Top 10 Best Black Mirror Episodes

Heaven is a Place on Earth~Belinda Carlisle

Some call Black Mirror the modern-day Twilight Zone (before they actually made a modern-day Twilight Zone). Others say that it wishes it was that good as The Twilight Zone was never so hit-and-miss (to which I counter, have you ever actually marathoned The Twilight Zone?). Still others state that that is irrelevant as while Black Mirror may be hit-and-miss, when it hits, it knocks it out of the park. So much so that you can actually have some pretty in-depth and interesting discussions with fans on the show about which are the best episodes and which ones just didn’t make it. So, hey, with season 6 being announced (a week ago, I know, these things take time to write, shut up), let’s count down the top 10 best episodes of Black Mirror… in my opinion, of course.

10. Black Museum

Black Museum almost feels like a weird meta-episode. In a show that is already an anthology series, Black Museum is an anthology episode. The episode is set in the mysterious Black Museum which is located off the beaten path in the middle of the desert. A visitor named Nish (Letitia Wright) stumbles in and comes across the mysterious and unsettling owner, Rolo Haynes (Douglas Hodge). Haynes, delighted to have a visitor after so long, gleefully explains the various exhibits that inhabit the museum, each more twisted than the last.

And I think I’ll stop the synopsis right there as I won’t dare spoil all of the macabre delights that inhabit the museum. The framing device is very clever, kind of a modern-day Tales from the Crypt, each story features Black Mirror at some of its absolute best and Douglas Hodge is perfect as the creepy host. He strikes just the perfect balance of being both a charismatic showman while also having absolutely no morals or misgivings about the evil artifacts he takes in. The three vignettes are all excellent. I’d say that they could each be their own episode but I think both you and I know that they’re the exact length that they need to be.

When I watched Black Museum for the first time, I honestly thought that it was going to be one of my favorite episodes ever. The setting, the atmosphere, the acting, everything about it was pitch perfect. So why is it # 10 then? Well, simply put, the ending sucks. While Black Mirror is famous for its ending twists, this is the prime example of an episode that really didn’t need one; or, if it did, it chose a very poor one. The ending to this episode is Godawful and ruins what was otherwise one of the creepiest hours of television ever made. While the rest of it may be amazing, the ending is just too terrible to justify placing Black Museum any higher than the # 10 spot.

9. San Junipero

San Junipero stands out from the crowd of Black Mirror episodes on a few fronts. For one thing, it’s one of the very few episodes to actually have a happy ending. For another, it presents a usage of technology that isn’t overwhelmingly cynical. Everytime that you think that they’re going to present an example of how this can go awry or ruin lives or commodify our beings into nothing but code for all eternity, they show an out. This is a technology that could exist and help benefit the lives of tens of thousands of people. And all this is set against the backdrop of one of the most poignant love stories of the 2010s.

It’s very difficult to write plot synopses for these episodes since I really don’t want to give too much away for those who may not have seen them. This goes doubly true for something like San Junipero where most of the fun of it is slowly discovering what’s going on for yourself. The episode is set in a mysterious seaside resort called San Junipero where an introverted woman named Yorkie (Mackenzie Davis) meets another woman named Kelly (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). The two keep visiting San Junipero and reconnecting with each other night after night as they slowly fall in love while we, the audience, learn the mysteries of San Junipero.

I realize that this a fan favorite for many so I’m probably going to have to justify why it’s # 9 instead of higher up on the list. And honestly? I just find several parts of the episode pretty boring. When I think back on San Junipero, I remember a lot of these two just talking in hushed voices and then staring at each other. I didn’t really find it that interesting until it got to the midway point and we learned the extra dimension that their relationship possesses. But with that said, this is still a powerful and poignant portrayal of romance, a very tasteful portrayal of lesbian love in pop culture and the closing montage is one of the most beautiful moments on the show. It just could’ve shaved off about 10 minutes getting there.

