100 best 'Twilight Zone' episodes of all time

- IMDb user rating: 7.0
- IMDb user votes: 2,400
- Director: Richard L. Bare
- Season 2, Episode 21
- Air date: March 24, 1961

A small-time gambler discovers that his partner in crime has telekinetic powers after a car overturns outside their café and his partner moves the car without touching it. He uses his friend's power to win a handful of jackpots in Las Vegas, overworking him until these powers run out. The loss awakens the gambler to the reality of what he has become, and he and his friend have a good laugh over their misfortune. The episode ends with the telekinetic moving a broom with his mind, revealing he faked his loss of power to snap his gambling friend out of his greed.

The car crash scene from the beginning of the episode uses footage from the 1958 film "Thunder Road."

- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- IMDb user votes: 2,200
- Director: Montgomery Pittman
- Season 3, Episode 23
- Air date: Feb. 23, 1962

A man returns to life at his funeral, causing the townspeople to fear him. Although he seems normal enough, he has changed—and he appears stronger, too. After an angry mob attacks him and later disperses, the reborn man lights a pipe with a lit match he produces out of thin air. When asked how he did it, the man gaslights his girlfriend. It's here that viewers realize he may indeed be possessed by the spirit of someone else.

James Best, known for his role as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in "The Dukes of Hazzard," stars as Jeff.

- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- IMDb user votes: 2,400
- Director: William F. Claxton, James Sheldon
- Season 3, Episode 35
- Air date: May 18, 1962

The widowed father of three children takes his kids to a factory that makes robots, in the hopes that he can find a replacement grandmother to help him take care of the children. When the kids grow old enough, she will be forced to return to the factory where she will be sent to take care of another family. After repeating this process, she will be rewarded with the gift of life and humanity. At the end of the episode, the kids say their farewells, and grandma leaves the house for good.

The script was written by Ray Bradbury and became the basis for his 1969 short story of the same name.

- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- IMDb user votes: 2,600
- Director: Buzz Kulik
- Season 2, Episode 9
- Air date: Dec. 9, 1960

An aging Broadway actor watches in contempt as his younger wife flirts with a gigolo. Yearning for his deceased first wife and pressured by his peers, he suddenly finds himself transported back 30 years to the early days of his career where he is reunited with his first wife Laura. She and her friend mock her husband-to-be and treat him like they don't know who he is, and he eventually leaves and travels back to the present. There, he sees that ghosts from his past were not mocking him but had actually staged a performance in order to break him free from his paralyzing nostalgia.

Academy Award-winning director Sydney Pollack stars in the episode.

- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- IMDb user votes: 2,700
- Director: Jack Smight
- Season 2, Episode 8
- Air date: Dec. 2, 1960

Jana, the sensitive daughter of a creative genius, Dr. William Loren, is distraught over her parents' reliance on her father's five robotic servants. Later, when examining a family photo album, Jana comes to the shocking conclusion that she is a robot herself. Dr. Loren eventually erases Jana's identity and memory and now uses her as a replacement for the maid known as Nelda, who gave Mrs. Loren daily shoulder massages.

Rod Sterling, the show's host, wrote the episode.

- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- IMDb user votes: 3,700
- Director: John Brahm
- Season 1, Episode 13
- Air date: Jan. 1, 1960

A con man can change his face to look like anyone. At first, he chooses to impersonate a deceased musician to steal his grieving girlfriend. Then, he takes on the guise of a murdered gangster in an attempt to extort money from the gangster's killer, only to be hunted down. While on the run, he assumes the identity of a famous boxer. Soon after, he runs into the boxer's father, who shoots and kills him for breaking his mother's heart. As he dies his face takes various forms, before finally settling back to his real face.

This was the first episode that Rod Serling nixes his usual closing phrase "in the Twilight Zone."

- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- IMDb user votes: 5,000
- Director: Allen Reisner
- Season 1, Episode 3
- Air date: Oct. 16, 1959

A man, riddled with increasing guilt over the killing of a teen boy while dueling, becomes an alcoholic and a joke to the community. A mysterious salesman causes him to mysteriously regain his expert shooting talent. He once again inspires the respect of the townsfolk, but becomes a target of reputation-hungry gunslingers. When he finally meets his next opponent, each man shoots the other in the hand, causing injuries, which are minor but forever ruins both men's ability to pull a trigger.

This was the first episode of "The Twilight Zone" to be rerun.

- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- IMDb user votes: 1,700
- Director: David Lowell Rich
- Season 4, Episode 14
- Air date: April 11, 1963

An older, wealthy businessman who is bored with his life gives most of his money to the devil in exchange for going back to his youth and living out the process of making it all over again. His second attempt at getting rich doesn't work out, and he ends up selling what he has to go back to the present, where he becomes a janitor.

Julie Newmar, known for her role as the original "Catwoman" to Adam West's "Batman" in several films, plays the devil.

- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- IMDb user votes: 1,900
- Director: Perry Lafferty
- Season 4, Episode 2
- Air date: Jan. 10, 1963

The crew of a U.S. Navy destroyer hears a mysterious metallic noise coming from a sunken submarine. The destroyer's commander orders the ship's diver to investigate and discovers a definite hammering coming from inside the sub. At this mystery, one of the destroyer's inhabitants begins to react strangely, hinting that he may have a connection to not only the mysterious noise, but the submarine itself.

Bill Bixby, who is known for his role in CBS' "The Incredible Hulk" series, is featured in the episode.

- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- IMDb user votes: 2,300
- Director: Buzz Kulik
- Season 3, Episode 15
- Air date: Dec. 29, 1961

An eager lieutenant who has never before seen battle orders his men to attack Japanese soldiers in a cave on the last day of World War II. Just before the attack, he is transported back three years in time and becomes a Japanese lieutenant who receives similar instructions to attack a group of American soldiers in a cave. From the experience, the lieutenant learns of the futility of war.

The title is based on a quote from Shakespeare's play "The Merchant of Venice."

- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- IMDb user votes: 2,500
- Director: Boris Sagal
- Season 3, Episode 2
- Air date: Sept. 22, 1961

A 22-year-old inspector is sent to uncover a mystery after a plane lands with no passengers or crew inside. Slowly, he and the airport staff who are assisting him begin to hallucinate—one thinks the plane's seats are blue while another remembers them being red. When the inspector conducts a test to figure out if the plane is real, he turns around to find himself alone, both his helpers and the plane vanishing from his sight.

