Rick And Morty is a funny, creative and intelligent show. It follows the adventures of Rick Sanchez, the smartest man in the universe, and his grandson Morty, a thoroughly ordinary teen who gets dragged unwillingly into whatever new lunacy Rick manages to embroil himself in for the duration of each episode.
Updated on March 26th, 2021 by Mark Birrell: With the incredibly popular fourth season Rick and Morty only growing the show's fanbase, Rick and Morty is as popular now as it was when it first exploded onto screens and the expanded fanbase has clearly marked out what it deems to be the best episodes. We've updated this list to reflect what the top-ranking episodes are now on IMDb to give fans an accurate list of the show's most popular stories so far. Some of the series' most famous episodes make the cut while a few surprisingly don't, but all of the following episodes are certainly shining examples of the show at its very best.
M. Night Shaym-Aliens! (Season 1, Episode 4) - 8.7
In the show's first real mind-bending episode, Rick and Morty are abducted by Zigerion Scammers, who Rick describes as "the galaxy's most ambitious, least successful con artists." The scammers trap the two in a giant simulator that attempts to extract some valuable information from Rick through an elaborate series of twists and deceptions, hence the reference to movie director M. Night Shyamalan in the title. Jerry also accidentally gets put into the simulator as well and, Jerry being Jerry, he fails to see the obvious artificiality of the simulated world around him, leading to a defining first B story for the sad dad character that's equal parts hilarious and pathetic.
Lawnmower Dog (Season 1, Episode 2) - 8.8
The show got off to a very strong start with its first handful of episodes, its second was the show's introduction to its high-concept movie-referencing side. The A story follows Rick and Morty traveling inside the dreams of Morty's teacher in a misguided attempt to secure better grades. The B story revolves around the family dog, Snuffles, who's been given a special helmet by Rick to increase their intelligence, at Jerry's request. The two stories converge at the end when Snuffles causes a dog uprising and the juggling of the storylines was a very promising sign for the series very early on.
Rixty Minutes (Season 1, Episode 8) - 8.8
On a slow day, Rick decides to hook his daughter Beth's family up with interdimensional cable. It starts off as a platform for the Rick and Morty writers to come up with the most bizarre concepts for TV shows possible but then the episode takes a turn for the personal when Beth and her husband Jerry discover alternate versions of themselves that are more successful and happy than them because, in those realities, they never married. This prompts a bout of soul-searching in Jerry, Beth, and their daughter Summer.
Rest and Ricklaxation (Season 3, Episode 6) - 8.9
Rick takes Morty to a galactic spa therapy session. It works a little too well, as the worst parts of the two are removed entirely from them and given sentience in an awful, toxic version of their world. Naturally, toxic Rick manages to find a way to cross over from his reality to ours and proceeds to wreak havoc on Earth, with the original Rick now too mild to properly make a stand against him. Fans get an exciting matchup of the two geniuses and also discover what Rick considers his worst weakness.
Morty's Mind Blowers (Season 3, Episode 8) - 8.9
Morty comes to realize that Rick has made a habit of erasing his memories from past adventures that have the potential to overwhelm him. It's a kind of supercut of the most extreme adventures that Morty has ever embarked on, and all those events go to show how going on adventures with Rick is not a Sunday picnic, but rather an incredibly dangerous undertaking that has almost scrambled Morty's mind on more than one occasion.
A Rickle In Time (Season 2, Episode 1) - 8.9
This episode sees reality fractured. The only way for Summer, Rick, and Morty to put it back together is to be sure of their next actions. But uncertainties make the situation even more complex. This episode is well regarded as it brings the core three characters together and brings out some real emotional conflict. Viewers get to see what Rick will do for his family, nearly sacrificing himself. It all makes for a very effective bottle episode structure.
Mortynight Run (Season 2, Episode 2) - 8.9
With a guest appearance from Jemaine Clement and an adventure involving a gaseous character called Fart, there's a lot to laugh about in this episode.
The highlight is clearly the Jerry daycare that Morty drops his dad off at. With Jerrys from all of the multiverse, they come together to work out why exactly they are trapped there and how they can get out of it.
Rattlestar Ricklactica (Season 4, Episode 5) - 8.9
After interfering in the development of a planet dominated by snakes, Morty accidentally starts a time travel kerfuffle in the A story while Jerry has one of his most endearingly hapless misadventures in a B story where he's given a pair of gravity-defying shoes by Rick that he quickly develops problems with in this odd Christmas episode. It's another episode that pokes fun at the tropes of time travel stories and shows that there's still plenty of jokes left to be made about the worn-out subject.
Edge of Tomorty: Rick Die Rickpeat (Season 4, Episode 1) - 9.0
This season opener sees the titular pair get back to basics–in of Rick and Morty's storylines, at least–and sees Morty become obsessed with a crystal that grants him the ability to see his own death. Morty's nonsensical quest to appease the vision in his head showing him dying as an old man leads him on a bizarre quest, but it's actually less strange than Rick's journey throughout the episode as he dies in the opening and must travel through various clone bodies in various dimensions in order to get back to his old self.
Meeseeks and Destroy (Season 1, Episode 5) - 9.0
When Rick allows Morty to lead their next adventure the two end up in a fantasy realm on a riff on the Jack and the Beanstalk story that ends very unpleasantly. The main story, that the episode's title refers to, is about what happens with the family when Rick leaves them with a Meeseeks box. The box materializes a helpful blue entity that exists solely to solve one simple, specific, problem and disappears when it's resolved. Jerry's attempts to be smart naturally result in catastrophe and the cascading Meeseeks problem produces one of the show's most iconic creations.
