Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror has been hailed as the social media generation’s answer to The Twilight Zone. Whereas Rod Serling’s groundbreaking anthology series tackled contemporary fears like racial tensions and looming nuclear war, Black Mirror exclusively takes on one of today’s biggest fears: the rapid advancement of technology.
Since the series was acquired by Netflix, Black Mirror has been a little up and down (the most recent season was particularly disappointing), but on the whole, the show is still one of the best on the air. So, here are the best scenes from IMDb’s 10 top-rated episodes of Black Mirror.
Playtest (8.1) – The Twist Ending
As with many episodes of Black Mirror, the most memorable scene in season 3’s “Playtest” is its twist ending. Cooper initially takes part in a video game test to make some extra cash while he’s traveling. Throughout the whole episode, we see him go to a mansion, get surrounded by augmented-reality monsters, and wake up in an office.
He even returns home to his estranged mother. But it turns out to have all been in his head, a la “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” as he died less than a second into the first test.
USS Callister (8.3) – Robert Daly Gets Trapped In The Game
The great thing about Jesse Plemons as an actor is that he’s not afraid to play an unlikable character. And in the Black Mirror episode “USS Callister,” he plays a character who is insanely unlikable. Robert Daly traps clones of his co-workers in a modded video game so that he can torture them.
At the episode’s climax, Daly’s virtual prisoners turn the tables on him. His control over the game is locked by a firewall as he’s trapped in a spaceship and the game crumbles around him. In real life, he sits at his computer, unable to move.
Nosedive (8.3) – Lacie’s Meltdown At The Wedding
The season 3 premiere “Nosedive” imagines an ominous world in which people rate every social interaction on their phones and everyone has an average star rating that determines their social standing. Lacie, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, sees her profile boosted exponentially when her soon-to-be-married socialite friend chooses her to be her maid of honor.
However, after a catastrophic journey to the wedding, during which her rating takes a nosedive (hence the title), she has a very public meltdown.
Hated In The Nation (8.5) – The First ADI Killing
At 89 minutes, “Hated in the Nation” is one of Black Mirror’s longest episodes. Throughout the episode, which is framed as a police procedural, a hashtag called #DeathTo starts trending and the people who are cursed to die actually get killed by swarms of ADIs, or Autonomous Drone Insects, or robotic bees.
The first ADI killing is the most shocking, because it’s also the most unexpected – and arguably the most gruesome of the bunch.
Shut Up And Dance (8.5) – The True Nature Of The Video Is Revealed
In “Shut Up and Dance,” a kid named Kenny goes to extreme lengths to appease a hacker who recorded a video of him masturbating through his webcam. Throughout the episode, he seems to just want to avoid the embarrassment of such a video getting out.
However, in the episode’s final moments, it’s revealed exactly why Kenny wanted to prevent the release of this video: he was masturbating to child pornography.
San Junipero (8.6) – Yorkie And Kelly Are Old Ladies In A Simulation
“San Junipero” is both one of Black Mirror’s happiest and most critically acclaimed episodes. It starts off with two young characters, Yorkie and Kelly, hopping across various time periods as they fall in love.
Later, it’s revealed that San Junipero is a virtual world where dead people can live after they die and old people can visit. Yorkie and Kelly are old ladies appearing as their younger selves in the simulation.
The Entire History Of You (8.6) – Liam Drunkenly Attacks Jonas
In season 1’s “The Entire History of You,” everyone has a chip in their head that records everything they see, so they can play back memories and obsess over them.
Liam, for example, becomes obsessed with the suspicion that his wife had an affair with Jonas after she laughed at a terrible joke he told at a dinner party. These suspicions intensify until he drunkenly drives over to Jonas’ house and attacks him.
Black Museum (8.7) – Nish Reveals Her True Intentions
Before the role of Shuri in the MCU would make her an icon, Letitia Wright played an unforgettable character in Black Mirror’s season 4 finale “Black Museum.” She plays Nish, who arrives at a museum for an anthology-style exploration of supernatural artifacts.
But her true intentions are revealed when she’s shown the third attraction: the perpetual torture of a death row inmate who was sentenced to the electric chair. Nish reveals herself to be the inmate’s daughter, and transfer the consciousness of the museum’s sadistic curator into the torturous simulation.
Hang The DJ (8.8) – Amy And Frank Rebel Against The System
Much in the vein of “San Junipero,” “Hang the DJ” is an unusually uplifting and lighthearted installment in the Black Mirror oeuvre. It’s about the search for love in the Tinder age, and succeeds admirably as a study of online dating.
Before it’s revealed that Amy and Frank are just simulations inside an app that determines their compatibility as a couple, they stage a rebellion (one of 998 out of 1,000) against the System.
White Christmas (9.1) – Joe Finds Out He’s Not The Father Of Beth’s Child
The Christmas special that came between seasons 2 and 3, “White Christmas,” has a handful of mind-blowing twists, from Matt being convicted as a sex offender to Joe being trapped listening to the song that played when he murdered his ex’s father for thousands of years.
But arguably the episode’s most shocking twist is when, after years of spying on his ex-girlfriend Beth’s child, Beth’s block is removed following her death and Joe can see the child for the first time – and it’s not his.
