All 86 Episodes of 'The Sopranos,' Ranked

Every Episode of 'The Sopranos,' Ranked Image via HBO Published Jul 17, 2026, 5:05 PM EDT Jeremy has more than 2600 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows. His favorite directors include Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog, John Woo, Bob Fosse, Fritz Lang, Guillermo del Toro, and Yoji Yamada. He's also very proud of the fact that he's seen every single Nicolas Cage movie released before 2022, even though doing so often felt like a tremendous waste of time. He's plagued by the question of whether or not The Room is genuinely terrible or some kind of accidental masterpiece, and has been for more than 12 years (and a similar number of viewings). When he's not writing lists - and the occasional feature article - for Collider, he also likes to upload film reviews to his Letterboxd profile (username: Jeremy Urquhart) and Instagram account. He has achieved his 2025 goal of reading all 13,467 novels written by Stephen King, and plans to spend the next year or two getting through the author's 82,756 short stories and 105,433 novellas. Sign in to your Collider account There’s a lot of The Sopranos. It ran for six seasons, and there were 86 episodes spread out across those seasons, back in the good old days when you tended to get seasons of even HBO (and other cable) shows yearly, and those seasons were 12 or 13 episodes long. The Sopranos had its first five seasons made up of 13 episodes each, with the final season divided into a season 6A (12 episodes) and 6B (nine episodes). There were some gaps though, to be fair, with one year (2003) between season 4 and season 5, and then another year (2005) between season 5 and season 6A. Anyway, the important thing is that The Sopranos still felt constant throughout pop culture during that time, and it being so defining the late 1990s and then the 2000s means it feels like the gold standard for what 21st-century TV could be. It’s about a man named Tony Soprano, and how he balances going to therapy, dealing with family issues, and taking part in organized crime (his job, essentially). It’s funny, thought-provoking, cinematic, unsettling, emotional, and incredibly written, all at once, plus so many other great things. It’s one of those legendary shows that lives up to a legendary reputation and then some, so it deserves an undertaking as grand as ranking all its episodes. That’s what you’ve got here. You might be here a while (and yeah, it’s going to take a long time to write, but The Sopranos is worth it). This is every episode of The Sopranos ranked, starting with a couple of mild misfires and ending with some of the very best television episodes of all time. 86 "Christopher" (2002) Season 4, Episode 3 Image via HBO “Christopher” is the worst episode of the series, to be brutally honest. Don’t get it twisted, it’s not being criticized here because it’s about race-related issues, touching on anti-Columbus Day protests and anti-Italian sentiments. It’s more the case that these topics are handled quite clunkily, with a good deal of dialogue throughout not really feeling natural, and it makes The Sopranos suddenly feel weirdly preachy. These are things that could be explored without things feeling preachy, but “Christopher” doesn’t manage that. It feels out of step with so much of the series, and all the episodes where ridiculous things might happen, but you still can believe that these characters are real and consistent (at least within the world the show builds). It’s a testament to how good The Sopranos is, though, that even “Christopher” has a couple of great moments. Bobby’s grief here, in a subplot about the death of his wife, is powerfully done and important going forward, and Christopher's misunderstanding of Tony’s rant about Gary Cooper is pretty incredible (and one of many moments from the show that’s become an enduring meme). 