The BEST episodes of Law & Order season 16

Every episode of Law & Order season 16, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Law & Order season 16!

A blended police procedural and courtroom drama which employs a two-part approach: The first half of each episode focuses on NYPD homicide detectives investigating a crime—often derived from a real-life headline—and apprehending a suspect. The second half takes place in the courtroom, with the district attorney prosecuting the defendant.

Last Updated: 10/8/2024Network: NBCStatus: Continuing
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Invaders
star
7.97
152 votes

#1 - Invaders

Season 16 - Episode 22 - Aired 5/17/2006

The family of a man who once turned his customers into the police is slain, and the ensuing fracas pits McCoy against a corrupt D.E.A. agent.

Directors: Matthew Penn
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Cost of Capital
star
7.82
134 votes

#2 - Cost of Capital

Season 16 - Episode 16 - Aired 3/8/2006

The case against a high powered executive accused of killing her lover rests on the executive's estranged husband and unstable teenage daughter.

Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Heart of Darkness
star
7.79
135 votes

#3 - Heart of Darkness

Season 16 - Episode 13 - Aired 1/18/2006

A journalist's suicide becomes suspect after Green and Fontana find evidence at the scene suggesting that it wasn't a suicide after all.

Directors: Richard Dobbs
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Acid
star
7.78
139 votes

#4 - Acid

Season 16 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/30/2005

After the daughter of one of Van Buren's college friends is found dead in her room, a suicide, Van Buren joins Green and Fontana in hunting down the man who burned her face with acid months earlier, ultimately leading to her suicide. Van Buren is unsucces

Directors: Michael Pressman
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Hindsight
star
7.78
134 votes

#5 - Hindsight

Season 16 - Episode 21 - Aired 5/10/2006

Fontana and Green are called in to investigate when Green's former replacement, Nick Falco, is suspected of murdering a young woman he had spent the night with.

Directors: Jean de Segonzac
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
America, Inc.
star
7.75
137 votes

#6 - America, Inc.

Season 16 - Episode 17 - Aired 3/22/2006

After Jeffrey Pope, a private military contractor, is found dead, suspicion eventually leads Green and Fontana to Robbie Howell, the younger brother of a man who died because of Pope's incompetance, and Kevin Boatman, Nick Howell's former co-worker who had witnessed the tragic events in Iraq.

Directors: Jean de Segonzac
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Magnet
star
7.71
133 votes

#7 - Magnet

Season 16 - Episode 14 - Aired 2/8/2006

Fontana and Green arrest a fellow student after a young man is murdered, but McCoy faces a tough adversary when he tries to prosecute the crime.

Directors: Adam Bernstein
Writer: David Black
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Thinking Makes It So
star
7.71
133 votes

#8 - Thinking Makes It So

Season 16 - Episode 18 - Aired 3/29/2006

Fontana and Green investigate when a bank manager is involved in the robbing of his own bank and learn that his daughter is being held hostage and that he had to go along with the robbery or risk losing his daughter.

Directors: Tony Goldwyn
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Choice of Evils
star
7.70
138 votes

#9 - Choice of Evils

Season 16 - Episode 15 - Aired 3/1/2006

After the body of a teenage boy is found dead in a warehouse, detectives use DNA to connect the boy to a convicted rapist and serial killer, then to the boy's mother, Allison Ashburn, the convict's ex-wife. While trying to solve Danny's murder, Fontana and Green learn that he recently got his girlfriend Tina pregnant, and his mother had seen him recently when she had given him money despite having claimed she hadn't seen him for months. Allison finally admits that she murdered her son after the police arrest her new husband John, but claims she did it to save the world from her son, whom she was convinced would become a monster just like her father. Borgia and McCoy face an uphill battle trying to convict the perfect soccer mom.

Directors: Michael Pressman
Writer: David Wilcox
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Birthright
star
7.68
155 votes

#10 - Birthright

Season 16 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/2/2005

Teenage suspect Traci Sands dies in police custody after being arrested for the murder of the man who reported her to child protective services. Rodgers reveals that she died because someone outfitted her with a benecrine I.U.D. that reacted with Sands' sickle cell syndrome and ended up killing her. Fontana and Green follow the trail to a charitable clinic and nurse Gloria Rhodes, who believes she is saving the world by sterilizing women that she does not believe are worthy of having children. McCoy faces former assistant district attorney Paul Robinette in court as Robinette defends Rhodes.

