Here Are The Best Black Mirror Episodes To Binge-Watch

Stars: Rory Kinnear, Lindsay Duncan

A princess is kidnapped and the Prime Minister is blackmailed into doing something despicable to set her free – that summary doesn’t really do justice to the craziness that happens in the episode, but you wouldn’t want to be spoiled now, would you? (Hint: it involves a pig.) 

From the onset, Black Mirror proved it was a ballsy show. This is the very first episode, and it throws you right into the centre of all the madness that this show has to offer. It depicts the world as we know it now – there’s none of that futuristic technology that’s featured in other episodes. Instead, there’s the familiar telly, mobile phones, and good old internet.

But it’s the familiarity of everything in The National Anthem that makes the episode jarring – it’s something that can happen at any moment now. We don’t need to wait for any newfangled technology because we have it all right now.

Stars: Aaron Paul, Josh Hartnett

This episode is all about exploring isolation and the human psyche.

Set in reverse time in an alternate version of 1969, two astronauts live alone on a shuttle in outer space.

Because of the duration of their mission, they’ve been given technology that beams their consciousnesses back to Earth. This allows them to enjoy their everyday lives with their families, but only through avatars of themselves.

When a cult leader destroys one replica avatar and murders an astronaut’s wife and children, boundaries get crossed when he starts using the avatar of his fellow astronaut.

Stars: Miley Cyrus, Angourie Rice

Miley Cyrus channels her time as a teenage idol, but this time, she plays Ashley O.

Much to the annoyance of her controlling aunt, who is also her manager, she wants to play rock music.

Her story intersects with a lonely teenage girl who wants to connect with her favourite star who also has a doll of her. Little does she know that her idol’s reality is far from glamorous and freeing.

Stars: Kelly Macdonald, Faye Marsay, Benedict Wong

The world’s most-hated celebrities are suddenly killed off in a twisted game, and two detectives must race against time to figure out who’s controlling the killer bees that are being programmed to make the kills. 

It’s a thriller that tackles data privacy, the mob mentality that governs social media (essentially a real-life Twitter, sorry, we mean X), and even the plummeting bee population!

It shows how technology with the very best of intentions (saving the environment) can be manipulated in the most terrible, unexpected way.
This episode will take you on quite the ride, and given today’s current social media situation, it paints quite a frightening picture of where we might find ourselves in a mere few years – or even months! – from now.

Stars: Jesse Plemons, Michaela Coel, Cristin Milioti, Jimmi Simpson

A disillusioned video game developer obsessed with a Star Trek-esque show creates clones of the people in his life and turns them into characters in an AR-like video game.

He runs the show as the captain of the USS Callister starship, but the twist is that his clones are sentient creatures. 

While this episode is less a cautionary tale of the pitfalls of technology and more of a “what if” scenario of when tech allows us to play God with real lives (think The Sims but to the extreme), USS Callister is fun because of its wacky characters, scenarios, and Star Trek Easter eggs.

Stars: Jon Hamm, Rafe Spall, Oona Chaplin

A Christmas special without the merriness, this is a really dark take on what’s supposed to be a holiday of joy and love.

This episode is jam-packed with all the twisted things of this decade and the next: from pick-up artists to cloning to the pitfalls of turning “blocking” into a real-life concept. As usual, it’s got a surprise ending that will leave your jaw on the floor!

Tis’ the damn season, you get what we’re saying?

Stars: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Mackenzie Davis

Of course, we can’t have a list of the best Black Mirror episodes without the classic fan favourite, San Junipero! While the show became known for its bleak outcomes, it gives us a light-hearted ending that restores our hope in, well, technology.

In this genre-bending episode, we get a taste of what could happen if it was possible to upload our consciousnesses to the cloud before we die. San Junipero is literally heaven on earth, and here, a love story that would have otherwise been impossible in the real world unfolds beautifully.

The entire episode isn’t all rainbows and butterflies, but it’s a very sweet and heartfelt (and queer!) romance that is told poignantly.

Stars: Alex Lawther, Jerome Flynn

This fast-paced episode will get your heart racing. You root for Kenny (Lawther) and hope he wins against the mysterious entity giving him instructions – after all, he’s just a kid who was videotaped against his will.

But this episode gets crazier and crazier, keeping you on the edge of your seat to the very end, with a twist that will leave you gasping.

Shut Up and Dance is particularly scary because it starts with something that can happen to any of us – our private online transactions are hacked and taken advantage of by some unscrupulous characters.

The thought of it happening to us is terrifying, especially since it can be manipulated to put us in a bad light.

Stars: Bryce Dallas Howard, Alice Eve, Cherry Jones, James Norton

At first sight, with its pretty pale pastel palette, this seems to be one of the more light-hearted Black Mirror episodes.

But it’s all a façade: the pretty exteriors and niceties are just for show – a person’s social status is dependent on ratings they receive from people they interact with! Bryce Dallas Howard is perfect as Lacie, a woman desperate to get higher ratings so that she can get a “better life”.

One of the most interesting and compelling things about the show is how it seems to predict future events.

Stars: Samuel Blenkin, Myha’la Herrold

If you love a true crime documentary, this episode is for you… or maybe not!

Davis takes girlfriend and film student Pia to around his hometown near Loch in Scotland. While it is beautiful, the town was rocked by a series of murders 20 years prior.

So, they decide to make a true crime documentary about it.

With the perfect backdrop and story, they get more than they bargained for. Buckle up for this one.

Stars: Salma Hayek, Annie Murphy

Joan is your average woman, but she never thought a TV adaptation would be made about the least flattering moments of her life.

Shocked that a global streaming platform has done this, she becomes horrified when everyone becomes obsessed with the series Joan Is Awful.

Now, she needs to figure out a way to write herself out of it.

So for those who want a series written about their life, perhaps they want to rethink that!