Bing Russell, father of actor Kurt Russell, is featured in the episode.

- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- IMDb user votes: 2,500
- Director: Norman Z. McLeod
- Season 3, Episode 13
- Air date: Dec. 15, 1961

A janitor uses his scientist boss' time helmet to go from 1890 to 1960, expecting life to be better. When he finds out it might actually be worse, he decides to go back. A friend he met in 1960 goes with him but then decides that 1890s life isn't right for him.

Buster Keaton, known best for his iconic silent films with slapstick comedy, plays the janitor.

- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- IMDb user votes: 3,000
- Director: Don Medford
- Season 1, Episode 32
- Air date: May 20, 1960

An unemployed trumpet player sells his beloved instrument at a pawn shop before stepping into traffic and getting hit by a truck. When he awakens, he realizes that nobody can see or hear him and assumes that he is dead. After being given the chance to resume living by the archangel Gabriel, he gets his trumpet back courtesy of the driver who almost took his life.

This is the first of five episodes of "The Twilight Zone" that filmmaker Don Medford would go on to direct.

- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- IMDb user votes: 3,100
- Director: David Orrick McDearmon
- Season 1, Episode 26
- Air date: April 1, 1960

In 1880, an outlaw cowboy is about to be hanged for murder, when he suddenly disappears and finds himself transported into 1959. Waiting for him is a laboratory advisor, who explains that he used a time machine to make this possible. Later, a thief enters the lab, kills the cowboy, and accidentally transports himself back to 1880. He takes the cowboy's place at the execution—and is hung and killed.

The episode was based on the short story "Execution" by George Clayton Johnson.

- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- IMDb user votes: 1,600
- Director: Lamont Johnson
- Season 4, Episode 17
- Air date: May 9, 1963

When a successful financier makes plans for a business trip to London, his wife insists on joining, hoping to rekindle their marriage. The couple then board Lady Anne, the slowest ship on the fleet. Every passenger, however, is dismayed at the duo's presence on the ship. In the end, the couple are forced off the boat at gunpoint by the ship's captain. When they are picked up in a lifeboat, their savior tells them that there are no reports of the Lady Anne docking in England or anywhere else for that matter.

This was one of 22 episodes of "The Twilight Zone" written by prominent writer Charles Beaumont.

- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- IMDb user votes: 1,700
- Director: Justus Addiss
- Season 4, Episode 10
- Air date: March 7, 1963

A well-meaning scientist uses a time machine to try to prevent real-life atrocities that happened in the past, like Hiroshima and Hitler. When he learns that he can't change the past, he decides to find a quiet place to settle down but ends up trying to meddle with fate once more. When he tries to stop a schoolhouse from burning down, he actually ends up causing the fire.

A group of schoolchildren sings the patriotic tune "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean" in this episode.

- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- IMDb user votes: 2,000
- Director: Ted Post
- Season 5, Episode 9
- Air date: Nov. 29, 1963

A crash-landed astronaut finds out his planet is on the brink of destruction, but luckily a woman from another world has also taken refuge on his new home. His name is Adam, hers is Eve, and together they set off to explore what she calls "Irth."

Richard Basehart, who played Ishmael in the 1956 film "Moby Dick," is the astronaut. This was the first episode audiences saw after President John F. Kennedy's assassination crushed the nation and took over wall-to-wall TV coverage a week earlier.

- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- IMDb user votes: 2,300
- Director: Lamont Johnson
- Season 3, Episode 17
- Air date: Jan. 12, 1962

A wealthy man builds a bomb shelter that features a variety of effects in order to trick three people who humiliated him into thinking the world is actually ending so that they will beg his forgiveness. They refuse to go along with his request, continuing to berate him for past behavior. After they leave, he thinks the world is actually ending, but it turns out he's lost his mind.

Joseph Wiseman of "Dr. No" stars in this episode.

- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- IMDb user votes: 2,300
- Director: Lamont Johnson
- Season 3, Episode 30
- Air date: April 13, 1962

A gas station owner who is known for telling grandiose stories about himself that aren't true gets abducted by aliens. They believe his lies and that he is a perfect example of the human species for their zoo. He escapes them by playing a harmonica, but his friends don't believe him when he tells the truth about what happened.

Andy Devine, who voiced Friar Tuck in the Disney film version of "Robin Hood," plays the liar.

- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- IMDb user votes: 3,300
- Director: Richard L. Bare
- Season 1, Episode 19
- Air date: Feb. 12, 1960

A World War II soldier can see in the faces of those around him who will die that day. He tries to warn his friend not to go out, but he's unsuccessful. In the end, he sees the light that signals someone's doom in his own face.

Dick York of "Bewitched" plays a captain in the episode.

- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- IMDb user votes: 3,300
- Director: Alvin Ganzer
- Season 1, Episode 29
- Air date: April 29, 1960

In this episode from the first season of the series, a schoolteacher is visited by her childhood self, who eventually helps the adult version remember what happened to her mother. She figures out that her mother's murderer is trying to kill her, and ends up killing the man instead. It's just in time because the man who did it recognizes her on the street.

Series creator and writer Rod Serling reportedly named the teacher after one from his childhood.

- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- IMDb user votes: 4,000
- Director: John Brahm
- Season 1, Episode 10
- Air date: Dec. 4, 1959

A man feels the effects of his worst transgressions for all of eternity. He is stuck on a re-lived loop as a passenger on a freighter that he, during his life in the German military, sank in World War II. At first, he doesn't know why he is on the ship, but horror sinks in as he recognizes the history that has already happened.

The Brits drink coffee instead of tea during the show because of the episode's sponsor.

- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- IMDb user votes: 4,500
- Director: Mitchell Leisen
- Season 1, Episode 6
- Air date: Nov. 6, 1959

A hypochondriac makes a deal with the devil, but the devil gives him an escape option just in case he changes his mind and wants to die. After the man tests out his ability to elude death, his wife dies in an accident. He falsely confesses to murdering her, thinking that he will be able to get out of the electric chair. He is sentenced to life in prison instead.

