The Twilight Zone
AnthologyA new story or cast with every episode or season.This show: 10/10EpisodicSelf-contained episodes you can watch in almost any order.This show: 9/10PhilosophicalBig questions of meaning, ethics and existence.This show: 8/10UnsettlingA creeping sense of unease and wrongness that gets under your skin.This show: 8/10Social commentaryDeliberate critique of how society works.This show: 8/10Existential dreadMortality and meaninglessness confronted head-on.This show: 7/10TenseSustained suspense and pressure from start to finish.This show: 7/10
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Starring
Rod SerlingRobert McCordJay OverholtsJames TurleyVaughn TaylorDavid Armstrong
Written by
Rod Serling
Starring
Rod SerlingRobert McCordJay OverholtsJames TurleyVaughn TaylorDavid Armstrong
Written by
Rod Serling
Ratings per Episode
Votes per Episode
The Twilight Zone Episode Ratings Heatmap
| Avg | E1 | E2 | E3 | E4 | E5 | E6 | E7 | E8 | E9 | E10 | E11 | E12 | E13 | E14 | E15 | E16 | E17 | E18 | E19 | E20 | E21 | E22 | E23 | E24 | E25 | E26 | E27 | E28 | E29 | E30 | E31 | E32 | E33 | E34 | E35 | E36 | E37 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S1 | 7.7 | 7.9 | 7.7 | 7.1 | 6.8 | 8.2 | 7.2 | 8.1 | 8.9 | 7.4 | 7.3 | 8.3 | 8.0 | 7.1 | 8.1 | 7.6 | 8.2 | 6.6 | 8.0 | 7.3 | 7.5 | 7.9 | 8.9 | 7.6 | 8.1 | 8.1 | 7.2 | 6.6 | 7.8 | 7.3 | 8.5 | 6.9 | 7.2 | 6.7 | 8.4 | 6.1 | 8.1 | ||
| S2 | 7.7 | 6.5 | 7.4 | 6.6 | 6.4 | 8.2 | 9.1 | 8.3 | 7.1 | 7.1 | 7.5 | 7.9 | 6.9 | 7.5 | 6.4 | 8.1 | 8.0 | 7.7 | 7.8 | 6.5 | 6.7 | 7.0 | 7.5 | 8.1 | 7.6 | 8.3 | 8.1 | 6.4 | 8.7 | 8.6 | |||||||||
| S3 | 7.6 | 7.5 | 7.2 | 8.6 | 7.5 | 7.8 | 6.5 | 7.3 | 8.6 | 8.1 | 8.4 | 6.5 | 6.7 | 7.2 | 8.4 | 7.2 | 8.3 | 7.3 | 7.3 | 7.9 | 6.2 | 7.5 | 7.5 | 7.1 | 9.0 | 7.5 | 8.0 | 7.8 | 7.8 | 6.4 | 7.3 | 7.6 | 6.6 | 7.7 | 6.4 | 7.1 | 5.9 | 8.2 | |
| S4 | 7.3 | 7.4 | 7.2 | 7.8 | 7.6 | 6.5 | 7.6 | 6.9 | 7.6 | 8.0 | 7.3 | 7.6 | 6.2 | 7.9 | 7.2 | 6.1 | 8.1 | 7.3 | 5.6 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| S5 | 7.4 | 7.4 | 6.9 | 9.0 | 7.4 | 6.3 | 8.7 | 7.6 | 6.8 | 7.2 | 7.0 | 7.0 | 6.9 | 7.7 | 7.5 | 7.5 | 7.5 | 8.1 | 6.4 | 8.1 | 6.3 | 6.9 | 8.2 | 7.5 | 7.1 | 8.5 | 7.4 | 5.6 | 6.5 | 7.4 | 8.1 | 7.1 | 7.5 | 6.6 | 6.2 | 7.1 | 6.5 |
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About
"Short, sharp parables dressed as ghost stories"
An anthology series where ordinary people stumble into strange, uncanny, or nightmarish situations that reveal something unsettling about human nature. Each episode is a self-contained story, often with a twist ending, hosted by Rod Serling's iconic narration framing the moral or ironic stakes. The tone ranges from eerie dread to satirical bite to quiet melancholy, and the pace is brisk, built for a single sitting. What carries it is the sheer inventiveness of the ideas and how often a simple black-and-white setup still lands as genuinely thought-provoking or chilling decades later.
Watch it for
the twist endings that still land decades after they were written.
Maybe skip if
you dislike anthology formats or dated black-and-white production values.
Written by our AI editor to help you decide, spoiler-free by design.
All Seasons
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Season 11959
7.7192K3615h
The first season of The Twilight Zone aired Fridays at 10:00–10:30 pm on CBS from October 2, 1959 to July 1, 1960. There are 36 episodes, including the pilot, "Where Is Everybody?". The theme music for this season, written by Bernard Herrman, is different from the music most commonly associated with the series, written by Marius Constant for the second season onwards.
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Season 21960
7.7112K2912h 5m
The second season of The Twilight Zone aired Fridays at 10:00–10:30 pm on CBS from September 30, 1960 to June 2, 1961. There are 29 episodes.
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Season 31961
7.6122K3715h 25m
The third season of The Twilight Zone aired Fridays at 10:00–10:30 pm on CBS from September 15, 1961 to June 1, 1962. There are 37 episodes.
Continuing with Marius Constant's theme music, a different set of graphics was used for the opening, consisting of a rotating cone with concentric circles suggesting a spiral, receding into a star field. Rod Serling's narration from the second season was used, with the verse "That's the signpost up ahead" taken out:
"You're traveling through another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Your next stop—The Twilight Zone." Some subtle changes in the opening's acoustics were made beginning with Person or Persons Unknown.
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Season 41963
7.341K1815h 18m
The fourth season of The Twilight Zone aired Thursdays at 9:00–10:00 pm on CBS from January 3 to May 23, 1963.
This season broke with the previous seasons in presenting hour-long episodes instead of the earlier half-hour episodes. A very different and more complex set of graphics was used for the intro, and Rod Serling's narration changed from the earlier seasons as well:
"You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension. A dimension of sound. A dimension of sight. A dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone."
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Season 51963
7.494K3615h 1m
The fifth and final season of The Twilight Zone aired Fridays at 9:30–10:00 pm on CBS from September 27, 1963 to June 19, 1964. It featured the same intro as the fourth season, but reverted to the original half-hour format.
Full Cast & Crew
Cast
Rod Serling Narrator, Self - Host, Self - Host & Narrator
Robert McCord Waiter, 1st Fireman, Bearded Guard with Priest
Jay Overholts Cowboy #2, Doctor, Intern
James Turley 2nd Fireman, Boxing Spectator, Carstairs
Vaughn Taylor Mr. Carsville, Mr. Judson, Mr. Maitland
David Armstrong Passenger, Security Guard, Surgeon
Jack Klugman Captain Ross, Jesse Cardiff, Joey Crown
Burgess Meredith Henry Bemis, Luther Dingle, Mr. Smith
John Anderson Capt. 'Skipper' Farver, Deidrich, Gabriel
J. Pat O'Malley Gooberman - Town Drunk, Homburg, Old Ben
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