The BEST episodes written by Richard Matheson
#1 - Big Surprise
Night Gallery - Season 2 - Episode 24
An eccentric farmer promises a ""big surprise"" to a group of boys . . . if they dig for it.
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#2 - Button, Button
The Twilight Zone (1985) - Season 1 - Episode 50
A mysterious man offers a couple a bizarre deal: if they will push a button on a box that will kill one person they don't know, they will get a million dollars.
Watch Now:Amazon#3 - The Lady on the Wall
Have Gun, Will Travel - Season 3 - Episode 23
Paladin is accused of stealing a painting in the small town of Bonanza.
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#4 - Nick of Time
The Twilight Zone - Season 2 - Episode 7
A superstitious newlywed becomes obsessed by a penny fortune-telling machine when he and his new wife are stranded with car trouble.
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#5 - And When the Sky Was Opened
The Twilight Zone - Season 1 - Episode 11
Three astronauts have returned from this first space flight. Major Gart is hospitalized with a broken leg. The other two, Colonels Harrington and Forbes head for a bar. Harrington gets a strange feeling.
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#6 - Third from the Sun
The Twilight Zone - Season 1 - Episode 14
With all-out nuclear war about to ignite, a scientist and his pilot friend plot to escape on an experimental spaceship.
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#7 - The Thirty First of February
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour - Season 1 - Episode 15
Andrew Anderson is an advertising executive who discovers the body of his deadwife laying at the bottom of the basement stairs. An investigating detective named Sgt. Cresse believes Mr. Anderson is guilty of murder. He wants to trick him into making a confession by making Mr. Anderson believe that his wife is still alive and that she is having an affair with one of his fellow workers at the advertising agency. Eventually Mr. Anderson is proven innocent of murder, but Cresse's hounding has left him hopelessly insane.
#8 - A World of His Own
The Twilight Zone - Season 1 - Episode 36
A playwright makes characters come to life.
#9 - The Invaders
The Twilight Zone - Season 2 - Episode 15
An old woman in an isolated farmhouse encounters tiny, hostile aliens.
#10 - A World of Difference
The Twilight Zone - Season 1 - Episode 23
Businessman Arthur Curtis finds his phone dead. He is then surprised to hear a voice yell, "Cut!" and see that his office is just a set on a sound stage. Everyone tells him that he is Jerry Raigan, a drunken movie star on the decline, and "Arthur Curtis" is a character he is playing in the movie "The Private World of Arthur Curtis".
#11 - Little Girl Lost
The Twilight Zone - Season 3 - Episode 26
A six-year-old girl rolls under her bed and vanishes into a fourth dimension. Her parents and a neighbor struggle to free her before the hole between the dimensions closes forever.
#12 - Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
The Twilight Zone - Season 5 - Episode 3
Mr. Wilson believes he sees a gremlin on the wing of his commercial aircraft.
#13 - The Last Flight
The Twilight Zone - Season 1 - Episode 18
A World War I flying ace flies through a mysterious cloud - and lands at a modern U.S. air base in the year 1959!
#14 - Night Call
The Twilight Zone - Season 5 - Episode 19
An elderly, wheelchair-bound lady receives strange anonymous phone calls overnight when she's alone.
#15 - Forgotten Front
Combat! - Season 1 - Episode 1
When communications with the "Black Rook" patrol that was sent to get the location of a German big gun is suddenly cut off, Saunders and his men ("White Rook") go in to find out what happened. In a dye factory, they find the missing patrol all dead and a hidden German deserter. Saunders must decide if the prisoner lives or dies when the squad makes their escape.
#16 - Steel
The Twilight Zone - Season 5 - Episode 2
Boxing robot "Battling Maxo" breaks down before the scheduled bout, forcing his manager to take its place.
#17 - Nightmare at 30,000 Feet
The Twilight Zone (2019) - Season 1 - Episode 2
A journalist listens to a podcast detailing how the plane on which he's a passenger will disappear.
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#19 - One for the Books
Amazing Stories (1985) - Season 1 - Episode 23
An elderly custodian suddenly gains incredible knowledge.
