The Best Episodes of The Twilight Zone
Every episode of The Twilight Zone ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of The Twilight Zone!
A 2002 revival of Rod Serling's 1950/60s television series, The Twilight Zone, with actor Forest Whitaker assuming Serling's role as narrator and on-screen host.
Top Episode Ratings Summary
The best episode of "The Twilight Zone" is "The Placebo Effect", rated 7.5/10 from 388 user votes. It was directed by Jerry Levine and written by N/A. "The Placebo Effect" aired on 4/2/2003 and is rated 0.1 point(s) higher than the second highest rated, "Cradle of Darkness".
7.5/10 388 votes#1 - The Placebo Effect
Season 1 Episode 34 - Aired 4/2/2003
A hypochondriac with the power to manifest his beliefs into reality poses a danger to the entire world.
Director: Jerry Levine
Writer: N/A
7.4/10 516 votes#2 - Cradle of Darkness
Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 10/2/2002
Hoping to undo the horrors of WWII, a woman, Andre, sacrifices her own future when she goes back in time to stop Adolf Hitler by killing him when he is a baby.
Director: Jean de Segonzac
Writer: Kamran Pasha
7.3/10 380 votes#3 - Memphis
Season 1 Episode 32 - Aired 2/26/2003
A dying man is transported back to the South in 1968 on the day of Martin Luther King's assassination and tries to stop the killing.
Director: Eriq La Salle
Writer: N/A
7.3/10 346 votes#4 - The Pharaoh's Curse
Season 1 Episode 36 - Aired 4/23/2003
A young magician becomes the protégé of an elderly conjurer to learn the secret of an impossible escape - The Pharaoh's Curse.
Director: Bob Balaban
Writer: N/A
7.2/10 391 votes#5 - The Pool Guy
Season 1 Episode 9 - Aired 10/16/2002
A pool cleaner loses the ability to distinguish dreams from reality.
Director: Brad Turner
Writer: N/A
7.2/10 333 votes#6 - The Executions of Grady Finch
Season 1 Episode 40 - Aired 5/7/2003
A prisoner, Grady Finch, who insists on his innocence discovers that he can't be killed. He survives multiple execution attempts and his attorney eventually manages to get him released. Finch is elated, but as he emerges he confesses to his attorney that he was really guilty...and then he is finally killed as a statue of Nemesis, the Goddess of Vengeance, falls on top of him.
Director: N/A
Writer: Ira Steven Behr
7.1/10 481 votes#7 - One Night at Mercy
Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 9/18/2002
A young doctor meets a suicide who claims to be Death incarnate. When Death insists he wants to stop his killing ways, the doctor is forced to contemplate what life would be like without death.
Director: Robert Parrish, Peter O'Fallon
Writer: Christopher Mack, Rod Serling
7.1/10 342 votes#8 - Upgrade
Season 1 Episode 13 - Aired 10/30/2002
Annie fantasizes about her ideal family, a far cry from the dysfunctional group of people she sees everyday. But when her fantasies seemingly become reality, she is horrored to discover she is next on the replacement list.
Director: Joe Chappelle
Writer: Robert Hewitt Wolfe
7.0/10 356 votes#9 - The Collection
Season 1 Episode 37 - Aired 4/23/2003
A babysitter must deal with a girl who has a collection of dolls that come to life.
Director: John T. Kretchmer
Writer: Erin Maher, Kay Reindl
7.0/10 336 votes#10 - Sunrise
Season 1 Episode 42 - Aired 5/21/2003
Several college students are thrust into a virtual nightmare when they discover an Aztec artifact that causes the sun to vanish and the only solution is a human sacrifice.
Director: Tim Matheson
Writer: N/A
6.9/10 430 votes#11 - Night Route
Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 10/2/2002
A young woman's seemingly happy life unravels after a close call with a speeding car. The woman, Melina, begins to forget details of her lfie and how she met her fiance. Worse, she is haunted by strange phenomena: a mysterious bus that follows her and people who know her name that she's never met. Finally her fiance disappears without a trace, leaving her in a desolate life where she knows no one.
Director: Jean de Segonzac
Writer: Jill E. Blotevogel
6.9/10 351 votes#12 - Chosen
Season 1 Episode 15 - Aired 11/6/2002
A man is annoyed by two tenacious people he believes to be evangelists and refuses to listen to their claims that the day is Armageddon, but as it transpires the day is Armageddon, and the "evangelists" are Angels in need of help...
