The Best Episodes Written By Frank Spotnitz
Every TV Episode Written by Frank Spotnitz Ranked from Best to Worst by Thousands of Voters
Frank Spotnitz Ratings Summary
The best episode written by Frank Spotnitz is "Justice", rated 9.5/10 from 2 user votes. It was "directed by James Genn". "Justice" aired on 2/16/2019 and is rated 1.2 point(s) higher than their second highest rated, "Dreamland II (2)".
9.5/10 2 votes#1 - Justice
Season 3 Episode 1 - Aired 2/16/2019
Eric and the Crisis Resolution team are brought in to negotiate a blood money payoff when a man is murdered and his wife is threatened to be next.
Director: James Genn
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
8.3/10 31 votes#2 - Dreamland II (2)
Season 6 Episode 5 - Aired 12/6/1998
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.
Director: Michael W. Watkins
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
8.2/10 40 votes#3 - End Game (2)
Season 2 Episode 17 - Aired 2/17/1995
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
8.2/10 31 votes#4 - Dreamland (1)
Season 6 Episode 4 - Aired 11/29/1998
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.
Director: Kim Manners
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
8.2/10 30 votes#5 - One Son (2)
Season 6 Episode 12 - Aired 2/14/1999
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
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
8.2/10 35 votes#6 - 731 (2)
Season 3 Episode 10 - Aired 12/1/1995
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
8.1/10 41 votes#7 - Nisei (1)
Season 3 Episode 9 - Aired 11/24/1995
An investigation into a video of an alien autopsy puts Mulder and Scully in the middle of a conspiracy involving WWII Japanese scientists brought to America to continue their experiments which may shed light on Scully's abduction.
Director: David Nutter
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
8.1/10 34 votes#8 - Field Trip
Season 6 Episode 21 - Aired 5/9/1999
When the bodies of a couple who have been missing for less than a week are discovered to have been reduced to bone, Mulder suggests that recent paranormal phenomena in the area may have caused the accelerated decomposition.
Director: Kim Manners
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
8.0/10 36 votes#9 - Piper Maru (1)
Season 3 Episode 15 - Aired 2/9/1996
A French salvage ship searching for a lost WWII fighter plane unknowingly surfaces an alien which appears in the form of black oil and has the ability to jump hosts. Mulder heads to Hong Kong to investigate the salvage broker who sold the information to the French and he encounters Krycek, who has been selling information from the MJ documents. As Mulder prepares to take Krycek back to the US, the alien makes its way to Hong Kong and takes control of Krycek.
Director: Rob Bowman
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
8.0/10 3 votes#10 - Undercover
Season 2 Episode 5 - Aired 5/5/2018
As Eric negotiates the release of an arms dealer’s son from a kidnapper, he uncovers a larger plot to destroy hundreds of lives. Also, Zara is shaken when she must work with an abusive ex-colleague in order to prevent this terrorist attack.
Director: James Genn
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
8.0/10 36 votes#11 - Tempus Fugit (1)
Season 4 Episode 17 - Aired 3/16/1997
While celebrating Scully's 33rd birthday, a strange woman informs Mulder that NICAP member Max Fenig (see Fallen Angel) has recently died in a plane crash. After a visit to the crash site and finding Max's body with radiation burns on it, Mulder suggests that the plane was intercepted by a UFO and is rapidly being covered up by the military.
Director: Rob Bowman
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
7.9/10 36 votes#12 - Apocrypha (2)
Season 3 Episode 16 - Aired 2/16/1996
Mulder pursues Krycek (unaware of the alien that has taken over his body) to get back the DAT tape containing the MJ documents. Meanwhile, the shooting of A.D. Skinner uncovers evidence that could lead Scully to her sister's murderer.
Director: Kim Manners
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
7.9/10 36 votes#13 - Tunguska (1)
Season 4 Episode 8 - Aired 11/24/1996
Mulder is given a tip about potentially dangerous paramilitary operations on the U.S. soil but during the sting operation is surprised to find out the identity of his mysterious informant - it turns out to be Alex Krycek. Suspicious about his true motives, Mulder reluctantly follows the information provided by Krycek. However, soon he discovers a much bigger conspiracy which takes him to a gulag in Tunguska, Russia where prisoners are being used for experiments involving a substance of alien origin.
Director: Kim Manners
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
7.9/10 31 votes#14 - Two Fathers (1)
Season 6 Episode 11 - Aired 2/7/1999
While the Cigarette-Smoking Man recites to an unseen listener everything about the work of the Syndicate involving a global conspiracy in cooperation with an alien species, Cassandra Spender reappears and is pursued by the scientists who would rather kill her than keep her alive. Cassandra runs to Mulder's apartment and demands that he shoot her because she is the culmination of 50 years work - a living alien/human hybrid - and colonization will begin if the aliens find out about her.
