Every season of The 20th Century Fox Hour ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best seasons of The 20th Century Fox Hour!

The story opens with the family patriarch marching off to the Boer war at the turn of the century, and ends thirty years later, with the now-aged principal characters coping with the Depression and the   bleak days following Queen Victoria's death.

Cavalcade

Detective Mark McPherson is assigned to the case of a murdered fashion model only to find that the murder victim is someone else. During the investigation he finds himself taking a more than professional interest in the intended victim, the mysterious Laura.

Laura

A cattle rustling and the murder of the rancher leads the town on a mob lynching. While the sheriff is away the Major takes over and assumes control of the Posse.

The Ox-Bow Incident

The daughter of a socially prominent family rebels against her father's snobbery. He opposes the marriage of his daughter to a young man from the wrong side of the tracks.

The Late George Apley

A country doctor learns his housekeeper is in possession of valuable painting given to her from an artist she befriended. Art collectors and swindlers attempt to get hold of these paintings.

Christopher Bean

One Kris Kringle, a department-store Santa Claus, causes quite a commotion by suggesting customers go to a rival store for their purchases. But this is nothing to the stir he causes by announcing that he is not merely a make-believe St. Nick, but the real McCoy.

The Miracle on 34th Street

Sure and it's a fine St. Paddy's dawn in New York City, and beat cop Bragan is finishing up his all-night midtown shift and heading back to his family. Mrs. Bragan is making waffles today, and there's no school for young Mike, and they're all looking forward to the big parade. It's Bragan's day. He's got his buttons already polished.

But he won't make it home after all. A scream pierces the daybreak, and Bragan looks up and gasps: Way up high, near the top of one of the avenue's fine hotels, there's a guy standing on a ledge, clinging to a cornice, looking down, teetering.

Jumper. Bragan breaks into a run, straightaway gets up to the hotel's 15th floor, collides with the manager who's fretting that his suicidal guest is going to bring unwelcome publicity. ""This is the worst possible thing that can happen to a hotel!"" the manager moans. Bragan disgustedly shoos him out, and now he's alone with the man on the ledge, the first cop on the scene, and he leans out the window, high over the d

Man on the Ledge

After years of neglect from her abrasive husband, Joan has decided to leave him. He asks that she come to his last business meeting in Nassau, and tells her what she needs is a child. After being repeatedly warned to turn back because of the hurricane, he is biligerent and refuses to let anyone tell him what to do. Coast guard requests his help in aiding a stranded fisherman and his son, but his hard and selfish demeanor denies any help except for himself. A rude awakening to his wife and a strong will not to let him continue to control her.

Yacht on the High Sea

A bored housewife unhappy with her professor husband who is too busy with work to pay attention to her, ends up with her best friends husband,  before realizing the consequences and how good her life actually is.

One Life

Bed ridden invalid Marie is visited by Trask, the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed her husband.

Crack-Up

The death of his only son makes it difficult for him to go on living.

In Times Like These

A British Intelligence officer is captured and forced to divulge information, after which he moves to the West Indies in shame.

Deception

An outlaw's son is torn between affection for his father and his own belief in law and order. While riding with the outlaw band, he is captured and imprisoned, and then learns the gang abandoned his wife to die, leaving his newborn son homeless. Furious, he turns against the gang and joins forces with the law.

Gun in His Hand

All is not well on Hummingbird Hill, the King's are at their wits end. Their three children are full of mischief and trouble that desperate measures are needed. When an ad is placed in the paper, Lynn Belvedere responds, thinking that Lynn Belvedere is a woman, the King's are surprised yet pleasantly pleased by the self-proclaimed genius Mr. Lynn Belvedere, who takes on the task of looking after the King children. With a nosy busybody of a neighbor and jealous husband and a Boss who is not happy with the scandalous behavior of his employs family, all is still not well on Hummingbird Hill.

Mr. Belvedere

Jeffords talks to Cochise about letting the mail carriers thru the pass without being attacked. During which time he falls in love with  the ""White Painted Lady"". After an attack both sides are unwilling to agree until General Howard arranges for peace talks. Jeffords asks Cochise for Sonseeahrays hand in marriage. A set up from the towns people leads to death for some.

Broken Arrow

When his young stepson is accidentally pinned under a truck, the driver frantically tries to rouse help in a nearby town. But he is caught taking equipment from a closed service station and is unable to convince anyone the boy is in trouble.

Overnight Haul

A young Englishwoman and her American husband become entangled when Audrey's divorced mother comes to visit, the girl's natural warning system begins buzzing. Audrey endeavors to keep her scheming mother from being reunited with her father, who has been perfectly happy since the split.

The Empty Room

A well-meaning do-gooder spends so much time doing favors for others that he falls behind in his personal obligations. Meanwhile his long suffering wife has had enough of his money-making schemes she decides to take in boarders.

The Hefferan Family

After his wife suffers a miscarriage during an earthquake in Japan, he finds that a young Japanese girl is parentless and homeless and decides to take her in. Hoping of course that his wife will overcome her grief over the loss of their own child. He is reassigned to Honolulu and there he encounters problems with his superior who is extremely racist against his daughter and causes trouble for him and his outfit.

