The 15 Best Episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000

What’s most shocking about the fact that it’s been 35 years since Mystery Science Theater 3000 began its run on KTMA in Minneapolis-St. Paul is the fact that it’s been only 35 years. Sporting a premise that’s gained added resonance since Covid redefined what it’s like to watch movies in isolation, the series has existed long enough—and in enough iterations—as to feel almost impervious to time, endlessly redefining itself as technology and media consumption mutate and grow, and, more frequently, as circumstances necessitate.

While the show’s hook—a human and their robots joke their way through bad movies—suggests a cynical outlook, its overriding imagination leaves room enough to enjoy both the films being watched and the jokes made at their expense. The classics that MST3K has yielded far exceed the limitations of this list’s format—to say nothing of the multitude of grace notes contained within, from featured short films like Mr. B Natural and A Case of Spring Fever, to songs like “A Patrick Swayze Christmas,” to Kevin Murphy’s ability to shout “Jed!” for 51 straight seconds.

To celebrate this iconic institution, which includes 14 seasons (including the “season zero” KTMA episodes) and 229 episodes (not counting the lost “Star Force: Fugitive Alien II”), we’ve ranked 15 of the show’s best episodes.

Honorable Mentions: “The Touch of Satan,” “The Violent Years,” “The Giant Spider Invasion,” “Eegah,” “Space Mutiny”

15. “The Thing That Couldn’t Die” (Season 8, Episode 5)

The shift to a higher budget during the Sci-Fi Channel era enabled MST3K to transition from focusing on a movie’s technical limitations—that is, problems that would be solved with an influx of money—to failures of a more strictly creative sort. The Thing That Couldn’t Die is a palatable enough three-reeler from the 1950s Universal horror boom, but its economical scenes and arch dialogue make it an ideal punching bag for this era’s more hands-on approach. In this episode, we’re introduced to the Observers—caped, albino beings drawn equally from Death in The Seventh Seal and Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey—and the comedic potential of their presence is quickly realized in a bit that culminates with Mike trading blows with a facsimile of Adrienne Barbeau as played by his wife of nearly a decade, Bridget. Averaging around 10 jokes a minute, the episode is a ceaseless comedic volley, rounded out with a Goodfellas reference to die for.

14. “Lords of the Deep” (Season 12, Episode 3)

Despite their impressive quality control, both the Netflix and the first of the Gizmodo seasons fail to capture the spark of the show’s earlier years, which is another way of saying they fail only at the impossible task of putting the lightning back in the bottle. Nonetheless, a handful of the newest episodes stand out, and the best of these is “Lords of the Deep.” Perhaps incidentally, this episode also has the added bonus of featuring almost none of the bells and whistles (such as Tom Servo flying in the theater) that pollute seasons 11 and 12 and largely impede the writing’s strengths and the show’s historical minimalism. In this shorter-than-average episode, less is more, and its movie—described by Patton Oswalt’s Max as a Dollar Store version of The Abyss shot by James Cameron over a weekend—is actually rather fun.

13. “Warrior of the Lost World” (Season 5, Episode 1)

One of countless Mad Max rip-offs, Warrior of the Lost World typifies much of its genre while retaining an anonymous banality—from the cheap-looking, if not outright stolen, locations to a seemingly obligatory turn by Donald Pleasence, though a talking motorcycle does lodge itself in the memory, if only out of sheer annoyance. In other words, it’s a movie tailor-made for MST3K, and the result is one of the show’s great, largely unsung episodes, proof that Joel Hodgson, Kevin Murphy, and Trace Beaulieu (and their fellow writers) could knock it out of the park with seemingly effortless poise.

12. “Devil Fish” (Season 9, Episode 11)

For sheer rewatchability, few episodes compare to “Devil Fish.” You’d be forgiven for not realizing that this episode’s movie was directed by Lamberto Bava, what with how it features little, if any, of the spark seen in the following year’s Demons, or the fact that his directorial credit here is billed to the very-real-sounding name of “John Old, Jr.,” but it matters little. Devil Fish is the kind of bad movie only a truly talented filmmaker could bring into existence. From its bizarre dissolves to the endlessly repeated shots of the titular beast swimming upwards, it’s a Jaws rip-off of the highest order, full of confident, bold choices, all the better to be swarmed by the residents of the Satellite of Love like a fresh carcass thrown to hungry scavengers.

