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The Best Episodes of The X-Files Season 1

Every episode of The X-Files Season 1 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of The X-Files Season 1!

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...
Genres:CrimeDramaMysterySci-Fi & Fantasy
Network:FOX

Season 1 Ratings Summary

"Pilot" is the best rated episode of "The X-Files" season 1. It scored 8.2/10 based on 13210 votes. Directed by Robert Mandel and written by Chris Carter, it aired on 9/10/1993. This episode is rated 0.2 points higher than the second-best, "Deep Throat".

  • Pilot
    8.2/1013,210 votes

    #1 - Pilot

    Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 9/10/1993

    The agents' first case takes them to Oregon to investigate the unsolved murders of several high-school classmates.

    Director: Robert Mandel

    Writer: Chris Carter

  • Deep Throat
    8.0/108,373 votes

    #2 - Deep Throat

    Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 9/17/1993

    Mulder and Scully head to Ellens Air Force Base to investigate the mysterious case of a military test pilot who disappeared after experiencing strange psychotic behavior. While on the case, Mulder meets a mysterious man dubbed 'Deep Throat' who claims to have classified information about his investigations into the paranormal.

    Director: Daniel Sackheim

    Writer: Chris Carter

  • Squeeze
    8.5/108,895 votes

    #3 - Squeeze

    Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 9/24/1993

    Mulder and Scully search for a humanoid killer whose savage murder spree reoccurs every thirty years.

    Director: Harry Longstreet

    Writer: James Wong, Glen Morgan

  • Conduit
    7.5/107,268 votes

    #4 - Conduit

    Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 10/1/1993

    As Section Chief Blevins expresses his concern with the direction of the X-Files, Mulder becomes obsessed with solving a case that closely parallels an encounter he experienced as a child: the abduction of his kid sister, Samantha.

    Director: Daniel Sackheim

    Writer: Howard Gordon, Alex Gansa

  • The Jersey Devil
    6.9/107,287 votes

    #5 - The Jersey Devil

    Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 10/8/1993

    Mulder and Scully track a legendary creature that has roamed the New Jersey countryside for over forty years.

    Director: Joe Napolitano

    Writer: Chris Carter

  • Shadows
    7.2/106,803 votes

    #6 - Shadows

    Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 10/22/1993

    Mulder and Scully investigate the deaths of two men believed to have been killed by a powerful psychokinetic force.

    Director: Michael Katleman

    Writer: Glen Morgan, James Wong

  • Ghost in the Machine
    6.7/106,748 votes

    #7 - Ghost in the Machine

    Season 1 Episode 7 - Aired 10/29/1993

    It's Halloween, and Mulder and Scully are investigating the strange death of a corporate executive in a sophisticated high-tech building.

    Director: Jerrold Freedman

    Writer: Howard Gordon, Alex Gansa

  • Ice
    8.7/108,607 votes

    #8 - Ice

    Season 1 Episode 8 - Aired 11/5/1993

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

    Director: David Nutter

    Writer: James Wong, Glen Morgan

  • Space
    6.2/106,653 votes

    #9 - Space

    Season 1 Episode 9 - Aired 11/12/1993

    Mulder and Scully are contacted by a communications specialist from NASA who shows them evidence of sabotage in the space programme.

    Director: William A. Graham

    Writer: Chris Carter

  • Fallen Angel
    7.8/106,568 votes

    #10 - Fallen Angel

    Season 1 Episode 10 - Aired 11/19/1993

    Mulder puts the future of the X-Files in jeopardy when he heads to a UFO crash site being rapidly covered up by the military. He is arrested, and while in jail he meets Max Fenig, a UFO nut whose NICAP group has followed Mulder's work on the X-Files. When Mulder is released, Scully urges him to return to Washington to face his superiors and try to save his job, but Mulder finds out that Max is more than meets the eye and ignores Scully to try and save him instead.

    Director: Larry Shaw

    Writer: Howard Gordon, Alex Gansa

  • Eve
    8.1/106,925 votes

    #11 - Eve

    Season 1 Episode 11 - Aired 12/10/1993

    When two fathers on opposite sides of the country are inexplicably murdered at the exact same time in the exact same way, Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate. When they discover that the two fathers' eight-year-old daughters are identical twins, they realize that something even stranger is going on.

    Director: Fred Gerber

    Writer: Kenneth Biller, Chris Brancato

  • Fire
    7.3/106,449 votes

    #12 - Fire

    Season 1 Episode 12 - Aired 12/17/1993

    An old Oxford girlfriend of Mulder's asks for his help on an international case concerning the unexplainable execution of several British dignitaries, and they encounter an assassin who can produce fire from his bare hands.