Two of the actors, Virginia Christine and Dick Wilson, were best known for their roles in TV commercials for coffee and toilet paper, respectively.

- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- IMDb user votes: 1,800
- Director: Perry Lafferty
- Season 4, Episode 1
- Air date: Jan. 3, 1963

A man creates a robot that looks just like him but has only his best qualities. There's only one problem—a mechanical issue makes the robot occasionally kill people. The robot goes out into the world and builds a life, finding a loving companion and all, and eventually returns to the town of his creator to understand his past. After the two fight, the creator steps into the life of the created in a surprising and creepy classic twist. The story was written by longtime "Twilight Zone" writer Charles Beaumont.

This is the first episode to run a full hour, doubling the show's time slot. The longer format revived the series from cancellation after CBS failed to gain a new sponsor despite three critically acclaimed seasons.

- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- IMDb user votes: 2,200
- Director: Montgomery Pittman
- Season 3, Episode 18
- Air date: Jan. 19, 1962

A murdered gangster possesses a bum who steals his shoes from his corpse. The bum-as-gangster goes to the dead man's home, terrifying his girlfriend and then himself when the shoes come off and he doesn't know where he is. Shoes back on, he tries to avenge his death but ends up murdered again as the bum. Another homeless man takes the shoes.

This is the only episode that appeared in all three of "The Twilight Zone" series—original and revivals.

- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- IMDb user votes: 2,500
- Director: Elliot Silverstein
- Season 3, Episode 4
- Air date: Oct. 6, 1961

A woman sits on her porch at the end of the Civil War waiting for her husband to come home. It turns out he's dead, and so is she, along with everyone else passing by down the road in front of her house. Abraham Lincoln shows up at the end to give the woman a nudge in the right direction.

James Gregory, who was Scotty in the 1980 TV movie "The Comeback Kid," plays a Confederate soldier in this episode.

- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- IMDb user votes: 2,600
- Director: Montgomery Pittman
- Season 3, Episode 7
- Air date: Oct. 27, 1961

An Old West lawman tracking an outlaw gets to a small town, where he finds out that others have already killed the bandit. He discovers that the dead man put a curse on those who killed him, but he decides to go to the grave at night anyway and plunges a knife into the dirt. When he does, his cloak gets caught in the knife, and he freaks out, believing the outlaw's ghost is after him. Maybe the ghost is.

Lee Marvin, who played Fardan in the 1966 movie "The Professionals" stars as the lawman.

- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- IMDb user votes: 3,000
- Director: Don Medford
- Season 2, Episode 2
- Air date: Oct. 7, 1960

A couple that owns an antique shop finds a genie in a bottle who grants the pair four wishes. The man wishes for unlimited power and becomes Hitler in his final moments, similar to other episodes that provide commentary on World War II.

Joseph Ruskin from "Smokin' Aces" stars in this one.

- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- IMDb user votes: 2,100
- Director: Joseph M. Newman
- Season 5, Episode 1
- Air date: Sept. 27, 1963

A bookie father learns that his son, a soldier, is dying in Vietnam. The father spends time with a 10-year-old version of the boy at an amusement park before bargaining with God to take him instead.

Jack Klugman of "The Odd Couple" plays the bookie.

- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- IMDb user votes: 2,100
- Director: Stuart Rosenberg
- Season 4, Episode 4
- Air date: Jan. 24, 1963

A young neo-Nazi whose public speaking skills are failing to deliver followers gets a visit from Hitler. The presumed-dead Nazi leader teaches his young companion how to draw crowds. The young man's rise to power is cut short when he's shot and killed by police.

Dennis Hopper plays the young neo-Nazi.

- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- IMDb user votes: 2,200
- Director: John Rich
- Season 5, Episode 4
- Air date: Oct. 18, 1963

An annoying man whom acquaintances barely tolerate is given a stopwatch by a stranger at a bar. He learns he can stop time with it and tries to use the gift to his advantage. When the timepiece breaks, he ends up stuck in a world where everything around him is frozen.

Richard Erdman, who played Leonard on the 2009 hit show "Community," stars in this episode.

- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- IMDb user votes: 2,300
- Director: Richard L. Bare
- Season 3, Episode 25
- Air date: March 9, 1962

An alien king disguises himself as an old man and makes friends with a group of children, particularly a girl with a leg brace. When two other aliens come looking for him, the girl tries to help him, but he gets caught. She goes back with him to his planet, where she'll become his queen once she grows up.

Nancy Kulp of "The Beverly Hillbillies" plays the girl's aunt.

- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- IMDb user votes: 2,300
- Director: David Greene
- Season 3, Episode 22
- Air date: Feb. 16, 1962

A theater critic buys his wife a piano for her birthday because she wants to learn to play, though he doesn't think she'll be very good. When he gets the instrument home, he discovers that it makes his manservant reveal his inner self. He decides to use the trick at his wife's birthday party to humiliate the guests, but the piano gets used on him instead.

Earl Hamner Jr., the episode's writer, wrote the novel "The Homecoming," which was adapted into the popular, long-running 1970s and 1980s TV series "The Waltons" and "Falcon Crest."

- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- IMDb user votes: 2,600
- Director: Lamont Johnson
- Season 3, Episode 21
- Air date: Feb. 9, 1962

A man in a nursing home finds out that his son can't take him in. He decides to try to wish himself young and discovers that if he plays kids' games, he can actually make it happen. Others at the nursing home don't believe him until he convinces them to give Kick the Can a try.

The game of Kick the Can is part hide-and-seek, part capture the flag.

- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- IMDb user votes: 2,700
- Director: David Orrick McDearmon
- Season 2, Episode 13
- Air date: Jan. 13, 1961

A man playing cards at a club has a conversation about whether it's possible to change history through time travel. When he leaves the club, he gets the chance to try for himself. While he isn't able to stop the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, he is able to make a side character very rich.

This is the second episode of "The Twilight Zone" where actor Russell Johnson deals with time travel—a frequent device in the series.

- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- IMDb user votes: 2,800
- Director: James Sheldon
- Season 2, Episode 22
- Air date: March 31, 1961

When a boy's grandmother dies right after giving him a toy phone as a present, he is able to communicate with her in the afterlife. She decides she doesn't want to be dead alone, and tries to get the boy to join her. He attempts to kill himself.

