10 Best Episodes Of The X-Files (2024)

The best X-Files episodes combine Monster of the Week tales with alien mythology episodes to further the overarching story of the entire series. Chris Carter created The X-Files in 1993, and the show was an instant success, running for nine seasons before finally ending in 2002. The series stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as two FBI agents who take on cases involving paranormal phenomena. Mulder (Duchovny) is a believer, and Scully (Anderson) is a skeptic.

The series also received two movies and was picked up again for two more seasons in 2016 and 2018. While other FBI agents joined the show when Duchovny left the series, fans mostly focused on Mulder and Scully, and the best X-Files episodes are mostly centered on those two individuals, their relationship, and how they grew and developed as the show wore on. Whether hunting down monsters and saving people's lives or exploring government conspiracies involving alien invasions, the series remains one of the best in genre history.

10 Ice

Season 1, Episode 8

The first season saw Mulder and Scully getting to know each other, and while they hadn't grown to have full trust in one another yet, they were growing on each other by the time the eighth episode, "Ice," rolled around. Scully was still a skeptic at this point, regardless of what she had seen, and that made it a little tough to get used to the idea of a mind-altering parasite that caused a team of scientific researchers to turn on each other. This is an X-Files homage to John Carpenter's The Thing.

There are some great guest stars here, with Felicity Huffman appearing as a toxicologist and Xander Berkeley as a doctor. As people keep dying, everyone has to figure out which of them might be infected by the parasite. This was not only a homage to Carpenter's movie, but it was, in fact, based on the same novella that Carpenter based his film on (Who Goes Three? by John W. Campbell). The episode proved it was up to the task, resulting in a scary and paranoia-infused thrill ride.

9 Jose Chung's From Outer Space

Season 3, Episode 20

One of The X-Files' most entertaining episodes came in season 3 with "Jose Chung's From Outer Space." The strange title allows the entire episode to remain self-referential. This is less of a sci-fi horror episode that most fans are used to and is instead mostly a send-up of sci-fi tropes all told from an unreliable narrator, so no one really has any idea what is happening, what is real, and if anyone is telling the truth. It questions if there are alien abductions or if the government is faking them.

Charles Nelson Reilly stars as Jose Chung, a famous novelist who is interviewing Scully for research on his new novel. The episode then has several moments that satirize Mulder's idiosyncrasies and narrow focus while also looking at what makes him such a quirky, entertaining character. Reilly is fantastic as Jose Chung, and he really makes the episode shine as he brings humor to all his scenes. Alex Trebek (Jeopardy!) also cameos as a Man in Black. It ends on a sad note, but that just makes what came before so great.

8 Small Potatoes

Season 4, Episode 20

Vince Gilligan wrote "Small Potatoes," an X-Files episode with one of the franchise's most pathetic villains. This villain is Eddie Van Blundht (Darin Morgan), a janitor and shapeshifter who is caught after he impersonates several women's husbands, impregnating their wives. He also impersonates Luke Skywalker, which is odd. When the babies are born with little tails, it proves something is very wrong. Eddie is a loser whose only purpose for using his powers is to try to be something he's not.

The episode's title perfectly describes Eddie, and the main theme is whether a person can remake who they are. This installment also hints at the romance between Mulder and Scully when Eddie impersonates Mulder and hits on Scully. David Duchovny was fantastic when he was playing Eddie pretending to be Mulder, and it was clear that this was a chance for him to play against type and deliver something unique and different. This was a fun episode, even with the disturbing crimes.

7 Triangle

Season 6, Episode 3

The X-Files did something completely different in the season 6 episode, "Triangle." While most installments had Mulder and Scully investigating paranormal activity and supernatural threats, things never really got too far out of hand when it came to fantasy and sci-fi. However, in "Triangle," the show took a huge risk and introduced time travel. In this episode, Mulder looks for a ship in the Bermuda Triangle and ends up getting sent back in time to 1939.

In a homage to The Wizard of Oz, Milder then ends up coming across characters who are played by the same actors who play people he knows from his era, but as different people. They even have fun moments where they do something that remains similar to their regular roles. Chris Carter wrote and directed the episode and used an interesting technique where each act of the episode looked like it was shot in one continuous shot without a cut. The filmmaking style and Mulder questioning reality make this one of The X-Files' most creative.

6 Paper Hearts

Season 4, Episode 10

"Paper Hearts" is a Mulder episode that sees him start to find information that threatens everything he believes in, and it might be the best X-Files episode that is almost completely Mulder-specific. As most fans know, Mulder became an FBI agent looking into the unknown and government conspiracies surrounding alien visitations after aliens abducted his sister in front of him. However, this episode leads him to believe he was wrong and his sister was actually murdered.

