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The Best Episodes of The X-Files

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

Binge this in 6d 20h•Peaking at 9.2/10

The exploits of FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully who investigate X-Files: marginalized, unsolved cases involving paranormal phenomena. Mulder believes in the existence of aliens and the paranormal while Scully, a skeptic, is

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Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Fan Favorite
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    The X-Files Season 3 Episode 4 - Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose
    9.2/10(8970 votes)

    S3:E4

    In the midst of a psychic sideshow while on a murder case, Mulder and Scully enlist the help of a man who may have a true psychic ability to foresee how people will die to help the agents catch a man killing fortune tellers.

    Director:David Nutter
    Writer:Darin Morgan

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  2. The X-Files Season 5 Episode 12 - Bad Blood
    9.2/10(7943 votes)

    S5:E12

    After Mulder chases down and kills a young man who he believes to be a vampire, the agents return to DC aware of the mistake they just made. Faced with a lawsuit from the family of the man, they recount each of their sides to the story leading up to the event. In the extremely humorous stories that follow we see how Scully and Mulder both perceive each other.

    Director:Cliff Bole
    Writer:Vince Gilligan

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  3. The X-Files Season 2 Episode 25 - Anasazi (1)
    9.1/10(6587 votes)

    S2:E25

    Mulder receives an encrypted computer disk containing the defense department's top secret files on extraterrestrial life and becomes a target. Scully takes him to a Navajo family that unearthed a buried secret to decipher the disk.

    Director:R. W. Goodwin
    Writers:Chris Carter, David Duchovny

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  4. The X-Files Season 3 Episode 2 - Paper Clip (3)
    9.0/10(6347 votes)

    S3:E2

    A.D. Skinner and Scully are at a standoff when Mulder bursts in and discovers that Skinner has the digital tape. Reunited, Mulder and Scully travel to a secret vault inside a mine and find an elaborate filing system of medical records which reveals that Mulder's sister may not have been the first choice for abduction. Meanwhile, Skinner deals with the Cigarette-Smoking Man for their safety.

    Director:Rob Bowman
    Writer:Chris Carter

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  5. The X-Files Season 4 Episode 7 - Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man
    9.0/10(6758 votes)

    S4:E7

    The Lone Gunmen reveal the (possibly fake) secret history of the Cigarette Smoking Man to Mulder and Scully; from a young captain in the U.S. Army recruited to assassinate President Kennedy, to becoming the mysterious man in the shadows at the height of a global conspiracy.

    Directors:James Wong, Glen Morgan
    Writers:James Wong, Glen Morgan

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  6. The X-Files Season 5 Episode 2 - Redux II (3)
    9.0/10(5178 votes)

    S5:E2

    The Cigarette-Smoking Man helps Mulder to obtain Scully's cure and also lets him see his real sister who doesn't turn out to be as happy to see Mulder as he would've liked. In return for this, the Cigarette-Smoking Man asks that Mulder quit the FBI and work for him in the Syndicate where he could have power and respect which Mulder turns down, deciding to stay on the side of justice. While Scully's cure appears to have worked, the Cigarette-Smoking Man faces his own enemies and disappears, presumed dead.

    Director:Kim Manners
    Writer:Chris Carter

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    The 20 WORST Episodes of The X-Files

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  7. The X-Files Season 1 Episode 24 - The Erlenmeyer Flask
    8.9/10(7469 votes)

    S1:E24

    When Deep Throat points out a news story about a fugitive who apparently drowned, Mulder and Scully cannot see what makes the case special but follow it up anyway. With Deep Throat's insistence, they discover evidence of a secret government project code-named Purity Control, which uses human test subjects and infects them with extraterrestrial DNA. However, the evidence and everyone who has seen it is quickly being eliminated.

    Director:R. W. Goodwin
    Writer:Chris Carter

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  8. The X-Files Season 4 Episode 20 - Small Potatoes
    8.9/10(6207 votes)

    S4:E20

    Five babies in the same town are all born with tails and the local OB-GYN is blamed for tampering with fertilized eggs. However, Mulder discovers the culprit to be a simple man with a genetic deformity who may have the ability to alter his appearance.

