‘Black Mirror’: Every Episode Ranked, Including Season 7

With the new season of Netflix‘s Black Mirror, creator-writer Charlie Brooker’s anthology saga now has a total of 34 offerings of dystopian delights for the ready and willing viewer. Season seven’s six new episodes add to a catalogue that also includes a 2014 holiday special starring Jon Hamm and Netflix’s first-ever adult interactive movie with 2018’s Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. But which episodes are the best, which are the worst, and where do the new episodes fall on our ranking?

The Emmy-winning anthology series, which first launched in the U.K. before it was nabbed by the U.S. streaming giant, taps into our collective unease by exploiting techno-paranoia themes with each standalone story. A common Black Mirror misconception is that technology is the enemy, when in fact, it’s humanity. The modern tech featured in the stories are meant to be a black mirror reflecting what the characters are capable of back at them.

“The thing that I always find odd — and I understand why they do it — is when people say that Black Mirror is a warning,” Brooker recently told The Hollywood Reporter. “I don’t see that that’s my job, and that’s not what I’m trying to do. It’s me worrying out loud. [But] there are certainly things we’ve done in the show that I’m surprised by how quickly they become real.”

By design, the episodes are never in any sort of order. (Brooker did release an episode sequence for the first time with season four, but with the caveat that they can be watched “in whatever flippin‘ order you like.”) We would recommend watching them chronologically by season, however, since Brooker has filled the series with Easter eggs galore for the dedicated audience. (One season four episode has callbacks to every story in the Black Mirror universe.) Also, leave extra time for choose-your-own-adventure Bandersnatch, which has at least eight endings for you to try to discover.

Below, The Hollywood Reporter ranks all of the Black Mirror stories from worst to best. Keep in mind, this is no easy task. You can either use this as a guide for your binge, or to yell at over where you disagree.

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