The Best Episodes of NOVA
Every episode of NOVA ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of NOVA!
PBS' premier science series helps viewers of all ages explore the science behind the headlines. Along the way, NOVA demystifies science and technology, and highlights the people involved in scientific pursuits.
Top Episode Ratings Summary
The best episode of "NOVA" is "Anatomy of a Volcano", rated 9/10 from 8 user votes. It was directed by N/A and written by N/A. "Anatomy of a Volcano" aired on 2/10/1981 and is rated 0.0 point(s) higher than the second highest rated, "Children of Eve".
9.0/10 8 votes#1 - Anatomy of a Volcano
Season 8 Episode 4 - Aired 2/10/1981
When Mount St. Helens erupted earlier this year, it focused the attention of the whole world on the almost incredible destructive forces that volcanos can release. Geologists from around the world congregated at the volcano and NOVA joined the vigil for an in-depth look at the incident and its aftermath.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 9.0/10 10 votes
#2 - Children of Eve
Season 14 Episode 2 - Aired 1/27/1987
NOVA examines a controversial theory that traces our ancestry to a small group of women living in Africa 300,000 years ago.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 9.0/10 9 votes
#3 - Confessions of a Weaponeer
Season 14 Episode 7 - Aired 3/3/1987
Harvard chemist George Kistiakowsky was an anti-Bolshevik soldier in 1919 Russia, an atomic bomb scientist at Los Alamos, a presidential advisor in the Eisenhower White House and an arms control activist. Shortly before Kistiakowsky death, he recounts his eventful career to interviewer Carl Sagan.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
9.0/10 7 votes#4 - NOVA Wonders What's Living in You?
Season 45 Episode 102 - Aired 5/2/2018
Whether they make you fat, fart, or freak out, microbes play a central role in your life. Right beneath your nose—on your face, in your gut, and everywhere in between—trillions of bacteria, viruses, and fungi are so abundant in your body, they outnumber your human cells. But these aren’t just nasty hitch-hikers. Many are crucial to your survival.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.8/10 10 votes
#5 - Life on a Silken Thread
Season 6 Episode 12 - Aired 10/9/1979
Sinister, sometimes even deadly, spiders have little popular appeal; yet their silken webs are among nature's loveliest creations. NOVA takes a close-look in slow motion, as spiders reveal a delicate grace and beauty, and an amazing array of lifestyles.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.8/10 8 votes
#6 - The Sea Behind the Dunes
Season 7 Episode 11 - Aired 10/14/1980
One year in the intricate life of a coastal lagoon unfolds in an hour's time when NOVA documents the fragile tidal ecosystem which supports the entire ocean.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.8/10 9 votes
#7 - Sex, Lies and Toupee Tape
Season 18 Episode 11 - Aired 10/1/1991
NOVA covers the causes and attempted cures of baldness. Some men take pride in their bald heads; others will go to great lengths to cover up. Alan "Douglas Brackman" Rachins of NBC's LA Law hosts.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.8/10 52 votes#8 - Ocean Invaders
Season 49 Episode 15 - Aired 10/26/2022
Lionfish–long prized in home aquariums–have invaded the Atlantic, and are now one of the ocean’s most successful invasive species, wreaking havoc in waters across the globe. Join ocean explorer Danni Washington on a journey to find out how they took over, why they’re doing so much damage, and what can be done about it.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.7/10 19 votes
#9 - The Plane that Changed the World
Season 12 Episode 20 - Aired 12/17/1985
NOVA joins the 50th anniversary celebration of the DC-3—the plane that revolutionized commercial air travel, served gallantly in World War II and is called the most important plane ever built.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.6/10 7 votes
#10 - Pioneers of Surgery: The Brutal Craft
Season 15 Episode 12 - Aired 9/6/1988
Part one of a four-part series on the pioneers of modern surgery relives the early days, when surgery was practiced without the benefit of anaesthesia or antisceptics and patients usually died.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.6/10 7 votes
#11 - Pioneers of Surgery: Into the Heart
Season 15 Episode 13 - Aired 9/13/1988
Once unthinkable, open-heart surgery is now an everyday miracle. NOVA looks at the brave doctors and patients who make it possible.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.6/10 7 votes
#12 - Pioneers of Surgery: New Organs for Old
Season 15 Episode 14 - Aired 9/20/1988
From kidneys to hearts, NOVA examines the daring attempts to replace diseased organs with transplanted ones.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.6/10 7 votes
#13 - Pioneers of Surgery: Beyond the Knife
Season 15 Episode 15 - Aired 9/27/1988
Surgeons have always been eager to help patients, even at the risk of killing them. NOVA looks at some of the excesses of surgery, and at how new drugs and technologies are rendering some operations obsolete.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.6/10 7 votes
#14 - Coma
Season 25 Episode 1 - Aired 10/7/1997