The suspect is John Lee Roche (Tom Noonan), a man whom Mulder had already sent to prison years before. However, when Mulder has a dream about Roche's victims and looks into things, he realizes that the killer might have killed Samantha, which goes against the entire alien abduction that he bases his investigations on. This episode is very important because it hints that Mulder's obsession was built on a fantasy he concocted in his mind, forcing him to look into it to find out if the truth was still out there.

5 Memento Mori

Season 4, Episode 14

"Memento Mori" is the episode that won Gillian Anderson her Emmy Award for her performance. This starts off the Scully cancer storyline, which was a huge moment in the series that led to everything changing. However, having Anderson play the cancer-stricken FBI agent gave her a lot to chew on and resulted in one of the best outings for the actress in a series full of head-turning performances. The best parts were the little moments where people reacted to her cancer diagnosis in their own weird little ways.

The uncomfortable silence between Mulder and Scully as she tells him about her tumor was heartbreaking and the moment where they hug in the hospital hall was one of the show's best moments. This might be the most emotional X-Files episode in the series, and the quiet moments often led to explosions of emotion, which is a perfect description of what something like cancer brings to people who have it and those who love them. This is an actor's showcase for Anderson and Duchovny.

4 Pusher

Season 3, Episode 17

There have been some great villains on The X-Files, but nothing was really like the season 3 episode "Pusher." Robert Patrick Modell (Robert Wisden) has a brain tumor. However, while this is a deadly affliction, it also gives him supernatural powers. He can make people do anything that he wants them to do. Written by Vince Gilligan, "Pusher" sees Modell weaponize this skill, and he actually kills a man by making him have a heart attack while talking over the phone, making him deadly and very dangerous.

Director Rob Bowman (who went on to win four Emmys for Castle) shot the entire episode like a noir film, making it not only a scary tale of a seemingly unstoppable serial killer but also a great-looking episode that uses its design to increase the tension as well. There is one scene that is almost unbearable where Modell makes Mulder and Scully play a game of Russian roulette that really shows how important their relationship is by this point in the series.

3 Home

Season 4, Episode 2

"Home" might be the most disturbing and shocking X-Files episode ever made. This episode was even banned from re-airing on Fox, so fans had to seek it out on home video and eventually streaming. This episode brings in the backwoods Peacock family who have been inbreeding since the American Civil War. Mulder and Scully end up being brought to the house where the buried corpse of a deformed baby was found. When they arrive, they have to fight the deformed members of the Peacock family.

Things really go off the rails when they learn the Peacock family has been repeatedly impregnating their own mother, who has had all four limbs removed to keep her secluded in their house. This was one of the rare X-Files episodes where the villains weren't aliens or supernatural monsters, and were instead human monsters that were quite a bit more disturbing than anything paranormal on the show. This was the only TV-MA-rated episode of The X-Files.

2 Bad Blood

Season 5, Episode 12

Before he created Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Vince Gilligan wrote for other showrunners, and he scripted some of the best X-Files episodes in the show's long run. In season 5, his best script was for "Bad Blood." This was an episode that was funnier than just about any other episode of the sci-fi series in its entire run. The case sees Mulder and Scully coming across a murder scene, and they disagree on one basic fact - was the killer a vampire?

The episode then plays out with the case shown from each agent's point of view, as viewers see how Mulder sees the case and then how Scully sees it. The two actors have a lot of fun in this episode as they basically mock their character's personalities and quirks throughout the story. This remains one of Gillian Anderson's favorite episodes, and it also featured a guest starring role from Luke Wilson as a small-town sheriff. The X-Files was never funnier than this installment.

1 Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose

Season 3, Episode 4

One X-Files episode that received almost universal acclaim from critics and fans alike was season 3's "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose." This is the one episode that most people agree is the best of the best and the one that all others are judged against. Peter Boyle (Young Frankenstein) stars as Clyde Bruckman, a psychic who has only one actual gift - he can tell a person how they are going to die. The story then had people hear the truth but refuse to accept it, a trend in the long-running alien series.

"Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" was the first time The X-Files won an Emmy Award, and here it won two of them. Writer Darin Morgan won one of the awards for his script, while Peter Boyle won an Emmy for his guest starring role in the episode. This was a sad hour, as Bruckman had his gift, but no one wanted anything to do with him since no one wanted to know they were going to die. It makes the entire story philosophical and darkly humorous while also delivering a ton of heart. It is a true masterpiece of television storytelling.

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The X-Files

The X-files takes the police procedural formula and applies it to sci-fi mysteries. Conspiracy theorist Fox Mulder and skeptic Dana Scully team up to solve cases surrounding alien invasions and other unexplained, paranormal phenomena.

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Cast

Gillian Flynn , David Duchovny , Robert Patrick , Annabeth Gish , Mitch Pileggi

Release Date

September 10, 1993

Seasons

11

Showrunner

Chris Carter

Main Genre

Sci-Fi