This is Billy Mumy's first of three appearances during the show's original run.

- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- IMDb user votes: 3,000
- Director: John Rich
- Season 2, Episode 10
- Air date: Dec. 16, 1960

A group of thieves come across a magical camera that reveals what will happen five minutes into the future. After briefly considering using the tool to help humanity, they head to the racetrack to photograph the winners' board before the races to win big on bets. When they're back at their hotel counting their loot, they mysteriously, or tragically, all fall out of a window.

Adam Williams, who played Valerian in "North by Northwest," is the third musketeer in this unlucky gang.

- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- IMDb user votes: 3,100
- Director: Montgomery Pittman
- Season 3, Episode 1
- Air date: Sept. 15, 1961

A man and woman from opposing sides in a war are the only people left in a post-apocalyptic world. They meet and develop a relationship, working through wary moments when instinct pushes them to aim guns at each other. In the end, they change out of their soldier uniforms and begin a new life.

"Bewitched" star Elizabeth Montgomery plays the woman.

- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- IMDb user votes: 3,500
- Director: Douglas Heyes
- Season 1, Episode 20
- Air date: Feb. 19, 1960

This terrifying episode of "The Twilight Zone" predicts that Earth has been destroyed by nuclear war by 1985. Three astronauts land on a place that feels very much like Earth—though it's thousands of miles away—but find all the people are motionless, frozen in scenes of beauty pageants and mayoral elections. The astronauts meet the caretaker, who tells them it's a mortuary where people spend forever doing what they've always dreamed of with the help of "eternifying fluid" to preserve their dead bodies. After he tricks the astronauts into drinking the fluid, the caretaker places them where they said they most wanted to be: on their spaceship, heading home.

Cecil Kellaway from "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" stars in this episode.

- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- IMDb user votes: 4,300
- Director: Robert Florey
- Season 1, Episode 9
- Air date: Nov. 27, 1959

A man goes to a psychiatrist's office because he hasn't slept in days. He believes that if he falls asleep, a cat woman will kill him. He realizes the psychiatrist's receptionist is the woman and jumps out the window to his death.

This is the first episode in the series that was not written by Rod Serling.

- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- IMDb user votes: 1,800
- Director: Alan Crosland Jr.
- Season 4, Episode 11
- Air date: March 14, 1963

An astronaut orbiting Earth has an accident and ends up in a world where things don't seem quite right. His wife and daughter aren't convinced that he's him, and details keep showing him that he hasn't really gone home. After realizing that he may be in a parallel universe, he finds a way home.

Steve Forrest plays the astronaut. His brother, actor Dana Andrews, plays the protagonist in the episode that aired directly before this one.

- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- IMDb user votes: 1,900
- Director: Walter Grauman
- Season 4, Episode 8
- Air date: Feb. 21, 1963

A man who doesn't fit into the world around him ends up falling in love with a doll in a dollhouse at a museum. He watches her life in the house: She plays piano and shoos away an unwanted suitor. When he tries to protect the doll from the angry suitor, he ends up locked away by a psychiatrist but is eventually able to reunite with his love.

Robert Duvall, the iconic actor who played Tom Hagen in "The Godfather," stars in this episode.

- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- IMDb user votes: 1,900
- Director: Don Medford
- Season 4, Episode 6
- Air date: Feb. 7, 1963

Three astronauts are on a mission to determine if an increasingly overcrowded Earth could colonize another planet. While exploring their target planet, they find a replica of their ship and themselves crashed on the planet, dead. Two of the astronauts come to terms with the idea that they're already dead, but the captain refuses to believe it.

Some of the musical score from "Death Ship" was taken from another episode—"Back There."

- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- IMDb user votes: 2,200
- Director: Alan Crosland Jr.
- Season 5, Episode 7
- Air date: Nov. 8, 1963

Residents of a post-apocalyptic town survive on the advice of an old man in a cave brought to them through an intermediary. A group of soldiers come to town and raise questions about the man. The townspeople decide to destroy him, and he turns out to be a computer. Without the old man's advice, they die.

The script is based on a short story by Henry Slesar, who also wrote for "Alfred Hitchcock Presents."

- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- IMDb user votes: 2,300
- Director: Elliot Silverstein
- Season 3, Episode 31
- Air date: April 20, 1962

A couple is growing old, and the man has a condition that causes a lot of physical pain. The couple looks into a company that would allow them to transfer their consciousnesses to younger replacement bodies, but they could only afford one procedure. The man decides he'd rather stay old with his wife.

The second wife of Joseph Schildkraut, who plays the old man, died while he was filming this episode. He insisted on finishing the show before taking time to mourn.

- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- IMDb user votes: 2,600
- Director: Justus Addiss
- Season 2, Episode 24
- Air date: April 21, 1961

A group of thieves steal a shipment of gold and then hide in a sealable cave under a mountain. They put themselves in suspended animation for 100 years to allow time for those trying to solve the heist to settle down. When they wake up, they find out gold is now worthless.

Simon Oakland, who played Dr. Fred Richman in Hitchcock's "Psycho," stars in this episode.

- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- IMDb user votes: 3,500
- Director: Ted Post
- Season 1, Episode 23
- Air date: March 11, 1960

A businessman with a nice life—amiable wife, good job, friendly secretary—finds himself in a movie set of his life. He's told that he is actually an actor playing the man he thought he was, and he finds that the actor's life is rather terrible. When he learns the movie is going to be scrapped, he races to the studio to try to reunite with the life he loved before it's too late.

The trapped man whistles "Coming Through the Rye," as he tries to dial the phone.

- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- IMDb user votes: 3,900
- Director: Stuart Rosenberg
- Season 1, Episode 15
- Air date: Jan. 15, 1960

The first manned spacecraft crashes and four members of the crew survive. Believing themselves to be millions of miles from Earth, they fight over rations, and one man kills the others in the quest for survival. Then, after hours of walking, he finds out they crashed in Nevada.

This is one of only four episodes with mid-show narration.

- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- IMDb user votes: 5,800
- Director: Robert Parrish
- Season 1, Episode 2
- Air date: Oct. 9, 1959

A "pitch man," someone who hawks goods on street corners, meets Death, who tells him that it will be his time to go at midnight. The salesman begs Death for more time to make the greatest pitch of his life. When a little girl in his building ends up about to be taken in his place, the man pitches his life for hers.

