“You’re traveling through another dimension — a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind.” If those words give you a sense of unease, you’ve likely watched the original Twilight Zone or one of its successors.

Screenwriter Rod Serling created The Twilight Zone and served as onscreen presenter as the original anthology aired on CBS from 1959 to 1964. A follow-up hit CBS and syndication between 1985 and 1989, with Charles Aidman and Robin Ward narrating. Forest Whitaker presented a UPN reboot, which lasted from 2002 to 2003. And Jordan Peele ushered a new Twilight Zone to CBS All Access (now Paramount+), which debuted new installments from 2019 to 2020.

And many Twilight Zone stories — from the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, as the intro goes — have lodged themselves in viewers’ memories. Here are the highest-appraised episodes from each iteration.

The Twilight Zone (1959–1964)

4. “Time Enough at Last”

“Witness Mr. Henry Bemis, a charter member in the fraternity of dreamers.” All Henry (Burgess Meredith) wants to do is read books, and he finally gets his chance when nuclear war on Earth leaves him a sole survivor, until a cruel accident has his dreams shatter amid the rubble.

3. “To Serve Man”

“Respectfully submitted for your perusal — a Kanamit. Height: a little over nine feet. Weight: in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty pounds.” The Kanamits are aliens that turn Earth into a seeming utopia, guided by a book called To Serve Man. But as the twist is revealed, humanity gets a hard lesson about the perils of translating extraterrestrial texts.

2. “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”

“Portrait of a frightened man: Mr. Robert Wilson, thirty-seven, husband, father, and salesman on sick leave.” Directed by a pre-Superman Richard Donner, this episode starred a pre-Star Trek William Shatner as an airline passenger haunted by a monster only he can see. With this episode, terror takes flight — as do countless imitators, including a 2013 SNL skit.

1. “The Eye of the Beholder”

“Suspended in time and space for a moment, your introduction to Miss Janet Tyler, who lives in a very private world of darkness.” Janet, played by The Beverly Hillbillies star Donna Douglas, has undergone several cosmetic surgeries — all of which, purportedly, have failed. But this is The Twilight Zone, and the standards of beauty aren’t what you’d expect.

The Twilight Zone (1985–1989)

4. “Shatterday/A Little Peace and Quiet”

“Some push for what they need; some push for what they want. Some people, like Peter Jay Novins, just push.” In “Shatterday,” Bruce Willis plays a man who encounters a doppelgänger taking over his life. And in the second part of this Wes Craven-directed episode, “A Little Peace and Quiet,” Melinda Dillon plays a woman whose newfound power to freeze time leaves her with an impossible dilemma.

3. “Her Pilgrim Soul/I of Newton”

“To all those who have loved and lost, and loved again, on Earth or… in the Twilight Zone.” In “Her Pilgrim Soul,” two scientists accidentally create a hologram reincarnation of a long-dead woman whose fate is entwined with one of theirs. And in “I of Newton,” a mathematician (played by The Jeffersons’ Sherman Hemsley) outsmarts a demon who comes to collect his soul following a Faustian bargain.

2. “Profile in Silver/Button, Button”

“Profile in Silver” depicts a Harvard professor from the future, one who devises a century-spanning plan to save President John F. Kennedy. And “Button, Button,” written by “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” scribe Richard Matheson, has a couple weighing whether to press a button they’re told will give them $200,000 but kill a stranger. (The same story inspired the 2009 film The Box.)

1. “Examination Day/A Message From Charity”

In “Examination Day,” a boy spends his 12th birthday wishing to do well on a government-mandated intelligence exam, one whose consequences he doesn’t understand. And in “A Message From Charity,” a 20th-century boy and an 18th-century girl forge a telepathic bond that saves the life of the latter after she’s accused of witchcraft.

The Twilight Zone (2002–2003)

4. “The Pharaoh’s Curse”

“Tonight, Mario Devlin will question what he’s always taken for granted: the difference between artifice and reality.” Mario (Shawn Hatosy) is a young magician who wants to understand how the illusionist Harry Kellogg (Xander Berkeley) appears to switch bodies with another man. But what he discovers is that the switch is no illusion but instead a nefarious scheme passed down for generations.

3. “Cradle of Darkness”

“What if you had a chance to go back in time, to save millions of lives by killing one man?” Katherine Heigl gets that chance in character as Andrea Collins, a young woman who time-travels to 1889 to kill an infant Adolf Hitler. What Andrea doesn’t know — and will never find out — is that in the Twilight Zone, history has a way of course-correcting.

2. “Memphis”

“Ray Ellison’s luck is about to change. He’s going to have a chance to save his future by altering the past.” Ray (played by Eriq La Salle, who also directed this episode), also travels back in time, and he believes his mission is to prevent the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. But he finds another person to rescue, and in so doing, he saves himself.

1. “The Placebo Effect”

“Dr. Leslie Coburn has always treated Harry with a placebo… an imaginary cure for his imaginary illnesses.” But imagination is a powerful force in the Twilight Zone, as Leslie (Sydney Tamiia Poitier) realizes too late. While treating Harry (Jeffrey Combs), Leslie comes down with the same symptoms he claims to have…

The Twilight Zone (2019–2020)

4. “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet”

“Settling in for a 13-hour transatlantic flight to a land rife with ancient mysteries is Justin Sanderson.” In this update of the “20,000 Feet” story, Adam Scott plays an airline passenger who listens to a podcast that convinces him the plane will crash, and before long, paranoia gives way to self-fulfilling prophecy.

3. “Among the Untrodden”

“High school. It’s a period that, for most of us, already feels like a waking nightmare. … But what if, during this precarious phase of our development, you were introduced to a set of extraordinary powers?” Said superpowers reveal themselves to a boarding-school queen bee, as her new transfer-student friend helps her realize just how powerful her mind can be…

2. “Meet in the Middle”

“A voice in your head can mean a few different things. … But what if … it were a case of crossed wires?” Two strangers, an unlucky-in-love man (played by Jimmi Simpson) and a woman trapped in a loveless marriage (Gillian Jacobs), are mysteriously put in telepathic contact with each other. They grow closer, but their plans to meet in person result in treachery and tragedy.

1. “The Who of You”

“Meet Harry Pine. Up until now, he’s failed to realize that he’s not the center of the world.” Harry (Ethan Embry) isn’t the center of the world, but the struggling actor finds a way to get under the skin of other people around him, quite literally. Along the way, he’s pursued by a detective (Daniel Sunjata) whose orbit is closer than Harry realizes.