11. “The Sword and the Dragon” (Season 6, Episode 17)

Most MST3K fans show up, first and foremost, for the movie-riffing. However, the host segments can be just as sublime, if not more so, as evidenced by those of “The Sword and the Dragon.” The first of the three interstitial sequences—a parody of Ingmar Bergman’s cinema with at least two levels of humor at work, and shot in an impressively choreographed single take to boot—is among the greatest that the show has ever pulled off, only to be nearly matched by the throwaway Dadaism of the second. In conjunction with the high-performance riffing of this production, a lush Soviet production, here seen in Roger Corman’s dubbed edit, it’s a one-two knockout. Heck, even the comparable unmemorable third-segment victory lap is great on account of Kevin Murphy’s performance alone. Even more so than most episodes, here the show’s engine is firing furiously on all cylinders.

10. “Soultaker” (Season 10, Episode 1)

Soultaker is a charmingly ambitious mediocrity ready-made for MST3K, full of big ideas earnestly put forth by writer-actor Vivian Schilling and host to a welcome turn by genre stalwart Robert Z’Dar. A ’90s time capsule of the purest order, this film was theatrically released but has exquisite direct-to-video vibes, with Joe Estevez as a direct subordinate to the Angel of Death and the titular soultaker responsible for collecting the spirits of a group of teenagers involved in a deadly car accident. The riffing of this episode is top-notch, and the interstitial segments boast a rare crossover between the Joel and Mike eras, with Joel Hodgson returning for the first time in five seasons, as well as delighting fans with the overdue pairing of TV’s Frank and Professor Bobo. Somebody get these two a podcast.

9. “Master Ninja I” (Season 3, Episode 22)

If Sandy Frank’s productions were the meat and potatoes of the early MST3K seasons, then failed television series turned into awkwardly bisected movies were the bread and butter, and “Master Ninja I” is the most joyously exuberant of these episodes. The presence of Lee Van Cleef in the movie proper lends more gravitas to this pleasantly forgettable concoction than it knows what to do with (the series from which it’s pulled was canceled after 13 episodes, later turned into seven movies), resulting in one of the more watchable experiments upon which Joel, Crow, and Tom Servo can wail incessantly like children attacking a pinata. But the joys of MST3K are often found in the margins, and while the wash-rinse-repeat movie-riffing here is superb, it’s the out-of-leftfield genius of the closing “Master Ninja Theme Song” that makes this episode one for the ages.

8. “Invasion of the Neptune Men” (Season 8, Episode 19)

Bill Corbett doesn’t get nearly enough recognition for his performance as Crow T. Robot, probably on account of only having had three seasons to stretch his legs versus the seven that his predecessor enjoyed, but his pithy, angrier interpretation of the character is one of the show’s greatest pleasures, and Invasion of the Neptune Men provides ample material to stoke his ire. This 1961 Japanese film (featuring a young Sonny Chiba) is among the most inanely dubbed and aggressively sense-dulling features to ever appear on the show. While nothing in the movie proper can match the “Who’s on First?” wit of this episode’s skit regarding Japanese Noh theater, the momentary appearance of an Adolf Hitler effigy in a climax replete with WWII stock footage lands like a hilarity-inducing shot of caffeine injected directly into the brain.

7. “San Francisco International” (Season 6, Episode 14)

The longevity of MST3K suggests the ultimate commitment to the bit, and this dedication is apparent at both the macro and micro levels. Case in point: In this episode, Mike Nelson’s inexplicable, one-note impersonation of Steve Urkel is milked for all it’s worth—and to the point where the sustained exhaustion of the joke is itself the joke, bringing to mind the immortal Sideshow Bob rake-stepping sequence from The Simpsons’s “Cape Feare” episode. No comedic muscle goes unflexed in “San Francisco International,” and the centerpiece movie, a prototypical ’70s TV pilot turned feature, provides ample enough melodrama (most memorably when a young boy, distraught over his parents’ divorce, accidentally takes off in a plane) to sustain two episodes’ worth of jokes.

6. “Phase IV” (KTMA, Episode 9)

There are some damn good movies that have been subjected to the MST3K treatment (and even more to the unfortunate RiffTrax live screenings, the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel in the town square), and Saul Bass’s Phase IV is likely the greatest of these. All the better, then, that it showed up before the show was at full steam, still content to exist almost purely as a vibe. As per usual for the KTMA episodes, riffing is at a comparable minimum here, allowing this dreamy sci-fi picture to better play despite the necessary commentary from the silhouetted cast. As a result, this episode exquisitely recreates an experience that many watching it will know well: seeing and enjoying an awesome movie with a group that otherwise hates it.