Ed Wynn, who plays the street vendor, was also famous for being a clown.

- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- IMDb user votes: 2,500
- Director: Abner Biberman
- Season 3, Episode 33
- Air date: May 4, 1962

A ventriloquist believes that his wooden doll is out to get him. His agent is frustrated and thinks the man needs a psychiatrist. The ventriloquist tries to escape his increasingly scary partner, but in the end, it's the doll's turn to control him.

The ventriloquist dummy was later used in "Caesar and Me," an episode from Season 5.

- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- IMDb user votes: 2,000
- Director: Perry Lafferty
- Season 4, Episode 3
- Air date: Jan. 17, 1963

A reporter stumbles on a small town with a big secret: equations that allow them to rearrange matter. The journalist first sees this in action when a little girl makes his dog disappear with a zapping device. He tries to convince the townspeople that they could solve the world's problems with their technology, but they don't think humanity is ready for it. The reporter proves them right.

James Doohan, who played the girl's father in this episode, is most known for his work on "Star Trek."

- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- IMDb user votes: 2,100
- Director: Alan Crosland Jr.
- Season 5, Episode 13
- Air date: Dec. 27, 1963

An actress receives a ring as a gift that tells her she needs to go back to her hometown because something bad is going to happen. The plane she's flying on crashes where a founder's picnic was scheduled. She'd managed to divert some of the crowd by saying she would be performing in the high school auditorium, saving many lives with her sacrifice.

The set for the house in this episode was also used in "Living Doll," which is #7 on this list.

- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- IMDb user votes: 2,400
- Director: John Brahm
- Season 3, Episode 27
- Air date: March 23, 1962

A man wakes up after a night of drinking to discover that no one, including his wife and coworkers, knows who he is. A psychiatrist tries to convince him that he is not who he believes that he is. In the end, he wakes up from the nightmare to his wife asleep next to him, but now he doesn't recognize her.

This is one of the first instances of a TV show featuring a husband and wife sleeping in the same bed together.

- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- IMDb user votes: 2,900
- Director: Buzz Kulik
- Season 3, Episode 5
- Air date: Oct. 13, 1961

A frustrated pool shark curses the name of a dead billiards player who was supposedly better than him. The dead man then shows up for one last game of pool. When the living pool player wins, he finds out that he will be obligated to show up from the afterlife to play people who challenge him.

In an alternate version of the episode's ending that was filmed decades later, the dead man wins the game.

- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- IMDb user votes: 3,000
- Director: Jack Smight
- Season 2, Episode 17
- Air date: Feb. 10, 1961

An overworked dancer who has been hospitalized has recurring nightmares about going down to the hospital's morgue. In the dream, the morgue is in room #22, and the nurse in charge tells her there's room for one more. After she leaves the hospital, she discovers that the nightmare was actually a premonition for a flight she's about to board.

A limited budget during Season 2 meant that six episodes, including "Twenty Two," were shot with videotape rather than film.

- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- IMDb user votes: 3,200
- Director: Justus Addiss
- Season 2, Episode 18
- Air date: Feb. 24, 1961

A plane catches a mysterious tail wind that tosses it back in time to the age of dinosaurs. After realizing what happened, the pilot tries to find the tail wind again. The plane ended up a few decades earlier than the pilot had intended.

Rod Serling reportedly achieved realistic technical pilot-speak thanks to his aviation-reporter brother.

- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- IMDb user votes: 3,700
- Director: John Brahm
- Season 1, Episode 28
- Air date: April 15, 1960

Police shoot a man who is trying to rob a pawn shop. The crook wakes up to a man in white welcoming him to the afterlife, where he is able to have everything that he wants—women, gambling wins, and a luxurious apartment. After some time, the man gets bored with always getting what he wants and finds out he's not in heaven after all.

The slot machines used in this episode were also used in Season 1's"The Fever."

- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- IMDb user votes: 1,900
- Director: John Brahm
- Season 4, Episode 13
- Air date: April 4, 1963

A man who works at a wax museum brings home five of the figures when a company buys the museum and plans to tear it down. Those five figures happen to depict iconic killers, like Jack the Ripper. Soon, taking care of the five figures doesn't just prove financially costly—his wife and boss end up victims as well.

Though the script for this episode is credited to Charles Beaumont, it was ghost-written by Jerry Sohl.

- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- IMDb user votes: 2,600
- Director: William F. Claxton
- Season 3, Episode 28
- Air date: March 30, 1962

When two astronauts crash on a planet with tiny people, one of them becomes recognized as a god. He decides to stay when the other is ready to leave in their repaired spaceship. Then two aliens bigger than him land on the planet, and he learns his place in the universe's pecking order.

Some of the props in this episode were used in "Forbidden Planet."

- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- IMDb user votes: 2,800
- Director: Harold D. Schuster
- Season 3, Episode 19
- Air date: Jan. 26, 1962

A man who lives in a backwoods country house with his wife takes his dog raccoon hunting. The two fall into a pond and drown. When he gets to a fancy gate on the road to eternity, he finds out he can't go inside with his dog and decides that he'd rather keep walking than go to heaven without his canine companion. He then realizes that wasn't the gate to heaven after all.

Earl Hamner Jr., who created "The Waltons," wrote this episode.

- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- IMDb user votes: 3,500
- Director: Jack Smight
- Season 2, Episode 11
- Air date: Dec. 23, 1960

An alcoholic Santa Claus gets fired from his job at a department store. He finds a magical bag out of which he can pull gifts and goes around town helping people. A police officer and his former boss try to lock him up for what they presume to be possession of stolen goods, but they find out the bag is real. Reindeer and sleigh wait for the new official Santa at the end of the episode.

John Fiedler, who plays the store manager who fires Santa, was also the voice actor for Piglet in many "Winnie the Pooh" movies.

- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- IMDb user votes: 4,200
- Director: John Brahm
- Season 1, Episode 21
- Air date: Feb. 26, 1960

A woman at a bus station has a couple of weird encounters with workers who claim that they just saw her moments ago. She then sees an evil twin version of herself. A man to whom she tells the story calls the police to have her committed, but then he too sees an alternate version of himself.

