The BEST episodes of Lewis

Every episode of Lewis ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Lewis!

A spin-off of the popular series Inspector Morse, a special two-hour drama picked up five years after the series ended. It is now continuing in its own series, with Lewis and Hathaway investigating in Morse's old stomping ground of Oxford.

Last Updated: 2/2/2024Network: ITV1Status: Ended
Share:
Expiation
star
9.00
240 votes

#1 - Expiation

Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 3/4/2007

All is not what it seems between two married couples who are old friends, as Lewis and Hathaway start to discover when one wife is found hanged.

Directors: Dan Reed
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Old School Ties
star
8.50
239 votes

#2 - Old School Ties

Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 2/25/2007

An ambitious Oxford student is found dead in her hotel room after inviting a reformed computer hacker to speak at the union. Lewis and Hathaway investigate.

Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
The Lions of Nemea (1)
star
8.46
214 votes

#3 - The Lions of Nemea (1)

Season 8 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/24/2014

After Lewis returns to his old job, he, Hathaway and DS Maddox are swept up in another murder investigation when an American classics student is killed.

Watch Now:Amazon
Beyond Good and Evil (2)
star
8.43
170 votes

#4 - Beyond Good and Evil (2)

Season 8 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/14/2014

Hathaway and Maddox continue to investigate the murder of Travis as the trail leads back to Lewis’s original case. The two detectives attempt to prevent another murder and Lewis sees himself isolated and alone with his reputation in jeopardy.

Directors: David Drury
Watch Now:Amazon
Beyond Good and Evil (1)
star
8.39
185 votes

#5 - Beyond Good and Evil (1)

Season 8 - Episode 5 - Aired 11/7/2014

Lewis' reputation is jeopardized when the very first case that he solved as a DI is reopened for appeal and new murders are committed with the original weapon.

Directors: David Drury
Watch Now:Amazon
Allegory of Love
star
8.33
393 votes

#6 - Allegory of Love

Season 3 - Episode 1 - Aired 3/22/2009

A young woman, Marina Hartner, is killed with an antique Persian mirror. With the body a bloody piece of paper is found with the strange word 'Uqbara'. Further investigations lead Lewis to a dating site.

Watch Now:Amazon
Falling Darkness
star
8.26
346 votes

#7 - Falling Darkness

Season 4 - Episode 4 - Aired 5/30/2010

On Halloween night, a university friend of pathologist Laura Hobson is found staked through the heart. During their investigation, Lewis and Hathaway are approached by a medium who claims that they are in grave danger. The following day a student is murdered in the house that Hobson shared with her university friends, and a clue at the crime scene leads Lewis and Hathaway to a third victim. As the body count rises Lewis and Hathaway are forced to acknowledge that Hobson might know more about the deaths than she is letting on.

Directors: Nicholas Renton
Writer: Colin Dexter
Watch Now:Amazon
What Lies Tangled (2)
star
8.24
170 votes

#8 - What Lies Tangled (2)

Season 9 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/10/2015

With his six-month trip to New Zealand with Hobson on the horizon, Lewis is in a race against time to save not just his career but his relationship too.

Watch Now:Amazon
The Ramblin' Boy (2)
star
8.20
174 votes

#9 - The Ramblin' Boy (2)

Season 7 - Episode 4 - Aired 1/28/2013

Liam Jay is in intensive care and Lewis and Alex believe that he has information about the death of Matt Whiby and the mysterious cremation. It is revealed by Emma Barnes that Johnny Jay, Liam’s father, was at the fateful supper party and he is missing as well.

Directors: Dan Reed
Watch Now:Amazon
Dark Matter
star
8.19
344 votes

#10 - Dark Matter

Season 4 - Episode 2 - Aired 5/9/2010

When Andrew Crompton, amateur astronomer and Master of Gresham College, is found dead at the foot of the University Observatory stairs, Lewis and Hathaway find that the finger of suspicion points at all the staff - from tutors right down to the head porter and the college scouts. Lewis uncovers a college-wide blackmail plot and is confused by a mysterious astronomical conundrum. Hobson is unexpectedly drawn into the case while rehearsing for a performance with a local orchestra at the college.