8. White Bear

If Black Museum was a great episode of Black Mirror ruined by a terrible ending, White Bear is a pretty average episode of Black Mirror that’s elevated by a great ending. White Bear revolves around Victoria (Lenora Crichlow) who wakes up one morning in a ruined town where everyone else is being controlled by television signals. She’s scared, sees people attacking her and, most strangely, has no memory of how she got there in the first place. It isn’t long before she meets some other survivors and the three of them start trying to think of ways to get back to civilization.

White Bear starts off with a pretty good mystery with the television signals and everyone else being mind controlled (it’s an especially good touch that all they can do is stare at their phones and video Victoria). However, it does go through most of the tropes of the post-apocalyptic survival horror genre and Victoria isn’t a particularly likable or interesting protagonist. But, like I said, where it gets really good is the ending. I won’t give it away but it’s one of the series’ best twists. I can’t really say much more about the episode or its allegory without spoiling it so let’s just leave it there, shall we?

7. Smithereens

Smithereens is another episode that is a bit unlike other Black Mirror installments. Most episodes of Black Mirror take place some indeterminable amount of time in the future to show us how technology may develop in horrifying ways if we’re not careful. Smithereens, instead, shows us a story that could very easily occur today. Okay, not very easily, God knows and hopes that it’s not this easy for an Uber driver to take someone hostage but you get my point. As a result, I think a lot of fans were let down because it wasn’t as “out there” as many other episodes but I think this is one of the show’s best.

The basic set-up is that Chris (Andrew Scott) is an Uber driver and takes one of the employees of the social media company, Smithereen (obviously based on Twitter) hostage until he gets to speak to the CEO, Billy Bauer (Topher Grace). What then follows is both an intense hostage thriller as well as a searing indictment on social media addiction and the system that devises itself to hold your attention all the time as well as the cult of personality that surrounds a lot of tech CEOs. One of the episode’s nicest surprises is that for all the buildup that Bauer is given, when we finally meet him, he’s just a normal dude who somehow struck it rich and seems to have the most humanity compared to most of the vapid sociopaths that occupy his company. And Andrew Scott, who’s been one of the best up-and-coming British actors of the past decade, gives one of the most pathos-driven performances of the show.

But let’s also talk about the ending, shall we? Somewhat mild spoilers but Smithereens’ “twist” is that it has a very non-ending. We don’t know what exactly happens to all the characters when the dust settles. A lot of fans and critics got annoyed with this and it must have been very irritating to those who watched it live. At the same time, said fans and critics are almost universally likely to go online to find theories about what the ending means thereby proving the moral of the story. I might be reading too deep into it but, if not, then this is beautifully meta.

6. USS Callister

Now we’re getting to the really fun ones. USS Callister is part commentary on workplace misogyny and the Gamergate/Metoo movement, part hilariously cynical and demented parody of Star Trek. The episode alternates between two different plots. The first plot takes place in the real world where the introverted and shy Robert Daly (Jesse Plemons) works as the lead designer at a gaming company that is developing the newest MMORPG. The second plot takes place inside a private server of said MMORPG where the computer characters a. bear a striking resemblance to most of Daly’s coworkers, b. have somehow gained intelligence and c. Daly himself appears in a Captain Kirk-type role.

USS Callister has a lot going on that makes it both a great think piece as well as a genuinely fun hour and 15 minutes of television. A running theme in several Black Mirror episodes, including this one, is asking how “real” is artificial intelligence. As in, just because AI only exists in a server, does that mean they can’t feel pain? Could you be justified in torturing them? Anyone who’s ever spent any time playing Grand Theft Auto could probably blanch at that possibility but it’s still a question worth asking.

The USS Callister also provides some commentary on incel culture and this is where it really shines. Jesse Plemons is perfect as Robert Daly, striking the perfect note between being both pathetic and menacing. Any other actor could go too far in one direction or the other but he finds just the perfect tone (even if I think the script is trying to err too far in one direction at times). You see how he became this person and how he feels justified in behaving in this manner but it also makes no excuses for him. Yet, there’s still an element of wondering how much of our hatred is truly justified. Without giving it away, Daly’s fate at the end is one of the most disturbing of any character in the series.

