This article contains mentions of murder and sexual assault.

After over two decades on television, the original Law & Order has many high-quality episodes, but some stand out more than others. When the long-running procedural began, the idea of dividing the show in half between the police and courtroom aspects of each case was novel and exciting. The series was so popular that it was brought back for a 21st season 10 years after its cancelation and the series is still going strong.

Law & Order is known for focusing on the case of the week rather than the characters' personal lives. However, many of its most powerful episodes involve the cops and prosecutors grappling with personal issues, including character deaths. One of its most memorable episodes includes the death of Law & Order's Claire Kincaid, an assistant district attorney who later was revealed to have had a romantic relationship with the iconic Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston). The series also offered many powerful stories based on real-life cases, making it difficult to narrow down its extensive episode list to the all-time best.

20 "Indifference"

Season 1, Episode 9

A little girl collapses at school and dies, and it sets off Max Greevey and Mike Logan to investigate the girl's parents. They find the parents, thought to be a normal middle-class family, to be a cocaine-addicted mother abused by her drug-addicted psychiatrist husband. Like many of the best Law & Order franchise episodes, this was based on a real-life murder case. In 1987, six-year-old Lisa Steinberg was murdered, and her father was convicted of manslaughter for her death.

While this is the type of episode normally saved for Law & Order: SVU, bringing it to the main show offered up one of the more disturbing cases of the first season, with the detectives discovering horrifying evidence surrounding the death of a small, innocent child. The acting was fantastic, and this was not only a standout from the first season but an episode that remains hard to revisit because of the horror of a child's death and her parents' blame for the tragedy.

19 "American Dream"

Season 4, Episode 8

The fourth season episode, "American Dream," is a Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty)-centric episode where an old case comes back to haunt the ADA. This was Moriarty's final season on Law & Order, and he went through the wringer this season, including what happened in this episode. When skeletal remains are found at a construction site on Roosevelt Island, it calls into question evidence that Stone used to put former Wall Street junk bond broker Philip Swan in jail. This means a new trial was granted.

What makes this an interesting episode is that Swan became a jailhouse attorney during his years in prison, and he chooses to represent himself in the new case. Želko Ivanek was fantastic in his role as Swan, who chooses to use the law to work in his favor when he finally gets a second chance. Swan spends the entire episode tearing Stone apart, but the big twist at the end, when Stone turns the tables, shows why he remains one of the best ADAs in Law & Order history.

18 "Criminal Law"

Season 16, Episode 9

This Law & Order episode from season 16 sees the detectives find a list of names targeted by a serial killer and one of the names on the list is ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston). This connects the seemingly unrelated murders and sets the team on a race to find who the killer is before he reaches Jack. When they learn that many names on the list are witnesses against a serial killer he previously prosecuted, it begins to tie everything together in a simple plot that turns into a complex case.

The original case was a mass shooting in 1996, and the presumed killer here is a professional, putting all the detectives and the ADA on high alert. The plot is a smart one, with the mass shooter getting a new trial and all the witnesses who helped put him away before being targeted, although there is no evidence he is connected with the new killer. What makes this all stand out is that the man behind the murders gets away with it, but pays for his crimes in a massive twist at the end.

17 "Damaged"

Season 8, Episode 22

The case in the Law & Order episode "Damaged" is a complicated one since the person who was shot (a teacher) was not the intended victim, and the real victims were three boys who sexually assaulted an intellectually disabled ​​​​​​girl. It is when the courtroom drama crosses into these shades of grey when it comes to guilt and the reasoning behind seeking vengeance that the show goes above and beyond typical murder cases. In this case, the girl's sister is seeking revenge against the three boys.

Lauren Ambrose (Can't Hardly Wait) starred in this Law & Order episode.

This episode stands out because the system doesn't always work; in some cases, it can't help the people who need it most. The girl's father knows that if the three boys faced a courtroom for what they did to her, it would hurt his daughter more than it would help her, and he wants to get her away, even if it means letting the boys walk free. When the judge said the girl had "the time of her life" and dismissed the case, it was one of the most shocking moments in the show's history.

16 "Pro Se"

Season 6, Episode 21

In the Law & Order episode "Pro Se," three people are killed, and one is injured in a vintage clothing store. The detectives set off to find a man with schizophrenia who had been off his medication for an extended period. However, this episode stands out because the man, despite his mental health concerns, has a law degree and chooses to serve as his own defense. Denis O'Hare stars as the killer, delivering a great performance as he defends his case.

When the man revealed he just wanted to prove he was capable, his fate was even more tragic.