Directors: Bille Eltringham
Writer: Colin Dexter
Watch Now:Amazon
The Lions of Nemea (2)
star
8.18
169 votes

#11 - The Lions of Nemea (2)

Season 8 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/31/2014

After a difficult start, Lewis and Hathaway's partnership seems to have gained some semblance of normality. DS Maddox has become a part of the team. Her abilities will be put to the test when an investigation begins on the brutal murder of an American classics student Rose Anderson Her body is hauled from the canal with a stand wound to the neck and abdomen. Suspicious soon fall on astrophysics professor, Felix Garwood who had recently broken off an affair with Rose. However, Felix was married to Rose's supervisor, Philippa Garwood. Could the jealous wife have committed such a murder?

Watch Now:Amazon
Your Sudden Death Question
star
8.17
396 votes

#12 - Your Sudden Death Question

Season 4 - Episode 3 - Aired 5/16/2010

Over an August Bank Holiday, an empty Oxford college is the venue for a weekend attended by professional quiz contestants. Lewis and Hathaway are called in when outstanding competitor Ethan Croft is found floating dead in the college fountain. They learn that Croft was an outrageous flirt with a number of secrets, and the pair race to uncover the killer before the gathering breaks up. Meanwhile, Hathaway discovers that Lewis was planning a romantic weekend at Glyndebourne with a mystery date.

Directors: Dan Reed
Writer: Colin Dexter
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
And the Moonbeams Kiss the Sea
star
8.17
448 votes

#13 - And the Moonbeams Kiss the Sea

Season 2 - Episode 1 - Aired 2/24/2008

A body is found in the Bodleian Library and further intrigue arises when stolen books are found in the victim's home.

Directors: Dan Reed
Writer: Alan Plater
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
The Ramblin' Boy (1)
star
8.14
282 votes

#14 - The Ramblin' Boy (1)

Season 7 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/21/2013

An embalmed body is discovered dumped by an isolated farm track. Funeral director Brian Miller identifies the body and GP Matt Whitby confirms the gentleman died of cancer. However, when the crematorium confirms that a body was burned, Lewis is left with one question – who was in the coffin?

Directors: Dan Reed
Watch Now:Amazon
Reputation
star
8.13
466 votes

#15 - Reputation

Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/29/2006

Five years after his friend and mentor's death, Lewis - now promoted to position of inspector - returns to the city of Oxford after working on the British Virgin Islands. Even before he has the chance to get home and settle in, he and his new, vastly younger partner DS Hathaway are called to a crime scene to help investigate the murder of an American college student. It is soon discovered that one of the suspects has had past dealings with the late Inspector Morse.

Directors: Bill Anderson
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Down Among the Fearful (2)
star
8.13
221 votes

#16 - Down Among the Fearful (2)

Season 7 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/14/2013

Lewis and Hobson are examining the body of murdered Vicki Walmsley when a theft of etorphine is reported by the Garsington Equine Centre. The drug was last used a year earlier on a horse that injured its teenage rider, Joshua Grace – the brother-in-law of Reuben Beatty, the first murder victim.

Watch Now:Amazon
Old, Unhappy, Far Off Things
star
8.12
323 votes

#17 - Old, Unhappy, Far Off Things

Season 5 - Episode 1 - Aired 4/3/2011

Oxford's last all-female college is holding a reunion party to say goodbye to one of its most popular professors. After a guest is found murdered, Lewis believes the killing is connected to an attack that happened at the same building 10 years ago. He turns to his former DS, Alison McLennan, to help him with the case but it ends up taking a new twist after two more bodies turn up.

Directors: Nicholas Renton
Watch Now:Amazon
The Soul of Genius
star
8.11
197 votes

#18 - The Soul of Genius

Season 6 - Episode 1 - Aired 5/16/2012

When botanist Li Nash digs up the body of recently buried English Professor, Murray Hawes, Lewis and Hathaway find themselves involved in an impossible quest. Murray was a man who was possessed with solving the riddle of Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark". They soon find out that Murray had a rivalry with his brother, who is a lecturer in Theology and Moral Philosophy. They also have to deal with interference from Michelle Marber who is an amateur detective, who believes that that the killer is local medical researcher Alex Falconer.