Director: Kim Manners
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
7.8/10 35 votes#15 - Zero Sum
Season 4 Episode 21 - Aired 4/27/1997
After a swarm of bees mysteriously kill a postal worker in an enclosed restroom, Assistant Director Skinner covers it up by destroying the evidence. In order to complete the task he poses as Agent Mulder, however his deception backfires. When Mulder finds out and confronts him, Skinner reveals that he is working for the Cigarette-Smoking Man in order to obtain a possible cure for Scully's cancer.
Director: Kim Manners
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
7.8/10 40 votes#16 - Max (2)
Season 4 Episode 18 - Aired 3/23/1997
Mulder is arrested for investigating the plane crash and interfering with a military operation, while Scully is caught in an attempted assassination of Corporal Frish which claims the life of Agent Pendrell. Scully bails Mulder out of prison, and they go to Max Fenig's trailer to find out why he was on the plane. Mulder finds evidence of alien technology and boards a plane with it, but the plane is intercepted mid-flight and it disappears. Mulder is again left with nothing.
Director: Kim Manners
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
7.8/10 32 votes#17 - The Red and the Black (2)
Season 5 Episode 14 - Aired 3/8/1998
After the gathering at the abduction site where everyone is killed by the rebel bounty hunters, Cassandra Spender disappears and Mulder is blamed by her son, Jeffrey, who is an up-and-coming FBI agent. Meanwhile, the Syndicate is continuing their tests to create a vaccine for the Black Cancer and Marita Covarrubias becomes an unwilling test subject.
Director: Chris Carter
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
7.8/10 39 votes#18 - Leonard Betts
Season 4 Episode 12 - Aired 1/26/1997
After the body of a decapitated EMT disappears from the morgue and an identical man starts work at the same hospital, Mulder believes that the man has the ability to regrow parts of his body, including his head. The agents soon discover that Betts' body is riddled with cancer and he is able to live in that condition but needs to feed on cancerous tumors to keep up his strength.
Director: Kim Manners
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
7.8/10 47 votes#19 - Sunrise
Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 10/23/2015
Juliana and Joe are becoming closer and closer in the neutral Rocky Mountain states. Juliana finds a job in a local cafe and receives information of a mysterious King James bible in a local bookshop. Frank is tortured and interrogateed by the Japanese Occupation Military Police back home to know about Juliana's whereabouts.
Director: Daniel Percival
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
7.8/10 34 votes#20 - Memento Mori
Season 4 Episode 14 - Aired 2/9/1997
Scully's recent failing health is revealed to be an inoperable cancer in her skull, which appears to be common among abductees and she attempts to come to terms with her condition. Meanwhile, Mulder and the Lone Gunmen break into a high-security research lab to find the cure that could save her life.
Director: Rob Bowman
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
7.7/10 52 votes#21 - The New World
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 1/15/2015
Joe Blake, a resistance fighter, leaves German New York with cargo for neutral Colorado. In Japanese San Francisco, Juliana Crane receives footage of the Allies winning the war and a bus ticket to Colorado from her sister. There, she meets Joe. Joe reveals a dark secret.
Director: David Semel
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
7.7/10 26 votes#22 - The Tiger's Cave
Season 2 Episode 1 - Aired 12/16/2016
When Julianna allows Joe to flee from the hands of the Resistance, she is questioned on her loyalty, Obergruppenführer John Smith returns with news on the event that almost led to his death and Trade Minister Tagomi is overwhelmed by the vision of life if the Nazis had failed to win World War 2.
Director: Daniel Percival
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
7.7/10 31 votes#23 - The Pine Bluff Variant
Season 5 Episode 18 - Aired 5/3/1998
Scully fears that Mulder has gone to the other side when she sees him assisting a federal suspect escape custody. In truth he has infiltrated a terrorist group testing a deadly biological weapon that can eat through a person's flesh.
Director: Rob Bowman
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
7.6/10 27 votes#24 - Biogenesis (1)
Season 6 Episode 22 - Aired 5/16/1999
Two scientists confer about each of their metal objects that were found in Africa and they theorize that the objects are pieces of a puzzle which could be undeniable proof that human, plant, and animal life did not originate on this planet. When one of the scientists is killed and the objects are stolen, the agents investigate and Mulder begins to experience severe neurological pain caused by the objects.
Director: Rob Bowman
Writer: Frank Spotnitz
7.6/10 8 votes#25 - The Dome and the Domicile
Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 10/18/2016
The war is throwing Florence into chaos. Piero, Cosimo's only son, is eager to fight. Meanwhile, Cosimo manages to "buy" the withdrawal of Milan's troops, thus saving the city, but in the meantime Florence has again fallen into the plague.
Director: Sergio Mimica-Gezzan
Writer: Frank Spotnitz