The entire case was interesting because Jack McCoy offered the man a plea deal contingent on him taking his medications, but the man refused because he didn't want to go back on them. It almost seemed like he made a great case in defense of himself as a brilliant lawyer, but deep down, he almost wanted to be found guilty and pay for his crimes, even if he wasn't in the right state of mind when he committed them. When the man revealed he just wanted to prove he was capable, his fate was even more tragic.

15 "Hot Pursuit"

Season 6, Episode 5

Law & Order ripped one of the most infamous cases from the headlines for this season 6 story: the Patty Hearst case, which involved the daughter of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst getting kidnapped and later arrested for participating in bank robberies with her captors. The best Law & Order episodes take liberties with the source material so that it's clear what it's based on without being a carbon copy. The episode achieved this by making the Hearst stand-in caught after a spree of robberies of local businesses, including one that left two people dead at a nightclub.

This story was also partially based on the case of Caril Ann Fugate, the youngest woman to ever be convicted of murder after she went on a killing spree with her boyfriend.

McCoy's doubts about the woman's claims that she had no choice led him to charge her with murder, though not everyone agreed with him. The argument about this during court and in the DA's office allowed the audience to make up their own minds about whether justice was done. The strong writing and acting, along with Amanda Peet's performance as the woman, is why it has earned a solid 7.9 rating on IMDb.

14 "Working Mom"

Season 7, Episode 14

Before becoming famous for her role on Desperate Housewives, Felicity Huffman played a desperate sex worker on Law & Order. This episode is memorable not only for her performance but for the subject matter; Law & Order was one of the first shows to be willing to tackle police corruption rather than depict all police officers as heroic, and this story involved the murder of a retired police officer who was then accused of raping two sex workers.

Huffman's character was a respected PTA mom who was also a sex worker, which helped change the image of sex workers as social deviants. Her claims that she was sexually assaulted and shot the cop to protect herself contribute to a powerful story that would have been one of Law & Order: SVU's best episodes instead of airing in the original series if the spinoff had existed then. Additionally, this story was so well done that it was remade for Law & Order: UK. Thus, it deserves recognition despite only scoring a 7.6 average rating on IMDb.

13 "Baby, It’s You"

Season 8, Episode 6

Long before Homicide: Life on the Street's John Munch (Richard Belzer) transferred to the Special Victims Unit of the NYPD, he visited New York with the rest of his Baltimore unit in a two-part crossover episode with Law & Order. The episode involves a model found dead in New York, whose injuries suggest she was killed in Baltimore. This leads to a turf war over who gets the case; however, Munch and Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) strike up a friendship based on their mutual cynicism and history of failed marriages.

Orbach and Belzer's chemistry makes them one of the best platonic duos on television.

While the premise is somewhat farfetched, it's fun to watch the two units interact. Orbach and Belzer's chemistry makes them one of the best platonic duos on television, and it's a shame that the two didn't get their own spinoff, but this episode is likely partially responsible for Belzer being invited to the Law & Order: SVU cast. This story also scores high points for Pembleton's (Andre Braugher) clashing with Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) over his not-quite-legal methods of securing confessions, making its rating of only 7.7 on IMDb puzzling.

12 "Private Lives"

Season 22, Episode 19

Although the soft reboot of Law & Order has had many solid episodes, sometimes it is too forceful about what the "right" answer to social questions is. This isn't the case in "Private Lives," which revolves around the murder of a doctor who was giving gender-affirming care to transgender teenagers. Sasha Alexander is excellent as the victim's wife, a right-wing politician who secretly ed her husband's work with transgender youth but took the opposite stance publicly in order to ensure her election.

This character's inclusion was a throwback to Law & Order's earlier days, as it presented a thorny question and allowed the audience to make up their own minds about what the right answer was. The final scene was especially strong, with Alexander's character justifying her seeming hypocrisy by explaining that if she lost her election bid, someone who was genuinely harmful to the transgender community would gain power. This made the issue less clear-cut and left the audience to grapple with the question of whether she was right, along with the issue of what care is appropriate for transgender teenagers.

11 "Endurance"

Season 11, Episode 1

"Endurance" loses points for revolving around a mother who might have killed her disabled child because she was overwhelmed, as it reinforces a negative and harmful idea about children with disabilities, especially autistic children, being a burden that drives parents to harm them. However, this problem is balanced by the fact that ultimately, the mother in this story is not responsible for the fire that killed her child.

This episode also includes a cameo from then-mayor Rudy Giuliani, who introduces Lewin.

Additionally, this episode introduces Nora Lewin, the new DA taking Adam Schiff's (Stephen Hill) place. These elements help it earn the solid 8.0 rating it has received from IMDB s.