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The Best Episodes of The Rifleman

Every episode of The Rifleman ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of The Rifleman!

The Rifleman is an American Western television program starring Chuck Connors as rancher Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show was filmed in black-and-white, half-hour episodes. "The Rifleman" aired on ABC from September 30, 1958 to April 8, 1963 as a production of Four Star Television. It was one of the first prime time series to have a widowed parent raise a child.

Genres:Action & AdventureWesternFamily
Network:ABC

Top Episode Ratings Summary

The best episode of "The Rifleman" is "The Sheridan Story", rated 8.8/10 from 243 user votes. It was directed by N/A and written by Cyril Hume. "The Sheridan Story" aired on 1/13/1959 and is rated 0.1 point(s) higher than the second highest rated, "Death Trap".

  • The Sheridan Story
    8.8/10 243 votes

    #1 - The Sheridan Story

    Season 1 Episode 16 - Aired 1/13/1959

    Frank Blandon, a man with only one good arm, wanders on to the ranch. Lucas gave Blandon a job to ""hire him and Mark a clear conscience"". General Sheridan and his patrol wandered by and Lucas offered to let them stay the night at the ranch. Blandon pulled a gun on General Sheridan, as it turned out Blandon was a confederate soldier, who once had General Sheridan in his gun sight during the war. Blandon hung fire, but Sheridan did not hesitate and blew out Blandon's shoulder. General Sheridan shamed Blandon out of exacting his revenge, then lifted Blandon's spirit by praising Johnny Rebs' fighting spirit. Sheridan ordered that Blandon be taken to a hospital to have his shoulder properly mended, carrying out his Commander in Chief's last order to ""Bind up the Nation's wounds.""

    Director: N/A

    Writer: Cyril Hume

  • Death Trap
    8.7/10 143 votes

    #2 - Death Trap

    Season 3 Episode 33 - Aired 5/9/1961

    Lucas recognizes Dr. Simon Battle as an ex-gunslinger with whom he once traded shots.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Two Ounces of Tin
    8.7/10 187 votes

    #3 - Two Ounces of Tin

    Season 4 Episode 21 - Aired 2/19/1962

    Sammy Davis Jr. stars as Tip Corey, son of a man allegedly murdered in North Fork.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Death Never Rides Alone
    8.7/10 162 votes

    #4 - Death Never Rides Alone

    Season 5 Episode 5 - Aired 10/29/1962

    A gunslinger rides into North Fork for a meeting with Lucas.

    Director: Joseph H. Lewis

    Writer: N/A

  • The Money Gun
    8.6/10 164 votes

    #5 - The Money Gun

    Season 1 Episode 33 - Aired 5/12/1959

    When his employer begins to suspect him of embezzlement, bookkeeper Asa Manning decides to hire a professional gunman to take care of the problem.

    Director: Sam Peckinpah

    Writer: Sam Peckinpah, Bruce Geller

  • The Sharpshooter
    8.5/10 435 votes

    #6 - The Sharpshooter

    Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 9/30/1958

    Lucas McCain and his son Mark arrive in North Fork, New Mexico. Looking to start a new life, they come across a ranch to their liking, which is for sale. Lucas enters a Turkey Shoot in hopes of winning the down payment for the ranch. Jim Lewis, the man who runs North Fork, has bet on Vernon, a young gun he brought in, to win. When talk of Lucas' reputation back in the Nations circulates around town, Mr. Lewis gets nervous and he makes trouble for Lucas by threatening Mark's life.

    Director: Arnold Laven

    Writer: Sam Peckinpah

  • The Marshal
    8.5/10 290 votes

    #7 - The Marshal

    Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 10/21/1958

    Micah Torrance, a once famous lawman, is introduced as a drunken derelict, who stumbles into North Fork. Micah, nursing an arm crippled in a gunfight, is hired by Lucas to help out at the ranch. Three outlaws ride into town looking for revenge against Micah. When they kill the sheriff, it's up to Lucas and Micah to protect North Fork. Micah becomes North Fork's full-time Marshal.

    Director: Sam Peckinpah

    Writer: Sam Peckinpah

  • The Deadly Wait
    8.5/10 155 votes

    #8 - The Deadly Wait

    Season 1 Episode 26 - Aired 3/24/1959

    Dan Nowry, released from Yuma prison, arrives in North Fork intent on getting even with Marshal Torrance,who helped send him to jail.

    Director: Joseph H. Lewis

    Writer: N/A

  • Stopover
    8.5/10 169 votes

    #9 - Stopover

    Season 3 Episode 31 - Aired 4/25/1961

    Trouble brews at Lucas's when a whisky salesman and a gunfighter fall for the same woman.

    Director: Budd Boetticher

    Writer: N/A

  • Gunfire
    8.5/10 120 votes

    #10 - Gunfire

    Season 4 Episode 16 - Aired 1/15/1962

    When an expected lawman doesn't arrive from Denver, several gunfighters arrive in North Fork and cause trouble.

    Director: Richard Donner

    Writer: N/A

  • The Most Amazing Man
    8.5/10 164 votes

    #11 - The Most Amazing Man

    Season 5 Episode 9 - Aired 11/26/1962

    Fast-draw artist Wade Randall is less than anxious to display his prowess.