5. “Catalina Caper” (Season 2, Episode 4)

Tom Servo has fallen in love several times throughout the course of MST3K, including with a blender, fellow robot Gypsy, and the character Sheila in The Projected Man, yet none of these have the staying power of Catalina Caper’s “creepy girl.” This is largely thanks to one of the show’s greatest assets: the dulcet tones of Kevin Murphy, whose range and showmanship are such that it’s downright shocking that he’s apparently never had a side gig in the music industry. Here, Tom’s love song to Ulla Strömstedt’s creepy girl is among the highest of the show’s many musical high-water marks. The film watched herein is a strangely banal fusion of the beach party and heist film genres, a perfect launching pad for what proved to be the show’s first masterpiece.

4. “Village of the Giants” (Season 5, Episode 23)

The ne plus ultra of Bert I. Gordon’s giant monster flicks, Village of the Giants was made for the drive-in circuit, but it was destined for MST3K. This decidedly horny amalgamation of teenage angst films and special-effects spectacle (indelibly distilled in the image of a man clinging to a giantess’s bosom) is competently enough made to be compulsively watchable, making it a perfect subject for this enterprise and the first bona fide great episode of the Mike Nelson era. The B plot, involving TV’s Frank’s potential replacement by none other than Torgo (of Manos: The Hands of Fate) stands as a reminder of the genuinely personal attachment we find with these characters, exemplified in the touching climactic performance of “The Greatest Frank of All” and the all-timer lyric “Let me be Frank about Frank.”

3. “The Undead” (Season 8, Episode 6)

Bearing witness to Mike and the ‘bots experiencing The Undead is like watching the world’s greatest ping pong players locked in breakneck competition for 90 minutes, only to be forced to a draw. Spanning centuries and concerning the philosophy of everything from reincarnation to the concept of fate, The Undead is among Roger Corman’s most ambitious movies, but it’s cheesy in just the right way for the MST3K template—and I say that as a fan of everyone involved. This episode would be among the very best even without its final five minutes, but oh how extraordinary those final five minutes are. More than merely saving the best for last, it’s arguably the funniest, most audacious bit in the show’s history, and possibly Kevin Murphy’s finest hour. Andy Kaufman would be proud.

2. “The Final Sacrifice” (Season 9, Episode 10)

Is The Final Sacrifice a bad movie? Almost certainly, but it’s also some kind of incredible anti-masterpiece. Flush with aspirations to gravitas and awash in an unthreatening aura that can only be described as purely Canadian, watching it feels akin to being smothered in maple syrup. However you describe it, it’s the foundation for my choice for the show’s funniest episode, full stop—in particular the first 15 minutes, which begin with an A-plus joke at the expense of director Tjardus Greidanus’s last name and culminating in my favorite of Tom Servo’s emotional breakdowns. Whether they’re shelling the youthful lead character’s perceived shortcomings (such jokes land because the writers clearly were the same kind of poindexter when they were his age) or endlessly capitalizing on his friend’s incredible name, Zap Rowsdower, Mike and his automaton sidekicks have shown up to this metaphorical Thanksgiving dinner with knives sharpened and hungry for seconds.

1. “Mitchell” (Season 5, Episode 12)

If “Mitchell” isn’t the funniest episode, what makes it the greatest? For one, it exists at the crossroads of the series, literally and figuratively, what with series creator Joel Hodgson departing as host during the course of the episode, his character narrowly escaping death at the hands of his captors, resulting in Michael J. Nelson being selected as his replacement in a bit of metatextual parallelism that’s positively Sorkian. It benefits from having the best of both worlds, but the bittersweet nature of its creation also endowed the show’s staff with the urgency and confidence to make Joel’s last turn a bat really count for something.

Enter Joe Don Baker, whose uncomfortably lovable antihero (the titular Mitchell) makes the movie of the same name a perfect pitch across the plate for an all-time grand slam. While frequently overshadowed by its self-aware silliness, the show’s overriding intelligence is just as essential a component of its success, and that quality may have never been more acute than it is in this episode’s B plot of Gypsy finding a way to save Joel, which includes arguably the greatest parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey—at least until Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. As Joel hands the baton to Mike, the show’s ability to endure is cemented, and four cancellations later, it still hasn’t stopped.