A famous brain surgeon struggles to save the life of a comatose child using a controversial new method of treating severe head injuries. In charge is Dr. Jan Ghajar, who gained notoriety in 1996 by successfully treating a woman who was savagely beaten in Manhattan's Central Park and expected to die. Dr. Ghajar believes the measure that helped save her life should be available to all.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.6/10 7 votes
#15 - Wild Wolves With David Attenborough
Season 25 Episode 5 - Aired 11/11/1997
Sir David Attenborough hosts a never-before-seen look at one of the most misunderstood creatures in nature. Special photography, including infrared photography, exposes the secret life of the wolf pack.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.6/10 7 votes
#16 - Special Effects: Titanic and Beyond
Season 26 Episode 4 - Aired 11/3/1998
NOVA goes behind the scenes in Hollywood, where the art of illusion meets the science of perception.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.6/10 7 votes
#17 - Deadly Shadow of Vesuvius
Season 26 Episode 5 - Aired 11/10/1998
The shattered remnants of the Roman city of Pompeii bear witness to the risk that the people of Naples still face today.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.5/10 15 votes
#18 - Take the World From Another Point of View
Season 2 Episode 11 - Aired 2/2/1975
NOVA profiles two very different scientists: Richard Feynman, a theoretical physicist, at the pinnacle of his career—a Nobel prizewinner; and Richard Lewontin, a biologist and highly regarded population geneticist from Harvard University.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.5/10 15 votes
#19 - The Race for the Double Helix
Season 3 Episode 8 - Aired 3/7/1976
Author Isaac Asimov joins NOVA in the retelling of the remarkable story of the discovery of the structure of DNA. James Watson and his ex-colleague Francis Crick exchange memories of the events which led to their winning the race for the structure of the gene.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.5/10 9 votes
#20 - Moving Still
Season 7 Episode 17 - Aired 12/2/1980
NOVA tells the story of still and cine photography in science—from the extraordinary work of the pioneers in the early 1800s to how the ability to freeze time on film in ever shorter periods has given scientists remarkable new insights. Today photography enables us to analyze (frame by frame) the thousands of molecular reactions that can happen in less time than the blink of an eye.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.5/10 13 votes
#21 - Lost City of Arabia
Season 24 Episode 2 - Aired 10/8/1996
Helped by remote sensing, an expedition searches Oman's vast al-Khali desert for the lost city of Ubar.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.5/10 14 votes#22 - Secrets of Lost Empires: Stonehenge (1)
Season 24 Episode 14 - Aired 2/11/1997
A distinctive feature of this stone site are the trilithons, which consist of two upright stones topped by a horizontal lintel stone. In this program, the NOVA team considers how to transport and raise the massive stones, as well as how to place the lintel stone on top. By comparing different strategies and adapting ramps, levers, and other tools that might have been available to the ancient builders, the team works to meet the challenge.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.5/10 40 votes#23 - Bioterror
Season 29 Episode 6 - Aired 11/13/2001
The film follows three New York Times reporters as they delve into the murky past of bioweapons research and grapple with the current threat of anthrax and other attacks.
Director: Kirk Wolfinger
Writer: Matthew Collins
8.5/10 2 votes#24 - Secrets of the Sun
Season 39 Episode 19 - Aired 4/25/2012
It contains 99.9 percent of all the matter in our solar system and sheds hot plasma at nearly a million miles an hour. The temperature at its core is a staggering 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. It convulses, it blazes, it sings. You know it as the sun. Scientists know it as one of the most amazing physics laboratories in the universe. Now, with the help of new spacecraft and Earth-based telescopes, scientists are seeing the sun as they never have before and even recreating what happens at its very center in labs here on Earth. Their work will help us understand aspects of the sun that have puzzled scientists for decades. But more critically, it may help us predict and track solar storms that have the power to zap our power grid, shut down telecommunications, and ground global air travel for days, weeks, or even longer. Such storms have happened before—but never in the modern era of satellite communication. "Secrets of the Sun" reveals a bright new dawn in our understanding of our nearest star—one that might help keep our planet from going dark.
Director: Duncan Copp
Writer: N/A
8.5/10 93 votes#25 - Death Dive to Saturn
Season 44 Episode 20 - Aired 9/13/2017
Aiming to skim less than 2000 miles above the cloud tops, no spacecraft has ever gone so close to Saturn, and hopes are high for incredible observations that could solve major mysteries about the planet’s core. Join NASA engineers for the tense and triumphant moments as they find out if their bold reprogramming has worked, and discover the wonders that Cassini has revealed over the years.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A