A sixth season of the British speculative fiction anthology series “Black Mirror” is in development for Netflix, three years after the last season aired. Modeled after “The Twilight Zone,” it first aired in 2011 and 2012 on the British network Channel 4 before being picked up by Netflix. (Here are the 50 best Netflix original series of all time.)
“Black Mirror” uses each standalone episode to draw some aspect of modern life to its logical extreme, exploring possible dystopian futures shaped by humanity’s obsession with social media, the advent of digital surveillance, and the prospective outcomes of current experimental technology. The often horrific outcomes are disturbing, yet sadly conceivable. For instance, the terrifying power of social media platforms permeates the series, with characters who lose their livelihoods, and even their lives, due to their online social standing or interactions – a scenario that is already all too real. (The title of the series refers to the black reflective surface of a smartphone, computer, or tablet screen when it’s not in use.)
24/7 Tempo has ranked every episode of Black Mirror by reviewing user ratings for all 22 episodes (one of which was a between-season special) as of May 2022 on IMDb, an online movie and TV database owned by Amazon. In cases of tied scores, the episodes with more votes in IMDb were ranked higher. Data on season and episode number and original airdate also came from IMDb. Note that some of the airdates are identical, because the streaming platforms airing the show put up several episodes at once in some cases. (A “Black Mirror” feature film, “Bandersnatch,” released in 2018, is not included in the ranking.)
Click here to see all episodes of “Black Mirror,” ranked
Multiple episodes deal with the possibility of our memories being recorded and replayed – possibly against our will. Another common element in the series is virtual or augmented reality, whether it is used for video games or to help soldiers find and eliminate targets. Ocular and cranial implants appear more than a few times, as do robots. Many episodes keep the viewer in suspense until a final, unforeseen twist – and we have refrained from revealing those spoilers in the summaries that follow. (Read about 100 years of robots: how technology and our lives have changed.)
22. Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too
> episode: Season 5, episode 3
> Original airdate: 6/5/2019
> IMDb user rating: 6.1/10
> IMDb user votes: 34,851
Lonely teenager Rachel loves the pop star Ashley O – so much that she gets a doll named Ashley Too that is a clone of Ashley O, has the pop star’s voice, and rattles off empowering messages. Meanwhile, the real Ashley O is being drugged by her controlling agent/aunt so that she won’t ruin her image performing songs about how she really feels. When Ashley O falls into a coma, Ashley Too enlists Rachel and her family’s help to save her.
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21. The Waldo Moment
> episode: Season 2, episode 3
> Original airdate: 2/25/2013
> IMDb user rating: 6.6/10
> IMDb user votes: 38,897
Jamie is a failed comedian who plays the voice of Waldo, a cartoon bear who conducts prank interviews with politicians for a late night show. Disappointed with his life, Jamie is coerced by his producers into running for a political office as Waldo, and ends up going viral for ranting about how fake all of his competitors are – which makes Waldo more famous but hurts Jamie’s future prospects.
20. Metal Head
> episode: Season 4, episode 5
> Original airdate: 12/29/2017
> IMDb user rating: 6.7/10
> IMDb user votes: 35,644
In a seemingly post-apocalyptic world, three renegades break into a warehouse, attempting to retrieve an item to help their dying comrade – but when a mechanical security dog kills two of them and imbeds a tracker in the only survivor, she must run for her life from an endless onslaught of invincible foes.
19. Striking Vipers
> episode: Season 5, episode 1
> Original airdate: 6/5/2019
> IMDb user rating: 6.9/10
> IMDb user votes: 38,260
When two old friends, Danny and Karl, play a virtual fighting game together, they end up using their avatars to engage in a sexual relationship. As their secret game life starts to affect Danny’s marriage, he and Karl try getting intimate in real life only to end up admitting they have no attraction in person, and getting into a physical fight instead.
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18. Crocodile
> episode: Season 4, episode 3
> Original airdate: 12/29/2017
> IMDb user rating: 7.3/10
> IMDb user votes: 37,651
In a future where memories are not private and can be dredged by authorities, people who have committed crimes go through many steps to ensure that any witnesses are disposed of. When Rob and Mia accidentally strike a cyclist with their car, they throw his body into a lake – but when Rob feels remorse, Mia takes matters into her own hands to ensure she is never caught.