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#20 - The Doll
Amazing Stories (1985) - Season 1 - Episode 22
A lonely bachelor is fascinated by a doll he bought for his niece.
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#21 - Once Upon a Time
The Twilight Zone - Season 3 - Episode 13
Woodrow, a janitor living in the year 1890, accidentally activates a time travelling helmet which transports him to 1962 - then promptly breaks down!
#22 - Death Ship
The Twilight Zone - Season 4 - Episode 6
A three-man spacecraft lands on a planet only to discover the wreckage of a spacecraft identical to their own. Two of the crew are convinced that they are dead, but the captain refuses to see the truth.
#23 - Ride the Nightmare
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour - Season 1 - Episode 11
When three of his childhood pals break out of prison, Christopher Martin is in trouble. When he was younger, he and his pals committed a crime. All except Christopher were caught and sent to jail. Each of them vowed revenge. Christopher confesses his crime to his wife Helen though he fears she will leave him. Helen is shocked at first, but she agrees to help him proving that his fears were groundless. Together they foil the three prison escapees when they show up looking for revenge.
#24 - First Anniversary
The Outer Limits (1995) - Season 2 - Episode 7
As he celebrates his first wedding anniversary, Norman Glass thinks he's the luckiest man alive. His wife Ady, whom he met after the tragic death of her first husband, is stunningly beautiful and talented. She loves him more than anyone alive. They have two great friends, Dennis and Barbara, who were arried on the same day and are just as madly in love as Norman and Ady. But suddenly things start to change. First, Dennis leaves Barbara. Then, Norman must struggle with the strange, growing revulsion he feels when he touches, smells, tastes or sees his lovely wife. Norman thinks he's going crazy, but Barbara and Ady know better. Is love blind? Is beauty only skin-deep? Guess again.
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#25 - Mute
The Twilight Zone - Season 4 - Episode 5
A 12-year-old girl who lost her parents in a fire doesn't speak because she has grown up in a secret telepathic community. The couple who take her in, and her teacher, are determined to help her adapt to their society, no matter the cost.
#26 - Spur of the Moment
The Twilight Zone - Season 5 - Episode 21
After being chased on horseback by a terrifying, unidentified figure in black, Anne Henderson faces the biggest decision of her life.
#27 - The Expeditions
The Martian Chronicles - Season 1 - Episode 1
January 1999: The Zeus Project makes its first manned flight to Mars. Its ultimate goal: colonisation. On Mars, Ylla dreams of the coming astronauts and her husband, Mr K, plots their doom... The second expeditions lands and finds a Mars a deceptively familiar but deadly home from home. Finally, Col. Wilder's Zeus III expedition arrives to find the Martians dead, wiped out by chicken pox. For one crew member, Spender, the thought of Earth culture tearing the planet apart is too much to bear.
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#28 - The Martians
The Martian Chronicles - Season 1 - Episode 3
November 2006: Earth is an amber cinder, all life annihilated by total nuclear war. A handful of settlers left on Mars are the sole survivors of the human race, facing a desolate future, cut off and isolated even from each other. Wilder finally meets his Martian 'counterpart'.
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#29 - The Settlers
The Martian Chronicles - Season 1 - Episode 2
February 2004: The colonisation of Mars proceeds rapidly, the rockets arriving like 'silver locusts'. Settlers pour in, each in search of a dream - Fr Peregrine wants to meet Christ; the Lustigs want to find their missing son; the Parkhills want to make their fortune; and Wilder himself wants to meet a Martian...
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#30 - Young Man's Fancy
The Twilight Zone - Season 3 - Episode 34
When a newlywed couple briefly return to the groom's childhood home, the ties of the past prove too strong to resist.
#31 - Dance of the Dead
Masters of Horror - Season 1 - Episode 3
This story revolves around a post-apocalyptic town where re-animated corpses of friends and enemies dance on stage for the few people who survived a nuclear holocaust. Peggy a naïve girl learns of the dangers of the outside world and the sacrifices made to guarantee her survival.
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#32 - The Funeral
Night Gallery - Season 2 - Episode 44
A vampire plans his belated, lavish--and noisy--final obsequy.
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