    Director:Cliff Bole
    Writer:Vince Gilligan

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  9. The X-Files Season 6 Episode 4 - Dreamland (1)
    8.9/10(5431 votes)

    S6:E4

    While being detained near the famed "Dreamland" Area 51, a strange craft flies overhead and Mulder swaps bodies with an Area 51 "Man-in-Black". While the other agent has fun in Mulder's body, Mulder himself finds it difficult to fit into someone else's life, especially a shadowy one. Mulder contacts Scully about the body swap and tries to get her the flight data recorder from the UFO test flight, but his alter ego uses Mulder's FBI persona to have him arrested.

    Directors:Kim Manners, Michael W. Watkins
    Writers:John Shiban, Frank Spotnitz, Vince Gilligan

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  10. The X-Files Season 3 Episode 20 - Jose Chung's "From Outer Space"
    8.8/10(7848 votes)

    S3:E20

    An alien abduction of two teenagers with endless versions of the same story prompts a science-fiction novelist to write a book about the incident; however, nobody involved with the investigation can tell him the full story with any accuracy.

    Director:Rob Bowman
    Writer:Darin Morgan

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  11. The X-Files Season 4 Episode 2 - Home
    8.8/10(7908 votes)

    S4:E2

    A baby is found buried alive in shallow ground and appears to have birth defects resulting from generations of inbreeding, leading Mulder and Scully to a reclusive family who have a history of inbred children.

    Director:Kim Manners
    Writers:James Wong, Glen Morgan

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  12. The X-Files Season 5 Episode 20 - The End
    8.8/10(4553 votes)

    S5:E20

    The Cigarette-Smoking Man returns as Mulder investigates the attempted assassination of a young boy with psychic powers who may be the proof that he has looked for all his life.

    Director:R. W. Goodwin
    Writer:Chris Carter

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  13. The X-Files Season 6 Episode 5 - Dreamland II (2)
    8.8/10(5108 votes)

    S6:E5

    Mulder is thrown in jail at the Area 51 compound but is released when it is discovered that the flight data recorder he stole was a fake. Scully comes to her senses and realizes that the Mulder she sees isn't who he really is and heads back to Nevada to help the real Mulder. Meanwhile, the mechanism that caused the body swap is rapidly snapping back, undoing everything in its wake, and Mulder and his alter ego must race to put themselves back where they belong.

    Directors:Kim Manners, Michael W. Watkins
    Writers:John Shiban, Frank Spotnitz, Vince Gilligan

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  14. The X-Files Season 6 Episode 12 - One Son (2)
    8.8/10(4384 votes)

    S6:E12

    The Cigarette-Smoking Man reveals all the government secrets from the past 50 years in order for his son, Jeffery Spender, to join him in his work. Mulder learns that the final stage of the conspiracy will soon begin with the hybridization of the Syndicate members, and he must stop it from happening. Agent Spender deceives his father and arranges for Mulder and Scully to be reassigned to the X-Files, which doesn't sit too well with the Cigarette-Smoking Man.

    Director:Rob Bowman
    Writers:Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz

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  15. The X-Files Season 1 Episode 8 - Ice
    8.7/10(10197 votes)

    S1:E8

    In the claustrophobic isolation of a remote outpost in Alaska, Mulder and Scully investigate the horrifying deaths of scientists.

    Director:David Nutter
    Writers:James Wong, Glen Morgan

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  16. The X-Files Season 2 Episode 16 - Colony (1)
    8.7/10(6235 votes)

    S2:E16

    After the obituaries of four identical men are e-mailed to Mulder, the agents are contacted by a shadowy CIA agent who tells them about a bounty hunter sent to wipe out the beginning of a colony of clones. Meanwhile Mulder is distracted by the sudden reappearance of his sister Samantha.