85 "Chasing It" (2007) Season 6, Episode 16 Image via HBO Across six seasons, Tony’s vices were explored in ways that usually felt organic, and he obviously remained compelling and human throughout, even with him being more flawed near the show’s end than he was at the start. Still, giving him a full-on gambling addiction so close to the end of the series felt weird, and that’s what “Chasing It” is largely about. There are only five episodes after “Chasing It,” and they're all much better (especially the show’s final four episodes). Not that Tony having a gambling problem seemed absolutely preposterous, but the way it sort of just arrived in this episode felt odd, and then felt even stranger because of how close the series was to its end, at this stage. There are only five episodes after “Chasing It,” and they're all much better (especially the show’s final four episodes). Tony stumbling into an Uncut Gems-esque narrative here for one episode honestly felt a bit like one of his bizarre dreams, albeit unintentionally. 84 "In Camelot" (2004) Season 5, Episode 7 Image via HBO Steve Buscemi was, of course, in season 5 of The Sopranos as Tony’s out-of-nowhere cousin, Tony Blundetto, and he also worked on the show as a director, helming “Pine Barrens…” which, yes, will be featured much later in this ranking. It’s an undeniably iconic episode. Buscemi also directed “In Camelot,” during the season where he did the most in front of the camera, and it’s, uh, not quite as well-liked as “Pine Barrens,” to say the least. Much of “In Camelot” concerns Tony confronting certain truths about his father when he meets one of his old mistresses, who does end up being at the center of one of the show’s most uncomfortable scenes. Junior’s storyline in this episode fares a bit better than Tony’s, as it’s effective dark comedy to see him trying to get to every single funeral he can, as a way to escape house arrest. And some of the conflict between Tony and Phil – consistent throughout the final two seasons – here is good, with them getting into a brief (and kind of amusing) car chase of sorts. 83 "A Hit Is a Hit" (1999) Season 1, Episode 10 Image via HBO The show was out of its comfort zone, to some extent, in the aforementioned “Christopher,” and the same can be said about “A Hit Is a Hit.” This one’s actually about Christopher, as in Moltisanti, in contrast to “Christopher,” which was more about Christopher Columbus, though Christopher’s actor, Michael Imperioli, had a writing credit on “Christopher.” This isn't really addressing “A Hit Is a Hit,” admittedly, but it’s also that awkward The Sopranos episode where Christopher and Adriana briefly get wrapped up in the music industry. What it has to say about music of that era does feel a bit “How do you do, fellow kids?” And that comparison is relevant, since Steve Buscemi, as mentioned before, was involved with this show. Anyway… not a great episode. But, like some of the already slightly underwhelming episodes, there is a subplot here that proves much stronger than the main plot: Tony struggling to make friends with some people who aren’t involved in organized crime, but finding all they want out of him is stories about organized crime. 82 "The Telltale Moozadell" (2001) Season 3, Episode 9 Image via HBO To address the obligatory trivia first, yes, “The Telltale Moozadell” is the episode that Lady Gaga (known back then as Stefani Germanotta) was temporarily in, some years before she became one of the biggest pop musicians of the century so far. She’s in an important scene here, too, being one of the teenagers present when A.J. pulls a prank at school, late one night, that ends up getting him into a good deal of trouble with his parents. Tony’s other child, Meadow, gets a decent amount of screen time in this episode, too, as her relationship with the ever-annoying Jackie Jr. continues developing. The part of “The Telltale Moozadell” that feels the most interesting, and important going forward, is the stuff with Tony and a woman named Gloria, introduced in the previous episode, with both being patients of Dr. Melfi (and their whole affair ultimately getting more intense/physical here). 81 "Luxury Lounge" (2006) Season 6, Episode 7 Image via HBO Of all the episodes that spend quite a lot of time with Christopher and his screenwriting aspirations, “Luxury Lounge” is probably the weakest, and it does feel a tad gimmicky. Or maybe prone to stunt-casting is a fairer way to describe it. Christopher and Mr. Sacred-and-the-Propane himself, Little Carmine, both travel to Los Angeles to try and cast "Cleaver," the mafia-themed horror film Christopher’s been developing. They meet Lauren Bacall and Ben Kingsley, who get to play fictionalized versions of themselves, and that’s a bit fun, albeit also quite broad for The Sopranos, with the comedy and satire dug into here. The show’s usually a little smarter with the things it wants to critique, but The Sopranos at its broadest is still wittier than most other TV shows out there (yes, even the comedies, because The Sopranos is pretty much a crime dramedy a lot of the time). 