Summary

• Best Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes showcase brilliant irony in hilarious storylines with iconic guest stars like Michael J. Fox and Shelley Berman.
• Larry David's social mishaps in Curb Your Enthusiasm bring dark laughs with relatable observations about everyday life and awkward situations.
• Curb Your Enthusiasm dives into sensitive topics like grief, incest, and sexual assault, showcasing the absurdity in a satirical and hilarious manner.

This article contains references to grief, incest, and sexual assault.

From “The Doll” to “Palestinian Chicken,” Curb Your Enthusiasm delivered a ton of classic episodes in the more than two decades it spent on the air. The best Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes make relatable observations about the mundane aspects of everyday life. They give Larry David a hilarious scene partner to bounce off of, like Chris Williams as Krazee-Eyez Killa or Michael J. Fox as himself, and they dovetail their storylines for a brilliantly ironic payoff in the final scene.

“The Ski Lift” sees Larry impersonating an Orthodox Jew in a bid to secure a new kidney for Richard Lewis. “The Black Swan” sees Larry killing the beloved pet swan of his country club’s manager and doing everything in his power to silence the witnesses. From “Seinfeld” to “The Car Pool Lane,” these are the greatest episodes from Curb Your Enthusiasm’s entire run.

20 The Special Section

Season 3, Episode 6

It was always a joy whenever Shelley Berman popped up to play Larry’s father Nat in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, but he got his funniest material in season 3’s “The Special Section.” Larry returns from shooting a Martin Scorsese movie in New York to find that his mother has died and the funeral already took place, and no one told Larry because she asked them not to bother him on his trip. Berman plays the scene spectacularly, offering a straight-man foil to Larry’s incredulousness.

This episode has everything from Larry questioning Scorsese’s direction to Larry robbing his own mother’s grave in the middle of the night. He finds that losing his mother is a perfect excuse to get out of any social obligation – even a stop-and-chat on the street. Plus, this episode introduced Richard Kind as fan-favorite Cousin Andy.

19 Denise Handicap

Season 7, Episode 5

Larry discovers the perks of dating a wheelchair in season 7’s “Denise Handicap” as he gets to use accessible parking spaces and jump to the front of the line in restaurants. He also enjoys the fact that “dating the disabled” improves his public image, as people who hate him suddenly view him in a new light. However, it all goes off the rails when Susie throws his BlackBerry in the ocean and he loses Denise’s number.

After striking up a conversation with another wheelchair in his search for Denise, Larry ends up bringing her to a social function, only to find that Denise is also there. This culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending, in which Larry is chased by two women in wheelchairs and runs up a flight of stairs to escape them, where Rosie O’Donnell finishes the job. This episode also has one of Ted Danson’s funniest Curb scenes as his friendly offer of a piece of pie in a restaurant escalates into a screaming match.

18 Opening Night

Season 4, Episode 10

Curb’s season 4 storyline of Larry starring in The Producers comes to a head in the super-sized finale episode, “Opening Night,” as he flies to New York to make his Broadway debut. Larry’s trip to New York is beset with calamity before he even sets foot on the stage. He’s cursed by a deranged tourist, played brilliantly by Stephen Colbert, and he’s chased through the streets by a hoodlum when he tries to thwart a mugging.

The real genius of this season’s story arc reveals itself when Larry starts bombing on stage and Mel Brooks and his fellow producers celebrate the downfall of the show. As it turns out, Curb’s Producers storyline was a stealth remake of The Producers itself. Brooks cast Larry knowing he would tank the show, because he wanted to sabotage his own production, a la Max Bialystock.

17 Beloved Aunt

Season 1, Episode 8

Larry turns Cheryl’s entire family against him after a grievous typo is printed in the obituary he wrote for Cheryl’s late aunt. Where the obit should say, “Devoted sister, beloved aunt,” the newspaper has mistakenly swapped out the “A” in “aunt” for a “C.” This is a classic case of Larry getting blamed for a disaster that technically isn’t his fault, as he’s promptly kicked out of the house and spends the rest of the episode trying to find a place to stay.

He initially goes to stay at Jeff and Susie’s house, but gets kicked out in the middle of the night due to an unfortunate misunderstanding with Jeff’s mother. He can’t get a hotel room, because he gets into a fight in the lobby, so he ends up sleeping in his car. It’s hilarious to see just how much grief one little typo can cause.

16 No Lessons Learned

Season 12, Episode 10

The final episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm was both a fitting end to the series and a brilliantly meta callback to the last highly anticipated finale that David was a part of. In a sly recreation of the Seinfeld finale, Larry is put on trial for violating an obscure local law and all his old enemies from the show’s history come out of the woodwork to testify against him as character witnesses. Much like the Seinfeld gang, he ends up being found guilty – but there’s a twist.