Vera Miles, who starred in Hitchcock's "Psycho" as Lila Crane, plays the heroine in this episode.

- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- IMDb user votes: 6,900
- Director: Robert Stevens
- Season 1, Episode 1
- Air date: Oct. 2, 1959

A man who cannot remember who he is walks around a small town and finds it strangely devoid of human life, although vestiges, such as coffee on the stove, remain. It turns out the man is an astronaut in training. He's training for space travel in an isolation chamber and the lonely scenes are his hallucinations.

The town square set was later used in the "Back to the Future" films.

- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- IMDb user votes: 2,000
- Director: Ralph Senensky
- Season 4, Episode 9
- Air date: Feb. 28, 1963

The head of a failing newspaper makes a deal with the devil. He's given a linotype machine with the power to make whatever it writes come true. The printer is able to use the machine to save himself from the devil.

The script is based on a short story by Charles Beaumont called, "The Devil, You Say?"

- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- IMDb user votes: 2,800
- Director: Paul Stewart
- Season 3, Episode 26
- Air date: March 16, 1962

Parents wake up to their daughter's screams in the middle of the night. They go to her room to discover that she's not there, but can still hear her cries. With the help of a friend, they determine that she's disappeared into a portal to another dimension.

Sarah Marshall of "The Long Hot Summer" plays the mother.

- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- IMDb user votes: 3,000
- Director: James Sheldon
- Season 2, Episode 16
- Air date: Feb. 3, 1961

A banker buys a newspaper. When he tosses a coin into the newspaper box to pay for it, the coin lands on its edge, and the banker is suddenly equipped with powers to hear people's thoughts. He nearly gets himself fired because of his newfound gift but ends up with a promotion—and a new girlfriend.

Dick York, who brought life to the hapless human husband in "Bewitched," plays the banker.

- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- IMDb user votes: 3,700
- Director: Anton Leader
- Season 1, Episode 24
- Air date: March 18, 1960

A history professor is in the process of wooing his colleague's daughter. It turns out the professor has been alive without aging for thousands of years, and his fiance's father objects to the marriage, knowing that the man who can live forever will eventually drop her for someone younger. The professor apparently still has some traces of mortality left, though: When an angry ex shoots him, he finally finds out what death is like.

Kevin McCarthy from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" plays the professor.

- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- IMDb user votes: 3,900
- Director: William F. Claxton
- Season 1, Episode 18
- Air date: Feb. 5, 1960

A pilot flees a World War I dogfight, time travels 42 years into the future, and lands at a U.S. military base in France. He learns that the friend he believed dead when the pilot abandoned him in the battle is on his way to visit the base. He realizes that someone else must have saved his friend that day.

Parts of this episode were filmed at Norton Air Force Base, which is now the San Bernardino International Airport.

- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- IMDb user votes: 4,200
- Director: Alvin Ganzer
- Season 1, Episode 12
- Air date: Dec. 25, 1959

A peddler is able to predict what people will need in the near future even if they have no idea why. A crook plans to take advantage of this talent. The peddler gives him a pair of slippery shoes—as a result of which, the thief gets hit by a car.

The original story reportedly had a fortune-telling machine instead of a peddler.

- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- IMDb user votes: 2,000
- Director: Buzz Kulik
- Season 4, Episode 16
- Air date: May 2, 1963

The first human colony in space is waiting, after 30 years away, to be taken back to Earth. The colony's leader begins to realize that he won't matter anymore once they get back home, so he decides to stay when the rest of the colony leaves.

Buzz Kulik, the man behind the 1971 made-for-TV movie "Brian's Song" and "Playhouse 90," directs this episode.

- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- IMDb user votes: 3,000
- Director: Don Medford
- Season 3, Episode 9
- Air date: Nov. 10, 1961

A former German SS captain returns to the site of a concentration camp where he tortured prisoners. While the Nazi reminisces over the power he once yielded, a ghost of a man he killed appears to put him on trial. The man is sentenced to a life of madness.

The title refers to an SS symbol of a skull and crossbones.

- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- IMDb user votes: 3,100
- Director: Buzz Kulik
- Season 2, Episode 23
- Air date: April 7, 1961

A pioneer walks away from the trail of wagons to look for water for his son, who has a bad fever. He ends up time-traveling to the 1960s and learns who his son will become in the future. He finds out penicillin might be the cure he needs and runs back to the past with pills in hand.

Cliff Robertson, who played Uncle Ben in the 2002 film version of "Spiderman," stars as the father.

- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- IMDb user votes: 3,500
- Director: Ralph Nelson
- Season 1, Episode 36
- Air date: July 1, 1960

A writer can create people in the real world when he speaks into his dictation device. His wife takes issue when she catches him with a mistress he made up. She finds out the hard way that he made her up as well.

Keenan Wynn, son of "The Twilight Zone" star Ed Wynn, plays the writer.

- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- IMDb user votes: 3,800
- Director: Mitchell Leisen
- Season 1, Episode 25
- Air date: March 25, 1960

Astronauts crash on a mission to Mars, and one survives. He eventually meets Martians, who seem quite humanlike and offer to build him a house. He realizes too late that they've made a zoo habitat for him to live in while Martians gawk at him.

The script is based on a short story by novelist Paul Fairman.

- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- IMDb user votes: 3,900
- Director: Douglas Heyes
- Season 2, Episode 15
- Air date: Jan. 27, 1961

A woman cooking stew discovers that two little aliens have landed a flying saucer on her roof. She ends up in a fierce battle with them. It turns out that the aliens are actually from Earth and were sent to explore a planet of giants.

Agnes Moorehead, who plays Endora on "Bewitched," stars in this episode.

- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- IMDb user votes: 4,300
- Director: Richard L. Bare
- Season 1, Episode 14
- Air date: Jan. 8, 1960

In a classic Cold War commentary storyline, this episode focuses on a nuclear scientist who knows that impending war means the planet is about to end. He and his friend plan an escape for their families to another planet that he's found and believes will sustain life. That place turns out to be Earth.

The background noises from the final scene were reportedly also used in "Star Trek." It's a perennial favorite on top of the episode lists for "The Twilight Zone."

- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- IMDb user votes: 5,100
- Director: Jack Smight
- Season 1, Episode 7
- Air date: Nov. 13, 1959

This episode centers on a convict spending his sentence isolated on an asteroid. All that he has to look forward to is a supply ship that comes to drop off what he needs to survive. He receives a special package with a female robot inside and develops a close relationship with her, but when he gets pardoned, he finds out there isn't room to bring her back on the spaceship.

This episode was filmed on location in Death Valley.

- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- IMDb user votes: 2,700
- Director: Robert Ellis Miller
- Season 3, Episode 37
- Air date: June 1, 1962

A professor finds out that his contract won't be renewed and begins to think that his life's work is worthless. He considers committing suicide, but ghosts of his past students come to visit him and help him realize how important he is to them.

The professor reads a Horace Mann book that was the motto for writer Rod Serling's alma mater.

- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- IMDb user votes: 2,900
- Director: John Brahm
- Season 2, Episode 26
- Air date: May 5, 1961

A man gets a death sentence for murder. He tells everyone that he doesn't want to die again because he keeps having the same nightmare that he is electrocuted. He warns them that if they kill him, they too, will cease to exist.

Dennis Weaver of "McCloud" stars as the doomed man.

- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- IMDb user votes: 3,900
- Director: Douglas Heyes
- Season 2, Episode 5
- Air date: Nov. 4, 1960

A man hiking in Europe takes shelter in an abbey during a rainstorm. The traveler discovers that the monks there have imprisoned a man who can't stop howling, and one of the monks tells him that the man they've captured is the devil himself. The traveler, unsure who to believe, releases the howling man and lives to regret it.

John Carradine, who voiced the Great Owl in "The Secret of NIMH," plays the lead monk.

- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- IMDb user votes: 5,000
- Director: Alvin Ganzer
- Season 1, Episode 16
- Air date: Jan. 22, 1960

A woman driving across the country starts to see a hitchhiker after she blows out a tire. A mechanic fixes it for her easily enough, and she gets back on the road, but she keeps seeing the same hitchhiker no matter how far she drives. She gets more and more freaked out—understandably so, because the man on the side of the road turns out to be Death.

The script was adapted from a radio play by Lucille Fletcher.

- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- IMDb user votes: 5,900
- Director: Robert Stevens
- Season 1, Episode 5
- Air date: Oct. 30, 1959

An ad executive leaves New York on a spontaneous road trip to slow down a little. When he stops to have his car serviced, he realizes that he's an easy walk from his childhood hometown. When he gets there, he sees his parents with his 11-year-old self, which gets confusing for everyone. His dad convinces him that he has to go back to the present.

The park in the episode was reportedly inspired by a park in the hometown of creator and writer Rod Serling.

- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- IMDb user votes: 3,300
- Director: Lamont Johnson
- Season 3, Episode 16
- Air date: Jan. 5, 1962

An old woman who is so afraid of death that she won't open her door is forced to confront her fears when a policeman is shot on her stoop. She brings him inside, where they have a long, frank conversation about the unknown. When a contractor tells her that her building will be demolished the next day, the policeman helps her move on to the next part of her life's journey.

Robert Redford plays the policeman.

- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- IMDb user votes: 3,900
- Director: Richard L. Bare
- Season 2, Episode 7
- Air date: Nov. 18, 1960

A couple on their honeymoon are waiting in a diner while their car is in the shop. They find a fortune-telling machine, and the man gets drawn in as the things it predicts begin to come true. After his new wife gives him a good talking to, she's able to drag him away from it.

William Shatner stars in this episode.

- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- IMDb user votes: 3,200
- Director: Boris Sagal
- Season 2, Episode 25
- Air date: April 28, 1961

At a men's club, one member can't stop talking. Another member challenges the first to a bet: If he can stay silent for a whole year, in a room at the club specially rigged to know if he cheats, then he wins $500,000. When he succeeds, the other man confesses that he doesn't have the money to pay the prize, and the once-loquacious club member reveals that he's destroyed the nerves in his vocal cords.

Liam Sullivan, who was also Graham in "That Darn Cat," plays the talkative club member.

- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- IMDb user votes: 3,700
- Director: Anton Leader
- Season 3, Episode 10
- Air date: Nov. 17, 1961

Earth has been knocked out of orbit and is moving closer and closer to the sun. People are trying to escape the heat, which is so intense that paintings are melting, and two neighbors do their best to survive as everyone else flees their building. When one of the neighbors wakes up, she realizes that she's had a fever the whole time and learns that the world is actually moving away from the sun and getting colder.

Jason Wingreen plays a neighbor in this episode and appeared in the film "Airplane!" in 1980.

- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- IMDb user votes: 4,300
- Director: Douglas Heyes
- Season 1, Episode 34
- Air date: June 10, 1960

A woman goes to a department store to buy a gold thimble for her mother. An elevator operator sends her to the ninth floor, where she buys a thimble, only to realize on her way out that it's scratched. When she talks to the sales associates, she learns there is no ninth floor, and on her quest to find the person who helped her with the thimble, she learns who, or what, she really is.

This is one of three episodes with an eye rather than a spiral at the beginning.

- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- IMDb user votes: 4,800
- Director: Douglas Heyes
- Season 1, Episode 11
- Air date: Dec. 11, 1959

Three astronauts go into space and crash into the desert. As they recover from the ordeal, one in the hospital and the other two in a bar, they start to disappear. Everyone around them forgets they ever existed.

Jim Hutton from "The Green Berets" stars in this one.

- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- IMDb user votes: 3,700
- Director: Lamont Johnson
- Season 3, Episode 14
- Air date: Dec. 22, 1961

In a fan-favorite episode, a major, a clown, a dancer, a hobo, and a bagpiper find themselves trapped together in a cylindrical room. They don't know how they got there, how long they will be there, or even who they are. They try to escape, but fall down every time they hear a loud clang.

The script is based on a short story by Marvin Petal, who was reportedly paid $250.

- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- IMDb user votes: 4,500
- Director: Robert Parrish
- Season 1, Episode 30
- Air date: May 6, 1960

An ad man tired of his life falls asleep on a train and discovers a town called Willoughby. His wife critiques his fantasies, and he decides that life is better there. He steps off a moving train to his death in order to stay in the town he loves.