    Director: Larry Shaw

    Writer: Chris Carter

  • Beyond the Sea
    8.6/107,552 votes

    #13 - Beyond the Sea

    Season 1 Episode 13 - Aired 1/7/1994

    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

    Writer: James Wong, Glen Morgan

  • Gender Bender
    7.3/106,244 votes

    #14 - Gender Bender

    Season 1 Episode 14 - Aired 1/21/1994

    A series of sexually-oriented murders, which are identical except that the killer appears to be both male and female, draws Scully and Mulder to an Amish-type community of people called the Kindred.

    Director: Rob Bowman

    Writer: Larry Barber, Paul Barber

  • Lazarus
    7.0/105,683 votes

    #15 - Lazarus

    Season 1 Episode 15 - Aired 2/4/1994

    When FBI Agent Jack Willis and bank robber Warren Dupre are both shot at the same time during a robbery attempt, Dupre dies when Willis is brought back to life. When Willis rushes out of the hospital and begins acting strangely, Mulder concludes that Dupre has come back to life in Willis' body.

    Director: David Nutter

    Writer: Howard Gordon, Alex Gansa

  • Young at Heart
    7.2/105,594 votes

    #16 - Young at Heart

    Season 1 Episode 16 - Aired 2/11/1994

    Mulder becomes the target of someone from his past named John Barnett. He was a jewelry store robber with an itchy trigger finger that Mulder sent to prison when he first joined the Bureau. The only problem is that Barnett died four years ago.

    Director: Michael Lange

    Writer: Chris Carter, Scott Kaufer

  • E.B.E.
    8.4/106,192 votes

    #17 - E.B.E.

    Season 1 Episode 17 - Aired 2/18/1994

    Mulder and Scully receive information from Deep Throat about a UFO that was shot down over Iraq and has been secretly transported to the US. However, Deep Throat then intentionally misleads the agents to prevent them from discovering the truth.

    Director: William A. Graham

    Writer: James Wong, Glen Morgan

  • Miracle Man
    7.1/105,544 votes

    #18 - Miracle Man

    Season 1 Episode 18 - Aired 3/18/1994

    A young man who has the power to heal people with his touch begins to question his gift when people start dying after he has supposedly healed them.

    Director: Michael Lange

    Writer: Chris Carter, Howard Gordon

  • Shapes
    7.0/105,650 votes

    #19 - Shapes

    Season 1 Episode 19 - Aired 4/1/1994

    Mulder and Scully travel to a Native American reservation to investigate the death of a man who was mistaken for a wild animal and may have been the legendary Manitou, a man who can shape-shift into a beast.

    Director: David Nutter

    Writer: Marilyn Osborn

  • Darkness Falls
    8.4/106,660 votes

    #20 - Darkness Falls

    Season 1 Episode 20 - Aired 4/15/1994

    When a group of loggers in the Washington State National Forest disappear in the same way that another group disappeared 50 years ago, Mulder and Scully go along to investigate and find themselves trapped in a cabin surrounded by flesh eating insects that only attack at night.

    Director: Joe Napolitano

    Writer: Chris Carter

  • Tooms
    8.3/106,277 votes

    #21 - Tooms

    Season 1 Episode 21 - Aired 4/22/1994

    Eugene Tooms is released from the sanitarium, and Mulder becomes personally involved to ensure that he is caught in the act of getting the last human liver he needs to go into hibernation for another 30 years.

    Director: David Nutter

    Writer: James Wong, Glen Morgan

  • Born Again
    7.1/105,322 votes

    #22 - Born Again

    Season 1 Episode 22 - Aired 4/29/1994

    After a detective and his former partner die in unexplained circumstances, the accidents are linked to a little girl who witnessed both deaths. Mulder believes that she may be the reincarnation of a policeman murdered by his colleagues.

    Director: Jerrold Freedman

    Writer: Howard Gordon, Alex Gansa

  • Roland
    7.2/105,330 votes

    #23 - Roland

    Season 1 Episode 23 - Aired 5/6/1994

    Mulder and Scully investigate the death of a scientist working on advanced propulsion technology. The mentally challenged janitor Roland, who has secretly been completing the scientist's work, is the prime suspect.

    Director: David Nutter

    Writer: Chris Ruppenthal

  • The Erlenmeyer Flask
    8.9/106,394 votes

    #24 - The Erlenmeyer Flask

    Season 1 Episode 24 - Aired 5/13/1994

    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