Child of the Regiment

A sensitive widow of delicate constitution falls in love with a cottage by the sea previously owned by Captain Robert Wilton who commited suicide. Feeling a ghostly prescence she becomes enchanted with him and he helps her to overcome her fears.

Stranger in the Night

Mrs. Miller is elderly with no money, she makes a living by counterfeiting one dollar bills. This leads to trouble with the US government who can't believe it.

The Money Maker

Only the leader of a firefighter unit survives a forest fire and is accused of saving himself at his men's expense. After his recovery he goes out again this time to prove everyone wrong.

Smoke Jumpers

Emil Markheim employs the same ruthless authority in running the bank he founded that he imposes on his own family. His sons hate him enough to want to destroy him. The son who loves him ends up in jail for trying to bride a juror after his father winds up on the bank examiners wrong side. After doing 5 years in Sing Sing upon his release the other brothers try to destroy him.

The Last Patriarch

A family auto-racing team, father and two sons, intent upon proving that their American vehicle is the superior to any foreign job. The trio enters an important Italian road competition.  A press agent upsets things, when she can't choose between brothers.

Men Against Speed

Based on the true story of a World War II spy with access to top secret information in the British embassy in Turkey, this episode follows the brief but bright career of an English valet, code-named Cicero, who seized his chance to sell expensive secrets to the Germans, including details about D-Day's Operation Overlord. The Nazi government, the British ambassador, and a Polish countess all dance on strings even as British counteragents close in.

Operation Cicero

Jimmy Ringo an ex-gunfighter tries to settle down to a normal life but is constantly challenged to gun fights. As he tries to reconnect with his wife and son in Cayenne, his life is in danger when several attempts are made on his life. Distraught he tells the sheriff his friend not to pursue the attempts, to let the gunnies find out themselves what kind of life it is to be an outlaw.

End of a Gun

A mother places an ad in the newspaper claiming the innocence of her son. A reporter checks out the story.

False Witness

A young Abe takes on a case where the only witness to the crime is the mother of two young men who are wrongfully accused in the stabbing death of the town deputy.

Springfield Incident

In Vaquero County at the Wells Fargo Office, Anse Trumbull is shot and killed in a bank hold up. This endangers the only witness to the crime, the sheriff's stepson. The sheriff is faced with a difficult decision whether to protect the boy and possibly lose his respect or risk the boys life.

Man of the Law

During the time of the great Chicago fire, the two O'Leary brothers become bitter political and romantic rivals for the beautiful stage actress, one brother is a notorious gambler and the other a pious reformer. After Mrs. O'Leary's cow knocks over the fabled lantern, we are treated to generous stock footage from In Old Chicago's climatic conclusion.

City in Flames

Ben Macready son of John Macready owner and editor of the ""Hollisfield Herald"" has been asked by Police Chief Swanson to keep a lid on a kidnapping of Jimmie Elgin son of the Bank Manager George Elgin under wraps for 18 hours. Ben agrees, however his father doesnt and goes ahead with the story. The townspeople turn on Macready when it is learned that the river was dragged and a body was found. Fearing the worst, Macready embarks on a mission to capture the kidnapper. Offering him money for the story and trapping him only to discover that little Jimmie is alive and is exchanged for the reward. The police are able to arrest the kidnapper.

Deadline Decision

During the Civil War, imprisoned Confederate soldiers are paroled to help protect pioneers from Indians.

The Still Trumpet

Retired schoolteacher pays a visit to a former pupil she taught many years ago. He is a candidate running for governor. She tells him about how difficult he was as a boy and her attempts to help him interfered with the man she loved and accusations concerning that man.

Men in Her Life

The ruthless head of an underwater demolition team, aka the frogmen, is unpopular with his men when he comes head to head with his chief petty officer just as an enemy torpedo lodges, unexploded, in a section of the ship's sick bay.

Deep Water

John Hodges has been a printer devoted to his work. Now, at 65, he is automatically retired by his firm. But Hodges isn't ready for retirement -he feels he has many years of productivve employment ahead. Furthermore,life without a job becomes tedious. He feels unwanted in the house and finally flees to the park where he sits, contemplates the injustice of his retirement, and plots ways to be reinstated. Finally he hits on a daring maneuver. Knowing that the president of the parent company is a mysteriously remote figure, Hodges decides to impersonate him, change some of the rules and get his job back. Excited, he starts to compose an interesting letter!

The Great American Hoax

Police captain's daughter is threatened when a gangster resolves to make sure that the Captain and his family are held responsible.

Threat to a Happy Ending

A mischievous, well meaning, meddling busy body opens up an agency to bring couples together. After years of being a scorned woman Mae decides to turn the tables on her nemisis after her ex-husbands death. A variation of Hello Dolly!

The Marriage Broker

The 20th Century Fox Hour is an American drama anthology series televised in the United States on CBS from 1955 to 1957. Some of the shows in this series were restored, remastered and shown on the Fox Movie Channel in 2002 under the title Hour of Stars. The season one episode Overnight Haul, starring Richard Conte and Lizabeth Scott, was released in Australia as a feature film.

The Best Seasons of The 20th Century Fox Hour

The Best Seasons of The 20th Century Fox Hour

Season 2

Season 1