Twilight Zone Episodes With Breathtaking Twists, Surprises, And Themes

These 10 episodes of the original Twilight Zone will leave you silent when the credits roll as you contemplate what it is you just saw. Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone premiered with season 1 in 1959 and ended in 1964 with its season 5 finale. In that time, he told 156 stories ranging from sci-fi to fantasy, and much more.

Most episodes of The Twilight Zone have some second-half twist that puts all the events from the episode into a different context, or an ending that turns the story on its head. Nearly everyone will surprise you, but a few are so unexpected, or even powerful, that they will leave you speechless.

The Howling Man

Season 2, Episode 5

In “The Howling Man”, a man named David Ellington (H.M. Wynant) walks through a town in post-World War I Central Europe. A sudden storm forces him to take refuge in a monastery, where he discovers the monks appear to be holding an innocent man hostage. The monks claim he is the devil.

The episode keeps you guessing about who is in the right and who is in the wrong till the end, and a time jump into the future offers another twist. The fact that each ending lines up with real-world events makes them all the more unnerving, as does the implication that humanity can’t help being self-destructive.

I Shot An Arrow Into The Air

Season 1, Episode 15

“I Shot an Arrow into the Air” is an astronaut-focused Twilight Zone episode, one of the variations of Twilight Zone episodes you find across every season. Eight astronauts crash-land on what they believe to be a barren asteroid. Only four survive the landing, and tempers flare around rationing and water.

Corey (Dewey Martin) is the most at odds with the others, and eventually, things turn violent. If you know The Twilight Zone, you can guess where this is going, but it’s the speed at which the relationship between the astronauts falls apart that’s so appalling. It doesn’t feel unbelievable; more like a grim reflection of what we’re capable of.

The Passersby

Season 3, Episode 4

“The Passersby” is one of those Twilight Zone episodes that is stuffed with strange, fantastical ideas that could only ever come together in Serling’s show. At the end of the Civil War, Southern belle Lavinia Godwin (Joanne Linville) lives in her ruined antebellum mansion, waiting for her husband to come home from the war.

A limping Confederate Sergeant passes by and stops to talk with Lavinia. As they talk, the pair notice Union and Confederate soldiers making their way past the mansion on the lonely road. It’s an episode about bitterness and letting go of anger, and the end may choke you up more than you would have guessed at the start.

The Silence

Season 2, Episode 25

Like the main character in “The Silence”, you too may also struggle to speak at the end of the episode. This season 2 episode is set in a men’s club where chatty aristocrat, Jamie Tennyson (Liam Sullivan), accepts a wager of $500,000 if he does not speak for a whole year. Though humiliated, Tennyson accepts, as he needs the money.

The wager becomes a war between the bettor, Archie (Franchot Tone), and Tennyson, who both can not afford to lose. Personal secrets are revealed, and the cruel jape becomes much more. At the end of the episode, you’ll feel terrible for and disgusted with everyone involved. You may want to hide away in a glass room yourself.

The Old Man In The Cave

Season 5, Episode 7

“The Old Man in the Cave” is set in a near-dystopian future of 1974, after a nuclear war has devastated the US. A small town of survivors has gotten on well enough with a supply of canned food. They have no way of knowing, however, if the cans have been tainted by radiation.

To learn whether they can eat the food or not, the townsfolk trust in a mysterious and unseen old man in a cave, who seemingly only gives information to the venerated Mr. Goldsmith (John Anderson). It’s one of the more low-sci-fi settings of The Twilight Zone, and the end will leave you all the more concerned for it.

Perchance To Dream

Season 1, Episode 9

“Perchance to Dream” features a disturbing fantasy that can’t totally be ruled out. Edward Hall (Richard Conte) has become convinced that if he dies in his dreams, he will die in real life, as every dream has gotten longer and longer, and more frightening as well. With a heart condition, he feels his time is almost up.

This episode of The Twilight Zone offers up a creepy portrait of a man on the edge. The idea that he can spend ages in his dreams while only being asleep for a couple of minutes is an awful one. The end of the episode may make you sit in silence as you wonder what your dreams have in store.

The Obsolete Man

Season 2, Episode 29

“The Obsolete Man” is one of the most fully formed stories in The Twilight Zone and a testament to Rod Serling’s writing skills as he crafts a compelling and haunting short story that feels like it could have been a feature-length film. Burgess Meredith once again stars in the series, this time as Romney Wordsworth.

In a future, totalitarian state, Romney is put on trial for being “obsolete”. The state has eliminated books, and therefore, his job as a librarian has become redundant, a crime punishable by death. It’s a brilliantly satirical piece of storytelling and one that feels uncomfortably more relevant every passing year.

Walking Distance

Season 1, Episode 5

In “Walking Distance”, 36-year-old advertising executive Martin Sloan (Gig Young) has his car serviced at a stop that happens to be near his hometown of Homewood. Martin walks into town and is surprised to discover that it doesn’t look like it has aged at all, and that’s when he sees a young version of himself.

Somehow, Martin has stumbled back into time, but unlike a lot of The Twilight Zone episodes, there’s nothing really sinister about the time travel. It’s a quiet story, and Martin’s not sure whether he should stay or go, until his much younger father convinces him it’s time to leave. It’ll have you quietly pondering long after the episode ends.

The Long Morrow

Season 5, Episode 15

“The Long Morrow” is a contemplative episode of The Twilight Zone. A 31-year-old astronaut, Douglas Stansfield (Robert Lansing), is scheduled to go on an excursion to a system 141 light-years away. To save him from roughly 40 years of loneliness, Douglas is put in suspended animation. Before he leaves, he meets a woman, Sandra (Mariette Hartley).

When Douglas returns from his journey, he’s deflated to find that Earth and science have moved far beyond what he set out to do. He’s thanked for his work and promptly forgotten about. Being a season 5 episode, you have to wonder if Rod Serling was thinking about his own career as he wrote this episode.

One For The Angels

Season 1, Episode 2

The second episode of The Twilight Zone is also one of the series’ best. In “One for the Angels”, Lew Bookman (Ed Wynn) is a kindly neighborhood pitchman who is approached by death and told his time is up. Ever the pitchman, Lew talks his way out of it, but promises a young girl’s life in place of his own.

Lew has a last-minute change of heart and must talk his way back into death’s graces. It’s a quintessential episode of The Twilight Zone, with twists, personifications of death, and lessons to be learned. There’s something so beautiful and striking in the simplicity with which the episode shows the value of a life.