17. Arkangel
> episode: Season 4, episode 2
> Original airdate: 12/29/2017
> IMDb user rating: 7.3/10
> IMDb user votes: 40,003
After briefly losing track of her three-year-old daughter, Sara, at a park, single mother Marie signs up for an experimental implanted child monitoring system that tracks her daughter’s location, visual field, and health, via a tablet that has controls for filtering out stressful environmental factors. As she grows, a poorly adjusted Sara has never seen blood or adapted to stress, and her mother decides to stop using the tablet. But when Sara is 15 and begins lying about her whereabouts and seeing a boyfriend, Marie decides to track her once again.
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16. Smithereens
> episode: Season 5, episode 2
> Original airdate: 6/5/2019
> IMDb user rating: 7.5/10
> IMDb user votes: 34,692
A rideshare driver spends his days picking up employees of the social media giant Smithereen, which is run by enlightened tech bro Billy Bauer. In his offtime, the driver attends group therapy, where he meets a woman whose daughter died by suicide, and watches her try in vain to crack her daughter’s Persona account password. Drowning in a society of technology addiction, the driver snaps and abducts a Smithereen intern, demanding to speak directly with CEO Billy Bauer and revealing his own story of guilt, pain, and addiction.
15. Men Against Fire
> episode: Season 3, episode 5
> Original airdate: 10/21/2016
> IMDb user rating: 7.6/10
> IMDb user votes: 35,307
A group of soldiers use reality-augmenting implants to help them find and kill “roaches,” dangerous vagrant humans who were mutated by a biological weapon from a previous war. When one soldier is struck by a device that causes his implant to glitch, he starts to see what the roaches actually are, and pieces together a wholly different backstory.
14. The National Anthem
> episode: Season 1, episode 1
> Original airdate: 12/4/2011
> IMDb user rating: 7.7/10
> IMDb user votes: 53,023
When a princess of the British royal family is kidnapped, the prime minister is the only one who can save her. Her captors instruct him to have intercourse with a pig on live television or the princess will be killed. As backup plans to fake the broadcast backfire, the prime minister has no option but to go through with it.
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13. Be Right Back
> episode: Season 2, episode 1
> Original airdate: 2/11/2013
> IMDb user rating: 8.0/10
> IMDb user votes: 45,308
When Martha’s boyfriend – and the father of her unborn child – is killed in a car accident, she reluctantly agrees to have an AI clone made from an amalgamation of his social media posts. She talks to the clone over email and the phone as she grieves his death, but when a physical android version of him shows up to live with her, it becomes clear that the clone is an inadequate replacement for the deceased.
12. White Bear
> episode: Season 2, episode 2
> Original airdate: 2/18/2013
> IMDb user rating: 8.0/10
> IMDb user votes: 45,390
Victoria wakes up in a strange room with no recollection of how she got there. As she emerges outside, a crowd of people record her with their phones, but refuse to communicate with her. She eventually meets a renegade named Jem, who explains that most people are being brainwashed by a television signal, and enlists Victoria to help her reach a facility to destroy the signal. When they reach their destination, however, Victoria discovers the dark truth about her amnesia.
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11. Fifteen Million Merits
> episode: Season 1, episode 2
> Original airdate: 12/11/2011
> IMDb user rating: 8.0/10
> IMDb user votes: 53,125
In an indoor world where screens cover nearly every surface, slave-like inhabitants live in small cells and must power their own personalized entertainment screens by riding stationary bikes to earn “merits.” When Bing develops feelings for his neighbor Abi, he uses most of his merits to buy her a ticket to perform on a reality singing show in the vain hope of improving her lot in life.
10. Playtest
> episode: Season 3, episode 2
> Original airdate: 10/21/2016
> IMDb user rating: 8.1/10
> IMDb user votes: 45,542
Cooper is a freewheeling American, traveling around Europe and ignoring his mother’s phone calls as he avoids processing his father’s death. Realizing he doesn’t have enough money to return home, he takes a job at an augmented reality video game company, while using his phone to secretly document what goes on inside. As Cooper tests a game that uses his own deepest fears to create a virtual horror world around him, reality starts to blur.