Directors: Brian Kelly
Watch Now:Amazon
Counter Culture Blues
star
8.10
283 votes

#19 - Counter Culture Blues

Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 4/12/2009

Lewis, called out to deal with a noise complaint, is shocked to meet a rock singer he had once admired, and who was believed to have drowned. The body of a teenage boy, who has been repeatedly run over by a vehicle, points to a connection with members of the band.

Watch Now:Amazon
The Mind Has Mountains
star
8.08
317 votes

#20 - The Mind Has Mountains

Season 5 - Episode 3 - Aired 4/17/2011

When a student is found dead during a college-based clinical trial for a new anti-depressant, Lewis and Hathaway struggle to determine whether the incident was murder or suicide, and receive little assistance from the institution's evasive psychiatric professor. A second student's death then leads to the revelation that the trial's participants are all operating under the influence of mind-altering drug ketamine, and that the lines between love, obsession and madness have become dangerously blurred.

Directors: Charles Palmer
Writer: Colin Dexter
Watch Now:Amazon
What Lies Tangled (1)
star
8.07
168 votes

#21 - What Lies Tangled (1)

Season 9 - Episode 5 - Aired 11/3/2015

When an idyllic Oxford summer's day is torn asunder by a gruesome parcel bomb, Lewis and Hathaway are called in to investigate

Watch Now:Amazon
The Quality of Mercy
star
8.04
391 votes

#22 - The Quality of Mercy

Season 3 - Episode 2 - Aired 3/29/2009

Lewis and Hathaway have to investigate the murder of Richard Scott, a rising star in the Oxford student theatre. Scott was killed with a prop dagger during a play. It turns out he was not that popular.

Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
Intelligent Design (2)
star
8.03
150 votes

#23 - Intelligent Design (2)

Season 7 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/11/2013

Lewis, Hathaway and Hobson look around the new crime scene as Carl Drew, Stella Drew, Martha Seager, Adam Tibbit, Graham Yardley and Adam’s girlfriend Rachel Cliff wait anxiously. The body is revealed to be that of Soo-Min Chong, a Korean student who vanished 15 years ago. Seager was the last person to see her alive, Carl Drew was her boyfriend, and she was Martha’s organ scholar at the chapel. Hathaway is later shocked to discover Adam’s body at the school, with a simple suicide note. Carl, Adam’s former teacher believes that he must have pushed the boy too hard. Forensics end up revealing a close relative of Adam’s had been in Seager’s car. After Martha is found stabbed to death, Lewis and Hathaway start to close in on the killer who is becoming more desperate to cover their tracks.

Directors: Tim Fywell
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
The Dead of Winter
star
8.02
302 votes

#24 - The Dead of Winter

Season 4 - Episode 1 - Aired 5/2/2010

After the body of Dr Stephen Black is found on an Oxford tour bus, DI Lewis and DS Hathaway are lead to Crevecoeur Hall, a sprawling Oxford estate where Hathaway spent much of his childhood. Lewis begins to worry that a previous case involving the murder of a ten-year-old girl has begun to affect Hathaway's state of mind, while Hathaway himself seems more interested in the glamorous Scarlett Mortmaigne, the daughter of the owner of Crevecoeur. When another body is discovered on the estate, Hathaway's refusal to believe that the family are involved threatens to tests his relationship with Lewis to breaking point.

Directors: Bill Anderson
Writer: Colin Dexter
Watch Now:Amazon
Magnum Opus (1)
star
8.02
165 votes

#25 - Magnum Opus (1)

Season 9 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/20/2015

Lewis and Hathaway are called to investigate a body in some woodland. But realising three more murders are to follow, the team must hurry to catch the killer, before they happen. Hathaway is struggling to cope with his father’s illness, as he begins his search to find out who he was before the dementia kicked in.

Watch Now:Amazon