - Black Fire
Season 1 Episode 25 - Aired 3/16/1958
The heirs of millionaire General Eakins are being killed off one by one so why is Bret Maverick so worried? He's posing as one of the heirs and might be the next intended victim.
Director: Leslie H. Martinson
Writer: Howard Browne, Marion Hargrove
8.3/10143 votesLoading...#19 - Seed of Deception
Season 1 Episode 27 - Aired 4/13/1958
After they arrive in an Arizona town, Bret and Bart are mistaken for Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday and end up preventing a bank robbery.
Director: Richard L. Bare
Writer: Montgomery Pittman
8.3/10139 votesLoading...#20 - The Belcastle Brand
Season 2 Episode 4 - Aired 10/12/1958
In a desert, Bret and a hunting party are ambushed — and left to fight a blazing sun.
Director: Leslie H. Martinson
Writer: Marion Hargrove
8.3/10124 votesLoading...#21 - Two Beggars on Horseback
Season 2 Episode 17 - Aired 1/18/1959
Bret and Bart's devotion to one another is tested when they're offered a deal that can mean $10,000 for one of them, but just one.
Director: Douglas Heyes
Writer: N/A
8.3/10118 votesLoading...#22 - The Sheriff of Duck 'N' Shoot
Season 3 Episode 3 - Aired 9/27/1959
Sheriff Bret astounds himself as well as the townspeople by taming the trail herders who have been devastating the town, beats a gang of bank robbers at their own game, but has to summon the aid of brother Bart when his eye for a woman's beauty lands him in his own lockup.
Director: George Waggner
Writer: N/A
8.2/10192 votesLoading...#23 - According to Hoyle
Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 10/6/1957
Samantha Crawford is a con artist employed by George Cross. Cross once lost $50,000 to Bret Maverick and is determined to get it back. Two riverboat owners staked Maverick $5,000 which he promptly loses to Samantha. Samantha claims Cross is her father and needs the money to get out of jail. Maverick forms a partnership with Samantha and purchases gambling equipment in a scheme to put Joe Riggs, a crooked game room owner, out of business. Samantha and Cross doublecross Maverick by selling the equipment to Riggs.
Director: Budd Boetticher
Writer: N/A
8.2/10151 votesLoading...#24 - Rage For Vengeance
Season 1 Episode 16 - Aired 1/12/1958
Bret is happy to escort a lovely widow to the bank with a large sum of cash - until he learns the money is counterfeit.
Director: Leslie H. Martinson
Writer: Roy Huggins, Marion Hargrove
8.2/10109 votesLoading...#25 - The Burning Sky
Season 1 Episode 22 - Aired 2/23/1958
In the desert, an Indian ambush leaves Bart and other stagecoach passengers to battle their attackers, each other, and the sun.
Director: Gordon Douglas
Writer: Howard Browne, Russell S. Hughes
The Best Episodes of Maverick
Every episode of Maverick ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Maverick!
The Maverick boys - Bret, Bart, Beau and Brent - are a clan of well-dressed dandies, gamblers who'd much rather make their money playing cards...
Genres:ComedyWestern
Network:ABC
Best Episodes Summary
"Shady Deal at Sunny Acres" is the best rated episode of "Maverick". It scored 9.4/10 based on 275 votes. Directed by Leslie H. Martinson and written by N/A, it aired on 11/23/1958. This episode scored 0.4 points higher than the second highest rated, "Gun-shy".