The essential episodes of The Twilight Zone
Watch these 15 in order and you've got The Twilight Zone — each pick states its reason.
- 01
A man named Mike Ferris finds himself walking down a deserted road toward an apparently uninhabited town. However, upon his arrival, he soon suspects that he is being watched, but not sure of by who. He then starts going crazy trying to figure out what's going on.
- 02
Henry Bemis is a bank teller who loves to read books. However, he gets in trouble for reading on his breaks at work and condemned by his wife at home when he attempts to read in his free time. Upon finding himself to be the lone survivor of a nuclear attack, Henry Bemis soon finds he has time enough to read any book he wants, only fate has other plans for him.
- 03
The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street
Panic breaks out in a suburban neighborhood when the power goes out, and all contact with the outside world is lost. The people begin to suspect each other of being alien invaders out to conquer the planet.
- 04
While shopping at a local department store, a young woman is looking for a thimble to give to her mother as a gift. After being advised to go to a non-existent floor to make her purchase, she has an encounter with a rude clerk and attempts to complain to the store manager, only to be locked in the store as it closes. It is at this time that the young woman comes to the realization that she is one of the store mannequins, who had the opportunity to live life as a real person for a month.
- 05
In a not too distant future, a young woman hopes that plastic surgery will help her look "normal," after living her life as an unattractive freak.
- 06
Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up
When a pair of state troopers receive a call that an alien spaceship crashed in the woods near a roadside diner in the middle of a snowstorm, they have to try and figure out if one of the snowed-in bus travelers at the diner is not who he claims.
- 07
In a near-future fascist state, librarian Romney Wordsworth is declared obsolete and allowed to pick the method of his own execution.
- 08
When a suburban dinner party is interrupted by an announcement that a nuclear attack on the U.S. is imminent, the party goers scramble home to try and find a way to survive. However, when several families discover that their neighbor, Dr. Stockton has built a bomb shelter for just such an occasion, everyone turns against one another in an attempt to be invited inside the shelter. Will things be able to return to normal if warning turns out to be false?
- 09
A former Nazi SS Captain arrives in a small Bavarian town, looking to visit Dachau, an old Concentration camp, wanting to remember what it was like during the war. However, the ghosts of the men he put to death soon arrive, looking to put him on trial for the part he played in their deaths and other crimes against humanity.
- 10
An alien race, the Kanamits, come to Earth providing technology and guidance to turn the planet into a utopia. But one man questions their benevolence.
- 11
An elderly boys school teacher faces mandatory retirement and questions whether he's done anything with his life.
- 12
After learning that the wax museum that he works in will be closing down effective immediately, employee Martin Lombard Senescu frantically convinces his boss to let him store the wax figures in his "Murderers Row" exhibit until a buyer is found. However, it doesn't take long for Martin to become convinced that they're capable of killing again, and when a buyer is found, a new wax figure is added to the mix.
- 13
While traveling on a plane, a man who recently was treated for a nervous breakdown is convinced that a monster is outside, intent on destroying the plane. However, his wife and the flight attendants are hesitant to believe him.
- 14
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
An adaptation of Ambrose Bierce's tale, Union Soldiers set out to hang Confederate prisoner Peyton Farquhar, but things don't go as planned when the rope breaks as Farquhar falls and apparently escapes in the river below.
- 15
Two children escape their bickering parents through a portal in the bottom of their swimming pool to a magical land watched over by a kindly old woman the children call Aunt T.
Shows like The Twilight Zone
The closest matches on shared genres, ranked by match strength and popularity.
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