    Director:Nick Marck
    Writers:Chris Carter, David Duchovny

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  17. The X-Files Season 2 Episode 17 - End Game (2)
    8.7/10(6086 votes)

    S2:E17

    The alien bounty hunter kidnaps Scully and wants to trade her for Mulder's sister, who is revealed to be a clone herself. After the trade goes badly and Mulder discovers the truth about Samantha, he tracks the bounty hunter to his ship buried in the arctic ice and demands the whereabouts of his real sister.

    Director:Rob Bowman
    Writer:Frank Spotnitz

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  18. The X-Files Season 3 Episode 10 - 731 (2)
    8.7/10(5593 votes)

    S3:E10

    Mulder is trapped inside a train car which contains a suspected alien-human hybrid and also a bomb, while Scully pursues the truth about her abduction and the mystery behind the implant in her neck.

    Director:Rob Bowman
    Writer:Frank Spotnitz

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  19. The X-Files Season 4 Episode 10 - Paper Hearts
    8.7/10(5651 votes)

    S4:E10

    Mulder's dreams help him in finding the body of a little girl which reopens one of his old cases in the Violent Crimes Unit. This leads him to believe that the killer he captured had more victims and that Mulder's sister Samantha may have been one of them.

    Director:Rob Bowman
    Writer:Vince Gilligan

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  20. The X-Files Season 6 Episode 14 - Monday
    8.7/10(5377 votes)

    S6:E14

    A woman is forced to relive the same day over and over as she tries to prevent Mulder and Scully from being killed by her boyfriend during a bank robbery attempt. As the events restart again and again, Mulder's sense of Deja-vu grows stronger.

    Director:Kim Manners
    Writers:John Shiban, Vince Gilligan

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  21. The X-Files Season 8 Episode 21 - Existence (2)
    8.7/10(3663 votes)

    S8:E21

    Mulder, Doggett and Skinner attempt to fight off the alien replicants, and they find a connection to the conspiracy that leads into the FBI while Reyes and Scully head to a remote farm to safeguard the birth of Scully's child.

    Director:Kim Manners
    Writer:Chris Carter

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  22. The X-Files Season 1 Episode 13 - Beyond the Sea
    8.6/10(8930 votes)

    S1:E13

    When death row inmate Luther Lee Boggs claims to be psychic and can lead Mulder to a serial killer in return for a lesser sentence of life in prison, Scully becomes an unwilling believer when Boggs tells her that she can communicate through him with her recently deceased father.

    Director:David Nutter
    Writers:James Wong, Glen Morgan

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  23. The X-Files Season 2 Episode 5 - Duane Barry (1)
    8.6/10(6891 votes)

    S2:E5

    Mulder is called to a hostage situation involving Duane Barry, a former FBI Agent who claims to be an alien abductee and wants to get back to the abduction site with someone who will be taken instead of him. Unfortunately, the someone he eventually chooses is Scully.

    Director:Chris Carter
    Writer:Chris Carter

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  24. The X-Files Season 2 Episode 6 - Ascension (2)
    8.6/10(6580 votes)

    S2:E6

    When Mulder finds out that Scully was kidnapped by Duane Barry, he risks the wrath of his superiors and the annoyance of Agent Krycek in order to do whatever it takes to find her. Meanwhile, Krycek is found to be reporting Mulder's activities to the Cigarette-Smoking Man.

    Director:Michael Lange
    Writer:Paul Brown

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  25. The X-Files Season 3 Episode 1 - The Blessing Way (2)
    8.6/10(5973 votes)

    S3:E1

    Scully finds her career with the FBI in jeopardy as Mulder is still missing and the Cigarette Smoking Man is pursuing the stolen files. The Navajo elders find Mulder's body in a cave and perform an ancient ceremony to call the spirit back to the empty vessel.

    Director:R. W. Goodwin
    Writer:Chris Carter

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Best Episodes Summary

"Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" is the best rated episode of "The X-Files". It scored 9.2/10 based on 8970 votes. Directed by David Nutter and written by Darin Morgan, it aired on 10/13/1995. This episode scored 0.0 points higher than the second highest rated, "Bad Blood".