The Best Episodes of The Twilight Zone Season 1
Every episode of The Twilight Zone Season 1 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of The Twilight Zone Season 1!
A series of unrelated stories containing drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, and/or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist.
Season 1 Ratings Summary
The best episode of "The Twilight Zone" season 1 is "Where Is Everybody?", rated 7.9/10 from 7448 user votes. It was directed by Robert Stevens and written by Rod Serling. "Where Is Everybody?" aired on 10/2/1959 and is rated 0.3 point(s) higher than the second highest rated, "One for the Angels".
7.9/10 7,448 votes#1 - Where Is Everybody?
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 10/2/1959
Mike Ferris finds himself in a town strangely devoid of people. But despite the emptiness, he has the odd feeling that he's being watched...
Director: Robert Stevens
Writer: Rod Serling
7.6/10 6,323 votes#2 - One for the Angels
Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 10/9/1959
A street salesman cleverly eludes Death. But if he lives, a little girl must die in his place.
Director: Robert Parrish
Writer: Rod Serling
7.1/10 5,376 votes#3 - Mr. Denton on Doomsday
Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 10/16/1959
A has-been, drunk gunslinger finds his fast-draw abilities magically restored.
Director: Allen Reisner
Writer: Rod Serling
6.8/10 5,210 votes#4 - The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine
Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 10/23/1959
An aging, former movie star lives and dreams in the past, constantly watching her old movies alone in her room.
Director: Mitchell Leisen
Writer: Rod Serling
8.2/10 6,319 votes#5 - Walking Distance
Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 10/30/1959
A stressed advertising executive, driving through the country, leaves his car and starts to walk toward his hometown, Homewood. He finds things exactly as they were when he was a child.
Director: Robert Stevens
Writer: Rod Serling
7.3/10 4,837 votes#6 - Escape Clause
Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 11/6/1959
A hypochondriac exchanges his soul for immortality and indestructibility.
Director: Mitchell Leisen
Writer: Rod Serling
8.1/10 5,596 votes#7 - The Lonely
Season 1 Episode 7 - Aired 11/13/1959
In 2046, imprisoned for murder on a distant asteroid, Corry receives an unexpected present that brings a semblance of companionship during his isolation.
Director: Jack Smight
Writer: Rod Serling
8.9/10 8,078 votes#8 - Time Enough at Last
Season 1 Episode 8 - Aired 11/20/1959
A bank teller, obsessed with reading, faces conflicts at work and home because of his passion for literature.
Director: John Brahm
Writer: Rod Serling
7.4/10 4,697 votes#9 - Perchance to Dream
Season 1 Episode 9 - Aired 11/27/1959
A man with a heart condition explains to his psychiatrist that he feels extremely tired, because he is terrified of falling asleep for fear he might die.
Director: Robert Florey
Writer: Charles Beaumont
7.3/10 4,303 votes#10 - Judgment Night
Season 1 Episode 10 - Aired 12/4/1959
In 1942, a German wonders why he's on the deck of a British steamship, with no memory of how he got there.
Director: John Brahm
Writer: Rod Serling
8.3/10 5,230 votes#11 - And When the Sky Was Opened
Season 1 Episode 11 - Aired 12/11/1959
Recovering in the hospital after a space mission, Major William Gart is visited by his co-pilot Lieutenant Colonel Clegg Forbes, who insists on the existence of a third astronaut.
Director: Douglas Heyes
Writer: Rod Serling, Richard Matheson
8.0/10 4,536 votes#12 - What You Need
Season 1 Episode 12 - Aired 12/25/1959
A two-bit thug thinks he's found the key to a better life in an old sidewalk salesman who has the uncanny ability to tell people what they need the most.
Director: Alvin Ganzer
Writer: Rod Serling, Lewis Padgett
7.1/10 4,001 votes#13 - The Four of Us Are Dying
Season 1 Episode 13 - Aired 1/1/1960
In this noirish tale, a man with the ability to change his face to resemble others gets into hot water with gangsters.
Director: John Brahm
Writer: George Clayton Johnson, Rod Serling
8.1/10 4,669 votes#14 - Third from the Sun
Season 1 Episode 14 - Aired 1/8/1960
With all-out nuclear war about to ignite, a scientist and his pilot friend plot to escape on an experimental spaceship.
Director: Richard L. Bare
Writer: Rod Serling, Richard Matheson
7.6/10 4,180 votes#15 - I Shot an Arrow into the Air
Season 1 Episode 15 - Aired 1/15/1960
Three astronauts crash-land on an unknown planet and must confront survival challenges, unraveling their unity in the face of desperation.
Director: Stuart Rosenberg
Writer: Rod Serling, Madelon Champion
8.2/10 5,439 votes#16 - The Hitch-Hiker
Season 1 Episode 16 - Aired 1/22/1960
Alone on a cross-country trip, a woman continually encounters the same mysterious hitch-hiker who inexplicably reappears at various points in her journey.
Director: Alvin Ganzer
Writer: Rod Serling, Lucille Fletcher
6.6/10 3,973 votes#17 - The Fever
Season 1 Episode 17 - Aired 1/29/1960
Tight fisted Franklin Gibbs is not pleased when his wife wins a trip for two to Las Vegas. But things change when he falls under the spell of a slot machine that calls his name.
Director: Robert Florey
Writer: Rod Serling
8.0/10 4,245 votes#18 - The Last Flight
Season 1 Episode 18 - Aired 2/5/1960
A World War I flying ace flies through a mysterious cloud - and lands at a modern U.S. air base in the year 1959!
Director: William Claxton
Writer: Richard Matheson
7.3/10 3,614 votes#19 - The Purple Testament
Season 1 Episode 19 - Aired 2/12/1960
Lieutenant Fitzgerald, serving in World War II, possesses the disquieting ability to foresee impending death by observing a strange glow on the faces of his men before battle.
Director: Richard L. Bare
Writer: Rod Serling
7.5/10 3,789 votes#20 - Elegy
Season 1 Episode 20 - Aired 2/19/1960
Three astronauts land on what looks like Earth 200 years before they left--only all of the people seem frozen in time.
Director: Douglas Heyes
Writer: Charles Beaumont
7.9/10 4,493 votes#21 - Mirror Image
Season 1 Episode 21 - Aired 2/26/1960
In a bus depot, Millicent Barnes experiences odd events, leading to concerns about her sanity.
Director: John Brahm
Writer: Rod Serling
8.9/10 6,410 votes#22 - The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street
Season 1 Episode 22 - Aired 3/4/1960
Paranoia strikes the residents of Maple Street when they believe human-looking aliens have invaded the neighborhood.
Director: Ron Winston
Writer: Rod Serling
7.6/10 3,785 votes#23 - A World of Difference
Season 1 Episode 23 - Aired 3/11/1960
Arthur Curtis, a successful businessman sitting in his office discovers that he is on a film set and everyone refers to him as Gerry Reagan, a movie star struggling with alcoholism and a declining career.
Director: Ted Post
Writer: Richard Matheson
8.1/10 4,007 votes#24 - Long Live Walter Jameson
Season 1 Episode 24 - Aired 3/18/1960
Walter Jameson, a popular history professor, is suspected by his fiancée's father, another professor at the college, to be an immortal.
Director: Anton Leader
Writer: Charles Beaumont
8.1/10 4,126 votes#25 - People Are Alike All Over
Season 1 Episode 25 - Aired 3/25/1960
After a space exploration crash-lands on Mars, the lone surviving astronaut is surprised to find that Martians are human-looking and friendly.
Director: Mitchell Leisen
Writer: Paul W. Fairman, Rod Serling