    Director: Arthur H. Nadel

    Writer: N/A

  • The Safe Guard
    8.4/10 191 votes

    #12 - The Safe Guard

    Season 1 Episode 8 - Aired 10/18/1958

    Floyd Doniger comes to North Fork, looking to start a new life. He's got a steady job as the guard at the new bank and he's entertaining ideas of settling down on a spread of his own. Also arriving in North Fork are three men who followed the bank's new safe, figuring any town needing a safe like that must have money to put into it. At the grand opening celebration of the bank, the three men discover the new bank guard is their old pal, Floyd. The three men try to convince Floyd to join them in robbing the bank, after all with a man working inside it should be easy.

    Director: Joseph H. Lewis

    Writer: David Swift

  • The Sister
    8.4/10 203 votes

    #13 - The Sister

    Season 1 Episode 9 - Aired 11/25/1958

    Rebecca Snipe is returning to North Fork after a long visit away. Before her stage left, she over hears a man saying he's going to North Fork to kill a big man with a big mouth. Upon Rebecca's arrival in North Fork, Mark is smitten with her and gets it in his head to play matchmaker between her and his pa. Thinking Lucas has intentions on their sister, the Snipe brothers come looking for Lucas to see if he measures up to their standard of being good enough for her.

    Director: Montgomery Pittman

    Writer: Montgomery Pittman

  • Young Englishman
    8.4/10 193 votes

    #14 - Young Englishman

    Season 1 Episode 12 - Aired 12/16/1958

    Lucas accuses the young foreman of a neighboring ranch of rustling one of his calves.

    Director: David Swift

    Writer: Samuel A. Peeples

  • The Indian
    8.4/10 179 votes

    #15 - The Indian

    Season 1 Episode 21 - Aired 2/17/1959

    U.S. Marshal Sam Buckhart arrives in North Fork in search of renegade Indians suspected of the brutal killing of a Texas Ranger and his family, but the townspeople are suspicious of him when they discover that he too is an Indian.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: Cyril Hume

  • The Second Witness
    8.4/10 157 votes

    #16 - The Second Witness

    Season 1 Episode 23 - Aired 3/30/1959

    Lucas puts his life in jeopardy when he agrees to testify in a murder case where the first witness was killed before he could testify, and the killer is still at large.

    Director: Lewis Allen

    Writer: George W. George

  • The Visitors
    8.4/10 153 votes

    #17 - The Visitors

    Season 2 Episode 18 - Aired 1/26/1960

    Lucas is drawn to a young widow passing through town on her way to claim an inheritance, but others who covet it are trying to kill her.

    Director: Joseph H. Lewis

    Writer: N/A

  • The Fourflusher
    8.4/10 98 votes

    #18 - The Fourflusher

    Season 2 Episode 32 - Aired 5/3/1960

    A sharecropper enters his colt in a horse race, hoping to win enough money to buy his farm from the owner, who has bet on Mark McCain's entry.

    Director: Joseph H. Lewis

    Writer: N/A

  • Woman From Hog Ridge
    8.4/10 136 votes

    #19 - Woman From Hog Ridge

    Season 3 Episode 2 - Aired 10/4/1960

    Lucas shoots a horse thief who turns out to be a member of the Boyle clan, and now Ma Boyle is after him.

    Director: William Claxton

    Writer: N/A

  • Dead Cold Cash
    8.4/10 118 votes

    #20 - Dead Cold Cash

    Season 3 Episode 9 - Aired 11/22/1960

    The widow of a bandit killed by Lucas plots a grotesque revenge.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Face of Yesterday
    8.4/10 157 votes

    #21 - Face of Yesterday

    Season 3 Episode 19 - Aired 1/31/1961

    Lucas thinks he has seen a ghost when a young man, eerily similar to a man he killed in the Civil War, challenges him to a gunfight.

    Director: Joseph H. Lewis

    Writer: N/A

  • The Wyoming Story (2)
    8.4/10 129 votes

    #22 - The Wyoming Story (2)

    Season 3 Episode 21 - Aired 2/14/1961

    Mark heads for Wyoming to search for Lucas, who's on the trail of a gang illegally selling weapons to the Indians. (Part 2 of 2)

    Director: Joseph H. Lewis

    Writer: N/A

  • Closer than a Brother
    8.4/10 136 votes

    #23 - Closer than a Brother

    Season 3 Episode 22 - Aired 2/21/1961

    Lucas looks for answers when recovering alcoholic Micah Torrence returns to the bottle—and turns in his badge.

    Director: Joseph H. Lewis

    Writer: Cyril Hume

  • Sheer Terror
    8.4/10 117 votes

    #24 - Sheer Terror

    Season 4 Episode 3 - Aired 9/16/1961

    Mark and Milly are held prisoner in her general store when two gunmen attempt a daring robbery.

    Director: Joseph H. Lewis

    Writer: N/A

  • The Man from Salinas
    8.4/10 114 votes

    #25 - The Man from Salinas

    Season 4 Episode 20 - Aired 2/12/1962

    Banker Hamilton is closing up for the day when Rudy Gray persuades him to stay open for one more transaction - a withdrawal at gunpoint.

    Director: Lawrence Dobkin

    Writer: N/A