9. USS Calister
> episode: Season 4, episode 1
> Original airdate: 12/29/2017
> IMDb user rating: 8.3/10
> IMDb user votes: 51,246
Robert Daly, the meek and poorly treated co-owner of a gaming company, finds a way to live out his fantasies after work by developing a private version of his company’s virtual multiplayer game and creating a world in which he is in charge of a space fleet. As his new real-life coworker finds herself in his game, the rest of the crew explain that they are all clones that Daly has created by secretly collecting their DNA…and they are stuck in the game for eternity.
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8. Nosedive
> episode: Season 3, episode 1
> Original airdate: 10/21/2016
> IMDb user rating: 8.3/10
> IMDb user votes: 54,514
In a world where every interpersonal interaction is rated, social media can drastically affect not only one’s social status but one’s economic status. Lacie, rated a 4.2, is trying to increase her standing in order to move into a posh estate, but one unfortunate interaction after another begets a series of poor scores that lands her in increasingly desperate circumstances.
7. Shut Up and Dance
> episode: Season 3, episode 3
> Original airdate: 10/21/2016
> IMDb user rating: 8.4/10
> IMDb user votes: 47,529
Kenny, a teenage victim of a sextortion con, is blackmailed into completing a series of criminal tasks at the direction of a hacker who has threatened to release an illicit video of him. On the way, he meets other blackmail victims who admit why they are being conned, and they work together to avoid the consequences that may be coming to them.
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6. Hated in the Nation
> episode: Season 3, episode 6
> Original airdate: 10/21/2016
> IMDb user rating: 8.5/10
> IMDb user votes: 40,562
As bees near extinction, autonomous drone insects (ADIs) are released to replace them. When some ADIs begin to go rogue and embed themselves in people’s brains, causing madness, agonizing pain, and ultimately death, a detective and her new partner realize that the victims have all been the target of a viral Twitter hashtag that is part of a game where people can vote to kill hated public figures on social media.
5. The Entire History of You
> episode: Season 1, episode 3
> Original airdate: 12/18/2011
> IMDb user rating: 8.5/10
> IMDb user votes: 54,341
In a world where sub-ear implants record every waking experience, people obsess over their memories and re-play them for friends. Liam, who is struggling to come to terms with his wife Ffion’s friendship with her ex, eventually confronts the ex and forces him to reveal and delete all of his memories of Ffion. In the process, however, Liam discovers much more than he wanted to know.
4. Black Museum
> episode: Season 4, episode 6
> Original airdate: 12/29/2017
> IMDb user rating: 8.6/10
> IMDb user votes: 41,843
A young woman visits a macabre museum that holds a series of criminal artifacts. The proprietor, a disgraced medical researcher, tells the story of each exhibit, all of which involve the transference of consciousness between two people, or from a person into an inanimate object. The main attraction is a man who died by electric chair but signed away rights to his consciousness, and is now electrocuted over and over by museum visitors.
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3. San Junipero
> episode: Season 3, episode 4
> Original airdate: 10/21/2016
> IMDb user rating: 8.6/10
> IMDb user votes: 57,193
Set in 1987, a shy young woman named Yorkie meets a beautiful party girl named Kelly in a vacation town called San Junipero. After some hesitance, Yorkie hooks up with Kelly, only to reveal afterward that it was her first sexual encounter. Kelly disappears and Yorkie travels through time to seek her in different eras, finally finding her in 2002, when they each reveal who they really are and why they are in San Junipero.
2. Hang the DJ
> episode: Season 4, episode 4
> Original airdate: 12/29/2017
> IMDb user rating: 8.7/10
> IMDb user votes: 51,132
An electronic dating device called Coach sets people up in a series of fixed-length relationships in order to determine their compatibility with other subjects, eventually settling at a permanent partner with 99.8% success rate. Frank and Amy have dated each other twice and fail to enjoy their subsequent pairings. On the eve of their permanent assignments to other people, Amy schemes about how to bypass the system.
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1. White Christmas
> episode: Special (between seasons 2 and 3)
> Original airdate: 12/16/2014
> IMDb user rating: 9.1/10
> IMDb user votes: 56,921
Matt and Joe, two housemates in a remote, snowy outpost get to know each other while Matt prepares Christmas dinner. Matt speaks of illegally moonlighting as a dating coach to men who secretly recorded their dates through an ocular implant…until he witnessed a client being murdered. As he explains his even more twisted day job, Matt pushes Joe to tell his own story – which is darker than he may have imagined.
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