Director: Winrich Kolbe
Writer: Ira Steven Behr
6.9/10 514 votes#13 - It's Still a Good Life
Season 1 Episode 30 - Aired 2/19/2003
In this sequel to the original TZs "It's a Good Life", an adult Anthony Fremont continues to terrorize the town of Peaksville.
Director: Allan Kroeker
Writer: Ira Steven Behr, Jerome Bixby
6.8/10 347 votes#14 - Mr. Motivation
Season 1 Episode 18 - Aired 11/20/2002
A sinister toy doll encourages a timid man to stand up to his boss and take control of his life.
Director: Deran Sarafian
Writer: N/A
6.8/10 352 votes#15 - Sanctuary
Season 1 Episode 19 - Aired 11/20/2002
Stranded in a modern day Garden of Eden, a man and woman cannot resist the temptation of technology.
Director: Patrick R. Norris
Writer: James Crocker
6.8/10 284 votes#16 - Into the Light
Season 1 Episode 29 - Aired 2/12/2003
A teacher on her last few days of teaching high school suddenly starts seeing lights on peoples faces just before they die. When she starts seeing it on most of her students faces, she decides to find out what will happen.
Director: Lou Diamond Phillips
Writer: Moira Kirland
6.8/10 411 votes#17 - The Monsters Are on Maple Street
Season 1 Episode 31 - Aired 2/19/2003
In this remake of the original TZ's "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street", a neighborhood is terrorized by mysterious power outages and begin to turn on each other.
Director: Debbie Allen
Writer: Erin Maher, Kay Reindl
6.7/10 306 votes#18 - Hunted
Season 1 Episode 17 - Aired 11/13/2002
A cop pursues the last known criminal in Earth's future society. But as it turns out, the criminal is fighting on the same side of the cop, to rid the world of androids.
Director: Patrick R. Norris
Writer: Christopher Mack
6.7/10 388 votes#19 - Future Trade
Season 1 Episode 20 - Aired 11/27/2002
A man with a dead-end job and a dysfunctional family is lured into trading his future for that of a seemingly privileged man with his trophy wife.
Director: Bob Balaban
Writer: N/A
6.7/10 332 votes#20 - Gabe's Story
Season 1 Episode 22 - Aired 12/11/2002
A man suffering from consistent bad luck is given a surprising chance to change his destiny.
Director: Allan Kroeker
Writer: Dusty Kay
6.7/10 302 votes#21 - Rewind
Season 1 Episode 27 - Aired 2/5/2003
Jonah, a gambler, never can beat "the house" no matter how hard he tries. But then he gets an interesting device that enables him to go back in time up to 5 minutes, and that means he has big chances for his gambling.
Director: Kevin Bray
Writer: James Crocker
6.6/10 479 votes#22 - Shades of Guilt
Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 9/25/2002
Matt McGreevy is driving when a black man runs up to his car and begs for help. Matt drives away as a gang falls on the man and beat him to death. When he arrives home, Matt first bleeds from the cuts the dead man suffers, then his skin changes. By the time he gets back home he has transformed into the dead man, a college professor...
Director: Perry Lang
Writer: Ira Steven Behr
6.6/10 280 votes#23 - Homecoming
Season 1 Episode 41 - Aired 5/7/2003
A teenager has a brief reunion with his father, returned from the war.
Director: Risa Bramon Garcia
Writer: Michael Angeli
6.5/10 353 votes#24 - Time Lapse
Season 1 Episode 7 - Aired 10/9/2002
After an unconscious high-security patient arrives in his ward, Doctor Zack Taylor finds himself suffering from blackouts. On each occasion he wakes up partway along a byzantine assassination plot to kill the President's daughter with a plastic gun. He gets to the target's location, pulls out his gun, and...shoots an assassin behind the girl...
Director: John T. Kretchmer
Writer: James Crocker
6.5/10 364 votes#25 - Dead Man's Eyes
Season 1 Episode 8 - Aired 10/9/2002
A distraught widow and former rehab patient on the verge of a total mental collapse, heavily invested in finding her husband's killer, discovers that her murdered husband's eyeglasses reveal the last moments of his life and possibly the identity of his killer...
Director: Jerry Levine
Writer: N/A