The BEST episodes of Narco Wars

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

Narco Wars explores how opportunistic smuggling networks in Latin America turned into powerful and ruthless drug cartels with the power to destabilize and tear apart whole countries. The series combines gripping access to cartel members and the law enforcement agencies opposing them with a deep dive documentary exploration of the geo-political, social and cultural factors that led the cartels' rise.

Last Updated: 12/15/2024Network: National GeographicStatus: Continuing
star
7.67
18 votes

#1 - Chasing the Dragon: How Sgt. Smack Hooked Up Harlem

Season 3 - Episode 1 - Aired 8/3/2022

In this enhanced episode, an army veteran helps flood Harlem with heroin.

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How Cocaine Came to America
star
7.57
70 votes

#2 - How Cocaine Came to America

Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 12/9/2020

A look at how criminals formed the Medellin Cartel and pioneered cocaine smuggling in the 70s and 80s.

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The Battle for the Border
star
7.56
54 votes

#3 - The Battle for the Border

Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 12/23/2020

El Chapo Guzman’s rise to cartel leader through his ingenious cocaine-smuggling tunnels and a war with the Tijuana cartel unleashes narco terror.

Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
star
7.47
17 votes

#4 - Chasing the Dragon: Prince of Death

Season 3 - Episode 2 - Aired 8/10/2022

Drug lord Khun Sa floods New York, N.Y., with purity heroin until the DEA hatches a plan.

Watch Now:Amazon
star
7.42
24 votes

#5 - The Mob: The Heroin Don

Season 2 - Episode 1 - Aired 5/26/2021

Carmine Galante was the mafia boss who industrialized heroin smuggling into the United States. A brutal psychopath, he let nothing stand in his way…

Watch Now:Amazon
star
7.38
21 votes

#6 - The Mob: Drugs, Bugs and the Dapper Don

Season 2 - Episode 3 - Aired 6/9/2021

In 1980s New York, John Gotti kills the boss of the Gambino Crime Family to protect his drugs empire, breaking the Mafia’s most sacred rules and becoming the infamous ‘Teflon Don.’

Watch Now:Amazon
star
7.28
29 votes

#7 - Narco Cult

Season 1 - Episode 8 - Aired 2/3/2021

Meth kingpin Nazario Moreno turns a drug cartel into Mexico’s first narco cult: the gruesome Knights Templars.

Directors: Gordon Mason
Writer: Gordon Mason
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
star
7.18
28 votes

#8 - The Last Don

Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 2/17/2021

In the mid-1990s, left-wing guerrillas and far-right paramilitaries plunge Colombia into a civil war financed by the profits from cocaine trafficking

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Escobar Goes to War
star
7.15
40 votes

#9 - Escobar Goes to War

Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 1/6/2021

Pablo Escobar goes to war against both authorities and his rivals, the Cali cartel, as his terror sees airliners blown up and politicians assassinated.

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Mexico's First Cartel
star
7.15
54 votes

#10 - Mexico's First Cartel

Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 12/16/2020

A look at how a group of marijuana traffickers created Mexico's first-ever drug Cartel.

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Escobar's Empire
star
7.13
45 votes

#11 - Escobar's Empire

Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 12/30/2020

Pablo Escobar goes from cocaine tycoon in the late ‘70s to full-blown narcoterrorism by 1985, waging war against the Colombian state.

Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
star
7.13
30 votes

#12 - Chapo Public Enemy No. 1

Season 1 - Episode 9 - Aired 2/10/2021

The search for the world's most-wanted drug trafficker - El Chapo - as told by two women in Chicago whose drug-dealing husbands turned against the man who supplied nearly half of America's narcotics and the key DEA agents who finally brought him to justice.

Directors: Gordon Mason
Writer: Gordon Mason
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
star
7.06
18 votes

#13 - The Mob: The Cocaine Godfather

Season 2 - Episode 6 - Aired 6/30/2021

The Rizzutos were one of the longest ruling dynasties in Mafia history. They built a multibillion dollar cocaine empire that spanned two continents.

Writer: Gordon Mason
star
7.00
18 votes

#14 - The Mob: The Mafia Meth King

Season 2 - Episode 2 - Aired 6/2/2021

The rise and fall of Philadelphia mobster Long John Martorano, who built a meth empire worth $500 million; told for the first time by those closest to him.

star
7.00
15 votes

#15 - Chasing the Dragon: The Mob and the Mujahideen

Season 3 - Episode 3 - Aired 8/17/2022

The mob connects with the Mujahideen to create an ambitious heroin pipeline.

Watch Now:Amazon
star
7.00
14 votes

#16 - Chasing the Dragon: Narco Jihad

Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 8/24/2022

DEA agent Jeff Higgins sets out to avenge 9/11 by taking on an Afghan heroin kingpin and proving the close link between narcotics and terrorism.

Watch Now:Amazon
star
6.97
33 votes

#17 - After Pablo

Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 1/27/2021

Upon Escobar’s death, the Rodriguez brothers take over as the new cocaine kings, specializing in corruption and buying Colombia’s presidents.

Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
star
6.88
17 votes

#18 - The Mob: How E Busted the Bull

Season 2 - Episode 4 - Aired 6/16/2021

Sammy The Bull attempts to go straight in Arizona, but gets sucked into a major ecstasy-dealing ring after his kids get a taste for raving.

Writer: Gordon Mason
Watch Now:Amazon
star
6.88
16 votes

#19 - The Mob: The Addict Who Took Down the Mafia

Season 2 - Episode 5 - Aired 6/23/2021

Henry Hill was just a low-level Mob associate. But his 1980 arrest for drug dealing brings about the downfall of the Mafia’s wealthiest crew…

Writer: Gordon Mason
Watch Now:Amazon
star
6.61
33 votes

#20 - Rise of the Narco Army

Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 1/20/2021

One drug lord uses millions of drug dollars to bribe soldiers to desert the army to form The Zetas, the most feared cartel in Mexico’s history.

Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
star
6.57
7 votes

#21 - Chasing the Dragon: Pain Pill Nation

Season 3 - Episode 5 - Aired 8/31/2022

Party bro and convicted felon Chris George floods the U.S. with addictive pain medication, until the FBI hatch a plan.

Watch Now:Amazon
star
6.57
7 votes

#22 - Chasing the Dragon: Opioid Apocalypse

Season 3 - Episode 6 - Aired 8/7/2022

How rogue chemists and street gangs brought fentanyl to America - and the vicious Mexican cartel that controls this deadly opioid today - the CJNG.

Watch Now:Amazon
star
0.00
0 votes

#23 - Heroin Big Bosses

Season 4 - Episode 1 - Aired 3/27/2024

The drug lords behind the 1970s heroin boom in the United States.

Watch Now:Amazon
star
0.00
0 votes

#24 - The Rise of Fentanyl

Season 4 - Episode 2 - Aired 4/3/2024

Fentanyl's rise to becoming the deadliest drug in the United States.

Watch Now:Amazon