The train station names used in the show are reportedly from the New Haven Railroad.

- IMDb user rating: 8.6
- IMDb user votes: 3,400
- Director: Lamont Johnson
- Season 3, Episode 3
- Air date: Sept. 29, 1961

In the middle of a dinner party, a group of suburbanites finds out that it's about to get nuked. One man has built a bomb shelter for his family, and he won't let anyone else inside. They find out that it was a false alarm, but not in time to save their friendships.

Jack Albertson, who played Grandpa Joe in "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," is one of the shut-out neighbors.

- IMDb user rating: 8.6
- IMDb user votes: 3,900
- Director: Elliot Silverstein
- Season 2, Episode 29
- Air date: June 2, 1961

In a totalitarian society, a librarian is sentenced to execution because he's deemed obsolete. The government allows the condemned man to choose how he will die. He requires the state's chancellor to be there for a televised showing of his death.

Burgess Meredith, who played Mickey in the "Rocky" films, is the librarian. He returns on the list in "Time Enough At Last" at #4.

- IMDb user rating: 8.6
- IMDb user votes: 4,400
- Director: James Sheldon
- Season 3, Episode 8
- Air date: Nov. 3, 1961

In an iconic performance by Billy Mumy, a 6-year-old boy reigns terror on his small town with his powers to read minds and get rid of anyone who thinks less-than-good thoughts. The adults slowly lose their patience and are sent "to the cornfield." Some contemplate trying to kill him, but they don't succeed. Cloris Leachman plays the boy's mother.

In 2003, this episode became the only one to get a sequel. It's widely recognized as one of the best episodes of the series, and was ranked #3 by Time magazine, behind "Time Enough At Last," ranked #4 on this list, and "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," #5 on the list.

- IMDb user rating: 8.7
- IMDb user votes: 3,600
- Director: Richard C. Sarafian
- Season 5, Episode 6
- Air date: Nov. 1, 1963

When a man's wife and daughter come home with a new doll, he is immediately put off by the toy. The doll starts telling him that she hates him and wants to kill him. He tries taking a blowtorch to the doll, but she, and a flight of stairs, get the better of him.

The house set was later used in the "The Twilight Zone" episode "Ring-a-Ding Girl."

- IMDb user rating: 8.7
- IMDb user votes: 4,100
- Director: Montgomery Pittman
- Season 2, Episode 28
- Air date: May 26, 1961

Policemen are investigating a reported flying saucer crash. They find a group of bus passengers stranded at a diner while they wait out a snowstorm. Only trouble is, there is an extra passenger. The cops try to figure out which one is the extraterrestrial, while the alien has his own plans for world domination. The episode mentions fellow real-life sci-fi/fantasy writer Ray Bradbury by name as part of the story.

This is the first episode of "The Twilight Zone" directed by Montgomery Pittman.

- IMDb user rating: 8.9
- IMDb user votes: 5,900
- Director: Ron Winston
- Season 1, Episode 22
- Air date: March 4, 1960

When the lights go out on a tree-lined, suburban street, someone suggests that aliens are attacking. As the weirdness continues, neighbors become suspicious of each other, escalating to mass hysteria. The aliens, who do want to control the planet, watch from a distance as humans do a perfectly fine job of destroying themselves.

Jack Weston, who played Max Kellerman in the classic film "Dirty Dancing," is one of the neighbors.

- IMDb user rating: 8.9
- IMDb user votes: 7,500
- Director: John Brahm
- Season 1, Episode 8
- Air date: Nov. 20, 1959

A banker who prefers books to everything else in his life is the sole survivor when a nuclear bomb goes off while he's in the vault reading. Since his wife and boss never gave him time to read, he's happy to be left alone with his books. Then his glasses break. The legendary actor Burgess Meredith, plays the banker. It remains a poignant, if ironic, ode to bibliophiles and introverts everywhere.

Series creator and writer Rod Serling said this was one of his favorite episodes.

- IMDb user rating: 9.0
- IMDb user votes: 5,000
- Director: Richard L. Bare
- Season 3, Episode 24
- Air date: March 2, 1962

Aliens come to Earth and appear to want to make peace. Though people are initially skeptical, they're impressed by the extraterrestrials' helpful additions to their lives. Then, when they leave behind a book, people work to decode what it means. It's a cookbook.

The script is based on a story by sci-fi novelist Damon Knight.

- IMDb user rating: 9.1
- IMDb user votes: 5,300
- Director: Richard Donner
- Season 5, Episode 3
- Air date: Oct. 11, 1963

In one of the most famous "Twilight Zone" episodes of all time, William Shatner stars as a man recovering from a nervous breakdown. He sees a monster attacking the plane he's flying in, but he's not sure if it's real. At first, he tries to downplay his concern and asks his wife to make sure the pilot checks on that part of the plane. As he becomes more convinced, he has to choose between making his wife think that he's still crazy and saving her life.

John Lithgow plays Shatner's famous role in Steven Spielberg's film "Twilight Zone: The Movie" in 1983. The episode has been spoofed and parodied numerous times in popular culture, including on "Saturday Night Live," "The Lego Batman Movie," and "The Simpsons."

- IMDb user rating: 9.1
- IMDb user votes: 6,000
- Director: Douglas Heyes
- Season 2, Episode 6
- Air date: Nov. 11, 1960

Perhaps the most classic episode of the series focuses on a woman recovering from her 11th facial surgery, undergone in order to make herself look pleasing enough to avoid being sent away to a colony of hideous people. When her bandages come off, revealing what would be, in this world, a beautiful woman, the doctor is disappointed. Then, viewers finally see what everyone else looks like. Serling's critique of physical beauty and conformism through the story feels even more relevant today.

The legendary makeup artist William Tuttle, who created the dazzlingly creepy and unexpected looks for this episode, also created the effects for the Morlocks in the 1960 sci-fi film "The Time Machine" as well as a number of other iconic films as the head of makeup at MGM during his storied 40-year career. The music is provided by the iconic composer and frequent Alfred Hitchcock collaborator, Bernard Herrmann, who also wrote the theme for the series.

Data reporting by Luke Hicks. Additional writing by Kaiya Shunyata. Story editing by Carren Jao. Copy editing by Lois Hince.