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Best For All Mankind Episodes, Ranked

All 49 episodes of For All Mankind scored and sorted — from the 9.4/10 high of S1E7 to the 8.3/10 of S4E1.

By Mira Vance · Editor & Lead Reviewer

Our rating: 8.81/10 average across 49 episode reviews (best 9.4, lowest 8.3).

For All Mankind runs hot early and never fully recovers that altitude, though it stays remarkably consistent doing it — 49 episodes packed into a 1.1-point band from 8.3 to 9.4.

The peak is a three-way tie at 9.4. Two come from Season 1’s back half: S1E7 “Dani Breaks Her Own Arm So Gordo Can Go Home”, where a crewmate’s self-sacrifice quietly outweighs the mission, and S1E8 “A Basketball Game That Never Happened”, the show’s loveliest swerve into memory and what-if. The third is S2E10 “Two Astronauts, No Suits, and the Hour That Made the Show” — the lunar showdown the whole season was building toward, with S2E8 “Two Cosmonauts Reach for a Case on a Ridge” (9.3) the slow fuse that lit it.

The floor lives in the later years. S4E1 “An Asteroid Catches Fire and Buries a Hero” (8.3) is the single softest entry, a premiere doing more housekeeping than storytelling, and Season 5 opens almost as flat with S5E1 “A Murder on Mars Cracks Open the Bragg Era” and S5E4 “A Mars Built for Workers Quietly Plans to Replace Them” both at 8.4.

Season by season, the trend is clear: S1 (8.96) and S2 (8.88) set a ceiling S3 nearly matches (8.87), while S4 (8.68) and S5 (8.69) settle into a lower, steadier register — fewer dazzling highs, but no collapse either.

Season 1: 9.0Season 2: 8.9Season 3: 8.9Season 4: 8.7Season 5: 8.7
678910S1E1: 8.6/10S1E2: 8.6/10S1E3: 8.6/10S1E4: 8.6/10S1E5: 9.0/10S1E6: 9.2/10S1E7: 9.4/10S1E8: 9.4/10S1E9: 9.2/10S1E10: 9.0/10S2E1: 8.6/10S2E2: 9.0/10S2E3: 8.5/10S2E4: 8.6/10S2E5: 8.7/10S2E6: 8.6/10S2E7: 9.0/10S2E8: 9.3/10S2E9: 9.1/10S2E10: 9.4/10S3E2: 8.7/10S3E3: 8.6/10S3E4: 8.7/10S3E5: 9.1/10S3E6: 8.7/10S3E7: 9.0/10S3E8: 9.1/10S3E9: 8.8/10S3E10: 9.1/10S4E1: 8.3/10S4E2: 8.5/10S4E3: 9.0/10S4E4: 8.6/10S4E5: 8.5/10S4E6: 8.7/10S4E7: 9.0/10S4E8: 8.5/10S4E9: 8.7/10S4E10: 9.0/10S5E1: 8.4/10S5E2: 8.5/10S5E3: 9.2/10S5E4: 8.4/10S5E5: 8.7/10S5E6: 9.0/10S5E7: 8.7/10S5E8: 8.7/10S5E9: 8.5/10S5E10: 8.8/10
Every episode scored on tension, payoff, and rewatch value. Hover a point for the episode.
RankEpEpisodeScore
T-1S1E7Dani Breaks Her Own Arm So Gordo Can Go Home9.4
T-1S1E8A Basketball Game That Never Happened9.4
T-1S2E10Two Astronauts, No Suits, and the Hour That Made the Show9.4
4S2E8Two Cosmonauts Reach for a Case on a Ridge9.3
T-5S1E6Apollo 23 Blows Up and Takes the Show's Innocence With It9.2
T-5S1E9A Stranded Astronaut and a Rookie's Real First Flight9.2
T-5S5E3Ed Baldwin Goes Home Aboard the Ship He Helped Build9.2
T-8S2E9A Blockade, a Confession, and a Breach9.1
T-8S3E5A Dust Storm and a Stolen Engine Decide Mars9.1
T-8S3E8A Landslide Buries Everyone's Reasons for Being Here9.1
T-8S3E10Kelly Rides a Homemade Rocket Up, a Van Detonates Outside NASA9.1
T-12S1E5Molly Cobb Rappels Into a Crater and Finds the Future9.0
T-12S1E10A Christmas Rescue That Buries Its Best Astronaut9.0
T-12S2E2The Solar Storm Sends Everyone Back to Earth9.0
T-12S2E7KAL 007 Drags NASA Into the Cold War9.0
T-12S3E7The Drill Hits and Everything Comes Apart9.0
T-12S4E3The Coup In Moscow Cracks Open Every Closed Door9.0
T-12S4E7Dev Ayesa Breaks the Strike and Buys Mars9.0
T-12S4E10The Asteroid Pivots and Two Lives Empty Out9.0
T-12S5E6Happy Valley Stops Being a Colony and Starts Being a Hostage9.0
T-21S3E9A Penultimate Hour That Detonates Four Closets at Once8.8
T-21S5E10Happy Valley Survives the War and Kelly Baldwin Stays on Titan8.8
T-23S2E5The Weight of a Famous Astronaut8.7
T-23S3E2Ed Loses Mars, Then Buys It Back8.7
T-23S3E4A Solar Sail, A Soviet Meltdown, A Choice8.7
T-23S3E6A Coming-Out on Mars Triggers an Earthbound Reckoning8.7
T-23S4E6Margo Steps Out of the Shadows in Leningrad8.7
T-23S4E9The Heist Crew Closes Ranks Before Ranger's Burn8.7
T-23S5E5The Lubyanka Lesson Comes Home to Happy Valley8.7
T-23S5E7Titan Lures Two Crews and a Revolution Toward Its Atmosphere8.7
T-23S5E8A Finale That Blows Up Its Own Idealism on a Mining Platform8.7
T-32S1E1A Pilot That Loses the Moon Before It Can Win It8.6
T-32S1E2Ed Walks Into a Hearing and Confesses to Himself8.6
T-32S1E3Nixon's Women Arrive and the Bedstead Takes One8.6
T-32S1E4Prime Crew Politics and a Press Conference Coup8.6
T-32S2E1A Decade Jump Lands on a Solar Storm8.6
T-32S2E4Pathfinder's Crew Gets Built on Lies8.6
T-32S2E6A Soyuz Summit, a Shamrock Hotel, and a Wild Horse8.6
T-32S3E3The Race Hardens Into a Blackmail8.6
T-32S4E4A Suit Valve Becomes a Cold War Detonator8.6
T-41S2E3A Lithium Vein Drags Marines to the Moon8.5
T-41S4E2Happy Valley reveals its two-tier reality8.5
T-41S4E5A Twenty-Trillion-Dollar Rock Cracks Every Loyalty on the Board8.5
T-41S4E8The Heist Sets Its Pieces8.5
T-41S5E2Happy Valley Picks a Side and a Body Drops to Make It8.5
T-41S5E9Sons and Daughters Locks Happy Valley From the Inside8.5
T-47S5E1A Murder on Mars Cracks Open the Bragg Era8.4
T-47S5E4A Mars Built for Workers Quietly Plans to Replace Them8.4
49S4E1An Asteroid Catches Fire and Buries a Hero8.3

Scores reflect our episode reviews. Tap any episode to read the full review, or browse the whole For All Mankind season recap from the top.