The BEST episodes of Gunsmoke
Every episode of Gunsmoke ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Gunsmoke!
Marshal Matt Dillon keeps the peace in the rough and tumble Dodge City.
#1 - Minnie
Season 6 - Episode 30 - Aired 4/15/1961
Rough and rowdy Minnie comes to Dodge City and sets her designs on Doc Adams much to the delight of Matt, Chester and Kitty. Trouble comes though when Minnie's husband comes to Dodge and finds out that his Minnie is sweet on Doc.
#2 - Hammerhead
Season 10 - Episode 14 - Aired 12/26/1964
Festus takes part in a horse race in which big money is at stake, tempting some to sabotage the race in order to make sure of the outcome.
#3 - Anybody Can Kill a Marshal
Season 8 - Episode 26 - Aired 3/8/1963
Two men want to rob the bank in Dodge, but are unwilling to try it while Matt lives. A man agrees to accept the job of killing the marshal, attaching some rather peculiar conditions to his acceptance.
#4 - The Way It Is
Season 8 - Episode 12 - Aired 12/1/1962
While Matt is out of town, putting lawman's business ahead of Kitty yet again, a new man in her life has plenty of time and attention to give--perhaps too much attention.
#5 - Quint-Cident
Season 8 - Episode 33 - Aired 4/27/1963
A woman newly widowed is powerfully attracted to Quint, but when he gently turns her down, she vows to make him pay for scorning a white woman.
#6 - I Call Him Wonder
Season 8 - Episode 28 - Aired 3/23/1963
An orphaned Indian boy latches on to a cowboy in need of work and the two of them find all doors closed to them in Dodge.
#7 - Crack-Up
Season 3 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/14/1957
Gunman Nate Springer arrives in Dodge with the obvious intention of committing murder, but his nervousness and unpredictability make Matt determined to find out who hired him and why he seems so different from his steel-nerved reputation.
#8 - Chicken
Season 10 - Episode 11 - Aired 12/5/1964
Mistakenly hailed as a hero who downed four robbers, a man rethinks his decision to let folks regard him as a gunfighter when protecting the woman he wants calls for a gunman's skill.
#9 - The Bounty Hunter
Season 11 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/30/1965
Lured out of retirement with the promise of land, a bounty hunter is aimed by his boss at the man who killed his son. He just doesn't tell him the reward and charges had been dropped.
#10 - Seven Hours to Dawn
Season 11 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/18/1965
Matt has to get Dodge City back from outlaws.
#11 - Chesterland
Season 7 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/18/1961
Chester becomes engaged more or less accidentally, but he takes to heart his obligation to his betrothed, leaving his job with Mr. Dillon to devote himself to homesteading a barren quarter section.
#12 - Sins of the Father
Season 2 - Episode 17 - Aired 1/19/1957
A white man and his Indian wife, passing through Dodge, become targets of violence after it is learned that the wife's father led deadly raids against white settlers.
#13 - The Foundling
Season 19 - Episode 18 - Aired 2/11/1974
When the parents of a daughter who was raped refuse to accept the girl's baby, Marshal Dillon must find a home for the child.
#14 - Gold Mine
Season 11 - Episode 15 - Aired 12/25/1965
When Matt is too busy to escort Kitty to a gold mine she inherited, she travels there alone and meets with claim jumpers and other difficulties.
#15 - Kioga
Season 11 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/23/1965
A young Pawnee arrives in Dodge to seek his own revenge on a murderer, not trusting in the white man's justice.
#16 - Little Girl
Season 6 - Episode 28 - Aired 4/1/1961
Marshal Dillon must find a suitable home for Charity Gill, a young orphan, after the little girl's father dies when his cabin catches fire. Charity insists that she should live with the Dodge City lawman.
#17 - Prairie Wolfer
Season 9 - Episode 16 - Aired 1/18/1964
Festus returns to Dodge from wolfing and is hired by the Cattleman's Association to hunt down the wolves killing everyone's cattle. What he finds is that what's been doing the preying may wind him up in prison if he doesn't get Matt's help.
#18 - The Iron Men
Season 20 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/21/1974
Matt and former lawman now turned alcoholic, Chauncey Demon go up against land baron Carl Ryker.
#19 - Honey Pot
Season 10 - Episode 34 - Aired 5/15/1965
A man comes to town and tells Sam he's going to shoot Matt. It's soon understood he is an old friend. Involved in shooting and killing a man, their friendship is stretched as he claims self defense even though he was the only one armed.
#20 - Baker's Dozen
Season 13 - Episode 15 - Aired 12/25/1967
Three baby boys are born on a stagecoach that arrives in Dodge just after being robbed. Their mother dies and Doc fights to keep the boys together instead of going to an orphange.
#21 - Skid Row
Season 2 - Episode 22 - Aired 2/23/1957
When a lady comes to town looking for her betrothed, Matt takes it upon himself to sober up the man, who, in his fiancée's absence, has become the town drunk.
#22 - Cain
Season 2 - Episode 24 - Aired 3/9/1957
Told he has only two months to live, a man determines to avenge the suicide of a young woman by killing the womanizer he blames for her death.
#23 - Twelfth Night
Season 3 - Episode 16 - Aired 12/28/1957
A feud begun between two families when they lived in the Ozarks continues with fresh bloodshed, and Matt gets caught in the middle.
#24 - Tell Chester
Season 8 - Episode 32 - Aired 4/20/1963
Chester is smitten with Polly, but she has eyes only for Wade, a man new in town and newly her father's employee. Knowing little about Wade, Polly agrees quickly to marry him, but Chester discovers that Wade already has a wife.
#25 - Daddy Went Away
Season 8 - Episode 35 - Aired 5/11/1963
Chester is sweet on a widow dressmaker. When the widow is not only intent on marriage but eager to make changes in Chester as well, he has second thoughts--especially after a talk with her child suggests that the widow may still be a wife.