Writer: David Slack
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Criminal Law
star
7.68
151 votes

#11 - Criminal Law

Season 16 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/23/2005

The deaths of three women with the same name lead Fontana and Green to the nine-year-old conviction of Leland Barnes, who had shot and killed his wife in an office full of people. With two of the three witnesses against him dead and Jack McCoy on the hit list, the detectives struggle to determine how Barnes, who has been in prison the entire time, got someone on the outside to kill the only people who could keep him in jail. The investigation leads them to Leland's two sons, with surprising results.

Directors: Ed Sherin
Writer: David Wilcox
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Lifeline
star
7.67
146 votes

#12 - Lifeline

Season 16 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/19/2005

Police turn their attention to the murder of an undercover reporter, but realise that the killer isn't as guilty as he appears.

Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Kingmaker
star
7.66
136 votes

#13 - Kingmaker

Season 16 - Episode 20 - Aired 5/3/2006

After undercover cop Dana Baker is murdered, Fontana and Green learn that the man who killed her had discovered her identity after seeing a photograph of her.

Directors: Don Scardino
Writer: David Slack
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Family Friend
star
7.65
143 votes

#14 - Family Friend

Season 16 - Episode 12 - Aired 1/11/2006

After Philip and Valerie Messick are attacked in their home, Green and Fontana follow the trail to a small-time thug named Jay Fleckner. After Valerie's testimony unintentionally helps free Fleckner, he is found dead, and detectives soon realise that Bob Cerullo, a family friend of Valerie and her late husband, was the triggerman. Unfortunately, when McCoy attempts to prosecute Cerullo, a retired cop, he threatens to claim that he deliberately planted evidence in his past cases in an attempt to get McCoy to drop all the charges.

Directors: Jean de Segonzac
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
New York Minute
star
7.63
134 votes

#15 - New York Minute

Season 16 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/16/2005

Detectives discover that the owner of a trucking company has been smuggling illegal aliens and suspect that a citizens border-patrol member has killed him.

Directors: Don Scardino
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Ghosts
star
7.63
163 votes

#16 - Ghosts

Season 16 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/5/2005

Fontana and McCoy pursue a man believed to have murdered a young girl ten years earlier despite numerous obstacles.

Writer: Rick Eid
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
House of Cards
star
7.62
145 votes

#17 - House of Cards

Season 16 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/9/2005

The team investigates the killing of a single mother and the abduction of her child.

Directors: Michael Pressman
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Positive
star
7.62
137 votes

#18 - Positive

Season 16 - Episode 19 - Aired 4/5/2006

When a teenage boy commits suicide after firing on a doctor and hitting an innocent party, Fontana and Green investigate why he was after the doctor to begin with.

Directors: Richard Dobbs
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Bible Story
star
7.62
130 votes

#19 - Bible Story

Season 16 - Episode 11 - Aired 12/7/2005

The case of a man who defiled a copy of the Torah turns into a religious battle for McCoy.

Directors: Rick Wallace
Watch Now:Apple TV
Flaw (2)
star
7.61
169 votes

#20 - Flaw (2)

Season 16 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/28/2005

Green and Fontana bring S.V.U. detective Olivia Benson onto their scene when a D.O.A. has her number on his cell phone. (Design (1) aired on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, season 7, episode 2.)

Directors: Jean de Segonzac
Watch Now:Apple TV
Age of Innocence
star
7.59
143 votes

#21 - Age of Innocence

Season 16 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/12/2005

The bombing death of a husband set to remove the feeding tube of his wife, who's in a persistent vegetative state, focuses the investigation on the protesters.

Directors: David Platt
Writer: Davey Holmes
Watch Now:Apple TV
Red Ball
star
7.49
194 votes

#22 - Red Ball

Season 16 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/21/2005

A young girl is abducted in broad daylight, and the only link to the girl is an ex-convict who wants a deal before he's willing to talk.

Directors: Matthew Penn
Writer: David Wilcox
Watch Now:Apple TV