5. The Entire History of You

The first season finale, as well as the first actually good episode of the show, The Entire History of You is probably the best allegory for technology that the show has produced, even over a decade later (holy crap, I can’t believe this is that old now). The episode takes place in the near future where most people get what are called “grains.” They’re basically implants in your eyes and ears that allow you to playback events that you see and hear. Furthermore, you can share it with others, allowing for more benevolent uses such as when our main character, Liam (Toby Kebbell), has a job performance eval and plays it back to his friends to find out whether or not he’s about to get canned.

Of course, just like the modern day phone and Internet, something this powerful is just asking for trouble. The access to this much technology allows an unprecedented capacity for abuse and gaslighting among our relationships with friends and loved ones. The Entire History of You showcases a chilling depiction of a relationship breakdown that would not otherwise have happened without the grains. Just because this technology can help you in unprecedented ways, without being properly regulated and cared for, it can cause disaster for us and those we love. Even if technology helps us become better workers, it evidently makes us worse friends and lovers.

The Entire History of You also gets bonus points for being one of the simplest episodes, set-up wise. It’s not a big journey or showing some sort of epic scope. Most of the episode is just Liam talking with his annoyingly-named wife, Ffion (Jodie Whittaker) with a few other scenes interconnected. But, as they told us over and over again, in film school: sometimes less is more.

4. Hated in the Nation

At 1 hour and 29 minutes, Hated in the Nation was long enough to basically be Black Mirror: The Movie (before that actually became a thing). I’ll also admit that I’m a bit biased in this one since of all the problems with modern pop culture, this is the one that scares me the most. Hated in the Nation is a chilling indictment on cancel culture as a disgruntled government employee starts a hashtag called #DeathTo and invites the Internet to choose who gets to die in the next 24 hours. While the average person is confused and disgusted, they’re just screaming into the void against the tide of the Internet lynch mob that’s only too happy to murder the Hell out of whatever celebrity said something they don’t approve of.

This has become an increasingly powerful and toxic part of Internet discourse and is just as timely as it came out as it is today. Despite this having the potential to be a “one-and-done” moral, the episode is very excellently-paced at ramping up the danger and unfolding the mystery of how this employee got power to kill people and, more importantly, what they’re planning to do with it. The sequence where the police are trying to protect one of the victims from the incoming death threat has all the elements of a terrifying horror movie and it keeps you riveted, hoping they can get away to safety.

Despite its length, Hated in the Nation is paced very well and keeps you riveted to your seat for the whole ride. The only thing keeping it down is, as minor of a gripe as this sounds, the cinematography. The whole episode just has a gray, washed-out look to it. Maybe you could argue that it adds to the soul-sucking misery of the episode but I prefer my shows to have a bit more color in them. A nitpick, no question, but there’s still ways to do neo-noirs and still have them look cool.

3. Shut Up and Dance

Teenaged Kenny (Alex Lawther) has discovered the magical possibilities of porn on the Internet combined with the joy of masturbating. Unfortunately, he has also discovered the hard way why you should always put a piece of tape over your camera monitor if you’re not actively using it and also why you shouldn’t download malware onto your computer. In other words, his data has been hacked by some mysterious individual who has the video footage of him jacking off and threatens to release it publicly unless he follows the hacker’s instructions to the letter.

What then follows is a demented cross between The Hunger Games and Die Hard With A Vengeance where the never-seen hacker(s) (most likely based on real-life assholes on 4chan) force Kenny to go on a mind-bending tour around the city committing various self-mutilating acts. Similar to Hated in the Nation, Shut Up and Dance presents the terror of your wellbeing being jeopardized by strangers on the Internet, only in this case it’s Internet trolls with a sick sense of humor. The episode is genuinely both fun and thrilling to watch and keeps you on the edge of your seat up until the very end.

It was kind of a toss-up between this and Hated in the Nation for the # 3 spot. What I think elevates Shut Up and Dance for me, though, is the ending. In a show known for its dark twists, Shut Up and Dance has one of the best in all of Black Mirror as it raises even more philosophical questions that you were initially thinking. It actually makes you question if the final victim deserved all this or if it goes too far into wanting justice that it just becomes sadistic. And it’s one of those things where it makes it more rewarding to rewatch the episode again as there are numerous hints pointing towards the final conclusion. A perfect capstone to one of the all-time best Black Mirror episodes.

