Watch · RankedNo. 2079 · The 2026 edition
The 25 best Halloween TV episodes, ranked.
Scored from 7,172 Halloween episodes by rating and votes, then argued over by hand. Every pick is on the watchlist.
Rules of the ranking: television episodes only, Halloween as the point and not the backdrop, and the internet's own scores as the referee — every rating below is the IMDB community's, minimum a thousand votes. Where the math tied, we argued.
What the list proves: the Halloween episode is comedy's high holiday. Sitcoms save their most elaborate schemes, their best costumes and their biggest swings for October — and the heist episode is its own genre now.
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01
HalloVeen
The heist to end all heists — and the proposal hiding inside it. The precinct's annual tradition at its absolute peak.
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02
Epidemiology
Bad taco meat, a campus zombie outbreak, and an all-ABBA soundtrack. A complete horror movie in twenty-two minutes.
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03
Treehouse of Horror V
The Shinning. Time-travel toaster. Nightmare Cafeteria. The high-water mark of the greatest Halloween franchise in television.
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04
Who Got Dee Pregnant?
The gang reconstructs a blacked-out Halloween party from five contradictory memories. Rashomon with a bird costume.
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05
Terror Tales of the Park
The first of the park's anthology nights, and still the best — three tales, zero filler.
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06
The Hauntening
The whole family conspires to finally, truly scare Louise. The ending earns her tiny, terrifying delight.
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07
Halloween
A costume party, one overheard half-truth, and the most elegant misunderstanding spiral the show ever built.
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08
Curse of the Green Halloween Witch
The newest entry in the top ten — the internet crowned it almost overnight.
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09
The Uncertainty Principle
The Green Goblin owns Halloween night — the series' first great escalation.
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10
Halloween III
The tiebreaker year. Jake versus Holt with everything on the line, and nobody plays fair.
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11
Terror Tales of the Park III
Third anthology, still swinging — the park does horror better than most horror.
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12
Halloween
Everyone becomes their costume. The template for every supernatural Halloween episode since.
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13
Treehouse of Horror IV
Homer sells his soul for a donut and the Devil is Flanders. Obviously.
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14
Terror Tales of the Park II
The sequel that proved the anthology night was a tradition, not a fluke.
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15
Terror Tales of the Park V
Five years in and the campfire still burns — four entries in this top 25 says it all.
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16
All-New Halloween Spooktacular!
The comic-book costumes, the sitcom mask slipping — Westview's strangest Halloween, and the most-voted episode on this list by a mile.
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17
Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps
Seven scary stories, each one a perfect parody of how its teller sees the group.
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18
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19
Treehouse of Horror VI
Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores, Groundskeeper Willie in the dreams, and Homer falling into the third dimension.
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20
Halloween IV
Four heists deep and the precinct is still finding new ways to betray each other beautifully.
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21
Trick or Treat
Larry denies candy to costume-less teenagers. Larry pays for it. Halloween justice, Curb style.
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22
Introduction to Statistics
The one where Abed simply is Batman. Community's first Halloween, already fully formed.
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23
Summerween
A town that loves Halloween so much it celebrates twice a year. The Summerween Trickster is genuinely unnerving.
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24
Edward Mordrake: Part 2
Freak Show's two-part Halloween legend pays off — the rare AHS swing that lands clean.
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25
Halloween Surprise
A proposal so good it made a holiday episode into a series landmark. Bring tissues with your candy.
A great Halloween episode is a show wearing a costume of itself.
Honorable mentions, all one decimal point away: every remaining Treehouse of Horror in the top fifty, The Office's "Halloween" and "Employee Transfer", Stranger Things' "Trick or Treat, Freak", and Euphoria's "The Next Episode" for the 21+ crowd. All of them — and 7,100 more — are filterable on the watchlist.