The essential episodes of The X-Files
Watch these 15 in order and you've got The X-Files — each pick states its reason.
- 01
Special Agent Dana Scully is partnered with Special Agent Fox Mulder to validate his work on a special project called The X-Files. While he is a believer in the paranormal, fueled by a lost memory where his sister was abducted by aliens; she is a scientist and prefers to look for rational, logical explanations. Their first case takes them to Oregon, to investigate the unsolved deaths of several high school classmates, which Mulder believes are linked to an alien abduction.
- 02
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 they follow it up anyway. With Deep Throat's insistence, they discover evidence of 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.
- 03
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.
- 04
Mulder obtains what could be the original and uncut MJ documents containing information about the government's knowledge of extraterrestrial life, which could lead him closer to the truth than ever before. But Mulder's enemies make sure he learns that there's a heavy price to pay for his much sought after truth.
- 05
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.
- 06
Mulder's dreams help him in finding the body of a little girl which re-opens one of his old cases in the Violent Crimes Unit and leads him to believe the killer he captured had more victims and may have taken his sister many years before.
- 07
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, CSM 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, CSM faces his own enemies and disappears, presumed dead.
- 08
After Mulder chases down and kills a young man whom he believes to be a vampire, Scully realizes that his fangs are fake. The agents then 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.
- 09
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; and as the events restart again and again, Mulder's sense of deja-vu grows stronger.
- 10
Mulder and Scully return to the town of their first X-Files investigation where a UFO has crashed in the forest. CSM arranges for Krycek to be released from prison in order for him to make contact with the aliens and begin rebuilding the 'Project', while Scully's health appears to be taking a turn.
- 11
With otherworldly factions in pursuit, Mulder and the agents race to safeguard the birth of Scully's child. Scully and Reyes take refuge in an abandoned town where Doggett grew up. Meanwhile Doggett and Skinner have the final showdown with Alex Krycek and continue to fight off the replicants but how successful will they be?
- 12
During a stakeout of murderer Irwin Lukesh, Doggett sees Reyes attacked by Lukesh but then we see Reyes and Doggett in her apartment, apparently both fine. Elsewhere at the same time, Doggett is shot and Lukesh identifies Reyes as the shooter. While Reyes is asked for her badge and gun by AD Follmer and Doggett lies in hospital near death, the conflicting circumstances of the stakeout and Doggett's shooting do not add up and it becomes clear that Lukesh possesses the power to switch between parallel universes and alter the events in each.
- 13
Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster
Witnesses claim a strange creature was responsible for killing a person in the woods; Mulder confronts some of his own demons.
- 14
The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat
Exploring the idea of The Mandela Effect, in which large groups of people remember an alternate history, Mulder and Scully find out how the X-Files themselves may really have originated.
- 15
Mulder and Scully rush to find an on-the-run William, while the Cigarette Smoking Man pushes forward with his ultimate plan.
Shows like The X-Files
The closest matches on shared genres, ranked by match strength and popularity.
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John Sugar is an American private investigator on the heels of the mysterious disappearance of Olivia Siegel, the beloved granddaughter of legendary Hollywood producer Jonathan Siegel. - 02Drama·Crime·Science-FictionThe essential episodes of Continuum2012–2015·Showcase
Continuum centers on the conflict between a group of rebels from the year 2077 who time-travel to Vancouver, BC, in 2012, and a police officer who accidentally accompanies them. - 03Drama·Crime·Science-FictionThe essential episodes of Altered Carbon2018–2020
Altered Carbon is set in the 25th century when the human mind has been digitized and the soul itself is transferable from one body to the next. - 04Drama·Crime·Science-FictionThe essential episodes of Almost Human2013–2014Same network — FOXAlmost Human is an action-packed police drama set 35 years in the future, when police officers are partnered with highly evolved human-like androids.
- 05Drama·Crime·Science-FictionThe essential episodes of Marvel's Iron Fist2017–2018·Netflix
After his family meets a tragic fate while on expedition in China, a young Rand is adopted by the people of the mystical lost city of K'un-Lun, where he's taught a magical fighting style. - 06Drama·Crime·Science-FictionThe essential episodes of Batwoman2019–2022·The CW
Kate Kane, armed with a passion for social justice and a flair for speaking her mind, soars onto the streets of Gotham as Batwoman, an out lesbian and highly trained street fighter primed to snuff out the failing city's…