80 "Do Not Resuscitate" (2000) Season 2, Episode 2 Image via HBO The best thing about “Do Not Resuscitate” is that it introduces Bobby Baccalieri (AKA Bobby Bacala), and he gradually becomes a more important character as The Sopranos goes on. As far as the gangster characters go, he’s probably the kindest (albeit not perfect, of course), and one of the more sympathetic ones, too. In this episode, his affiliation with Uncle Junior, who’s in jail at this point in the series, gets established, with Bobby eventually becoming more affiliated with Tony as Junior increasingly falls out of the whole organized crime sphere. Elsewhere, “Do Not Resuscitate” has quite a bit going on with Livia, who’d schemed with Junior about killing Tony in season 1. Livia also gets a few scenes with the recently introduced Janice, Livia’s daughter and Tony’s sister, which includes a surprisingly creepy moment that kind of comes out of nowhere. Otherwise, this episode’s just pretty decent. Bobby entering the picture, some decent Junior and Livia stuff, and then that one alarming moment are the closest it gets to having highlights. 79 "Pie-O-My" (2002) Season 4, Episode 5 image via HBO To sum up season 4 kind of broadly, it’s one that can feel a little slow the first time you watch the show, but on a rewatch, it feels much richer and more meaningful. The only episode of the season that’s worse on a rewatch is the aforementioned “Christopher.” This isn't a great comparison, but if you can liken seasons 2 and 5 of The Sopranos to Breaking Bad, with intensity and pacing, then season 4 is like, comparatively, its Better Call Saul. Or maybe it’s a grower in the way Twin Peaks: The Return was, compared to the more immediate first two seasons of Twin Peaks. That’s all to say that “Pie-O-My” is much better than “Christopher,” even if it’s not ranked particularly high here. That’s also an indication that the territory of good-but-flawed episodes of The Sopranos is now being moved on from. “Pie-O-My” is good, with Tony and Ralph clashing over the titular horse being important going forward, and Bobby having a compelling subplot here, dealing with grief over his recently-deceased wife. It’s not quite a stand-out episode, but it’s harder for an episode to stand out when it belongs to a series as packed with legendary episodes as The Sopranos is. 78 "Moe n' Joe" (2006) Season 6, Episode 10 Image via HBO “Moe n’ Joe” is one of a few season 6A episodes where it feels like things are moving just a tiny bit too slowly. It’s not fair to call the season padded, necessarily, but The Sopranos gets closest to feeling like it has padding in this particular season, or this first half of this particular season. The Vito storyline, where he temporarily flees New Jersey after being outed as gay, gets a decent amount of blame for that feeling, but it’s a bit more than just that. Vito’s time in New Hampshire is a particular focus of “Moe n’ Joe,” and to some extent, the slowness of it all is purposeful, because it illustrates (in a way that’s darkly funny but also tragic) how Vito can’t really fathom living a normal, quieter life after being associated with the mob. He returns to New Jersey at the episode’s end, and that does lead to the most dramatic event of season 6A in the next episode… but more on that later. 77 "House Arrest" (2000) Season 2, Episode 11 Image via HBO Season 2 isn't too deadly, by the standards of The Sopranos, though some of the 12 deaths in the season are of major characters. The two biggest ones follow “House Arrest,” which is the third-last episode of the season, and an almost exaggerated “calm before the storm” kind of thing. It’s an episode where Tony is told to lie low, and stay away from anything related to organized crime. He’s bad at it, and seeing him be bad at it is kind of funny, a bit like how Vito couldn’t really cope with trying to make an honest living in the aforementioned “Moe n' Joe.” There’s also a funny kind of mundanity when Tony returns to his crew at the end of “House Arrest.” The scene of Tony’s crew just hanging out at Satriale's, killing time and pretty much doing nothing, is amazing, and the most memorable part of the episode just because of the immense inaction of it all.