2. Nosedive

You knew that this was going to be up here. Nosedive is far and away the most iconic episode of the series, being the first one released after the show was taken over by Netflix and being released right as the Internet pop culture was at the height of changing from the fun and silliness of the early 2010s to the apocalyptic cynicism of the back half of the decade. It’s also probably the first one most people will think of when they think of the show and has gotten more people to watch the show than any other episode. It’s also probably the best one to watch first for those who have never seen the show as it’s just the right level of both disturbing and fun to watch, unlike some other hall-of-famers that are just straight depressing (e.g. the rest of the top 5).

Nosedive is set in a world where people can rate each other on a scale of 1 to 5 with good ratings causing their score to go up and bad ratings to go down. Even more disturbingly, these ratings actually affect how you can exist in society: if you’re below a certain rating, you can’t live in certain neighborhoods, you can’t get certain airline deals, you can’t go to certain parties etc. The whole episode reflects this sort of vapid way of looking at life as the production design has a sickeningly pastel look with lots of obnoxiously bright colors. In addition, most of the actors have this faux positive way of speaking and acting, like they’re afraid of saying something even remotely wrong to affect their rating. All this effort into creating the world honestly makes it even cooler as we follow Lacie’s (Bryce Dallas Howard) journey into the seedy, gritty underbelly of the real world where people are more honest with each other and the look of the show becomes less plastic.

It’s hard to pin down what the best part of Nosedive is. The writing is great, striking a perfect balance between a disturbing horror, a hilarious dark comedy and a heartwarming coming-of-age story. The acting is spot-on perfect for the world and story that they’re trying to tell. And the allegory is a perfect mirror to shine on the modern world, in ways that I don’t think the showmakers ever really intended. (China is in the process of launching a social credit system. Just about every Internet writer has made the joke that they’re taking a page from Black Mirror’s book.) It takes a lot to top this one but I think I found one:

1. White Christmas

There’s a certain poetic beauty to the fact that the series’ one-off Christmas episode might very well be the darkest episode in the series. Remember the show that we’re talking about here and now go back and read that sentence again. Let it sink in a little bit. Now that you’re understanding just how messed up and twisted White Christmas is, let’s refresh. The episode is set inside a snowy log cabin as two strangers, Joe (Rafe Spall) and Matt (Jon Hamm), are spending Christmas together. Despite having both lived there for some time, they haven’t spoken much. In celebration of the holiday, Matt encourages Joe to open up and the two decide to start sharing their life stories.

Right from the get-go, this is an interesting set-up because it forces us to ask so many questions: why are they in the log cabin? How did they get there? Who are these two guys? How can they have spent so much time there without talking much? It’s a great hook and it unfolds at a nice pace to two pretty fun and interesting stories that take incredibly dark twists and turns. A lot of commentary is present in White Christmas: pick-up artistry, poor communication skills, the humanity of AI that was also touched on in USS Callister (but introduced here and with a much darker turn). By far the best, and most chilling of these, though, is the concept of “blocking” someone. Where you can block someone who’s pissing you off and all they’ll be is a gray blob that you can’t see or hear. We’ve all met people who would abuse the Hell out of this and it’s one of the most terrifying ideas that Black Mirror ever introduced.

This is a story that could easily have gone awry but it never does. Unlike Black Museum, when you see how the stories come together at the end, it doesn’t feel cheap or out of left field; it feels like the culmination of what the whole episode has been building to. White Christmas is basically everything that you want out of a great Black Mirror episode: the technology is frightening, the characters are great, the twists are phenomenal and it really forces you to examine and question your own personality flaws and how they would exist in this world. And it ends with the most frightening shot in the show. As good as the rest of the episodes listed here are, none of them have come close to the sheer terror that I felt while watching the ending of White Christmas for the first time.