Every cameo in the Curb Your Enthusiasm finale, from Mocha Joe to Mr. Takahashi to Tara Michaelson, was a treat for long-time fans. The episode culminates in the perfect final twist as none other than Jerry Seinfeld saves Larry from suffering the same finale fate that he did. “No Lessons Learned” was a perfect send-off for everyone’s favorite curmudgeon.

15 The Corpse Sniffing Dog

Season 3, Episode 7

Larry’s restaurant faces yet another setback in season 3, episode 7, “The Corpse Sniffing Dog,” when Jeff and Susie’s dog Oscar – a former police dog trained to sniff out dead bodies – finds something buried underneath the kitchen. It turns out to just be a bra, but Jeff has bigger problems: he’s allergic to Oscar, so he’ll either have to move out or find Oscar a new home. Larry sets out to find a new home for Oscar, but that, naturally, just creates more problems.

Sometimes, the sharpest Curb storylines are the simplest. “The Corpse Sniffing Dog” sees Larry taking Oscar back and forth between two houses, but gets plenty of laughs as he keeps disappointing people. By bringing the dog to the Braudys, he infuriates Susie; by taking him back, he infuriates the Braudys; and by bringing him home, he forces Jeff to move back out. This is a classic case of Larry trying to do something good and still turning everyone involved against him.

14 The Ski Lift

Season 5, Episode 8

In his bid to find Richard Lewis a new kidney, Larry befriends the head of a kidney consortium and invites him to Cheryl, Jeff, and Susie on a skiing vacation in season 5’s “The Ski Lift.” Since the head of the kidney consortium and his daughter are Orthodox Jews, Larry has to pretend to be one, too, and Susie has to pose as his wife. “The Ski Lift” is a masterclass in improvisational comedy, because it allows Larry to play a character within a character, like when he impersonated a W.A.S.P. to gain hip at a conservative country club.

“The Ski Lift” has a ton of fun with the premise of Larry putting on an Orthodox facade and Susie begrudgingly pretending to be married to him. The episode culminates in Larry and the head of the kidney consortium’s daughter being stuck on a ski lift. It builds to a hysterical climactic sequence that sees the woman jumping from the ski lift, Larry eating a pair of edible underwear to survive, and Larry’s cell phone showing up inside Richard’s nurse’s “unusually large” vagina.

13 Meet The Blacks

Season 6, Episode 1

In the season 6 premiere, “Meet the Blacks,” Larry and Cheryl welcome the Black family into their home after they’re displaced by a hurricane. This episode introduced fan-favorite characters like Loretta and Auntie Rae, setting up a whole new dynamic in the David household, and brought back icons like Ted Danson and Marty Funkho for more classic disagreements with Larry. “Meet the Blacks” got season 6 off to a great start by succinctly setting up the season’s story arc and working as a terrific standalone episode in its own right.

There are a ton of great ideas in this episode, like showing up for a party on the wrong night as an excuse for not attending, which backfires every single time Larry tries it. There’s also the hilarious visual gag of Larry unwittingly eating an erotic cake. “Meet the Blacks” is a classic case of a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where every storyline lands and they all converge beautifully in the final twist.

12 The Group

Season 1, Episode 10

Curb Your Enthusiasm introduced its ability to wring dark laughs out of the most horrifying subject matter in its season 1 finale, “The Group.” Larry bumps into an ex-girlfriend who asks him to accompany her to a group for incest survivors. At the meeting, Larry makes up a story about being sexually assaulted by his uncle. When that uncle comes to visit and the director of Cheryl’s production of The Vagina Monologues turns out to be another member of the group, calamity ensues.

This episode is full of shock laughs, but the premise of “The Group” isn’t just shock humor for the sake of shock humor; that premise paves the way for a ton of hilarious situations. There’s a great cut from Larry promising the Vagina Monologues director that he won’t break the group’s confidentiality to Larry telling Cheryl every single detail from the meeting to explain why he lied to her. “The Group” ends Curb’s first season on a huge laugh when the director meets Larry’s uncle and furiously berates him.

11 The Grand Opening

Season 3, Episode 10

The season 3 story arc of Larry investing in a new restaurant in L.A. comes to a head in the finale, “The Grand Opening.” The restaurant was plagued with disaster from the beginning, but it gets even more disastrous in the final days leading up to the opening. Larry fires their chef, breaks a famous critic’s thumbs, and the replacement chef has Tourette’s syndrome and screams curse words from the open kitchen.

“The Grand Opening” has arguably the greatest final scene of any Curb season finale. The episode hilariously pays off Larry’s pledge to show solidarity for someone the way Sammi’s classmates shaved their heads to show solidarity for a kid going through chemotherapy. When the chef curses up a storm and brings the packed restaurant to a stunned silence, Larry yells out his own sweary tirade, followed by Jeff and the other investors, and eventually Cheryl, Richard Lewis, and everyone else in the restaurant. The final shot of Larry proudly looking around the restaurant is comedy gold.