Game of Thrones is undoubtedly one of the biggest TV shows ever made, both in terms of production and popularity. Only those who followed the series when it aired know the true extent of the hype the HBO series generated. For others to get an idea, there are the IMDb ratings.
Game of Thrones is among the small number of TV shows with a significant number of episodes (29 in total) rated 9 or above on IMDb, with thousands of fans giving them the highest ratings possible. Among those episodes, three are rated 9.9.
On the whole of IMDb, there's only one episode of TV rated a perfect 10: the Breaking Bad episode "Ozymandias." Game of Thrones is in good company. However, the show has a few episodes that are ranked very low on the scale, especially from the last couple of seasons.
Following are the three best and two worst Game of Thrones episodes, according to fan ratings on IMDb.
The Best Episodes of Game of Thrones
3. "The Winds of Winter" (Season 6 Episode 10)
Before the quality of the TV series started to slip, Game of Thrones delivered this banger of a season finale, with stellar visuals and gripping storytelling.
What sings through the tenth episode of season 6, titled "The Winds of Winter," is the thing Game of Thrones did best: building anticipation and suspense through the unease and discomfort of the characters (and Ramin Djawadi’s excellent background score). The episode finally gives us the much-awaited payback for the Red Wedding. Fans around the world rejoiced as Arya Stark slit Walder Frey’s throat after feeding him a pie made of chopped body parts of his sons. We got the rest of the payback the season after.
Arya wasn’t the only one who got her revenge in the episode. Cersei Lannister blows up the Great Sept of Baelor with wildfire hidden underneath. Qyburn’s child spies, meanwhile, stab Grand Maester Pycelle to death. Djawadi’s brilliant song "Light of the Seven" elevates the stretched-taut tension of the scene to a whole new level. Septa Unella also meets a terrible implied fate at the hands of The Mountain, Gregor Clegane.
Margaery Tyrell, clever as ever, feels something is off moments before the Sept goes up in flames, but fails to escape, perishing with her brother and father. Tommen Baratheon fails to bear the loss of his wife and jumps from his window in the Red Keep to his death. With her last offspring dead, Cersei is pronounced the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.
Elsewhere, Bran Stark learns the truth about Jon Snow’s parentage, seeing the death of Jon's mother Lyanna Stark in childbirth, with a young Ned Stark by his sister's side. While the fandom had already guessed this secret by then, it was a pleasant revelation to learn that Jon was a true Stark and a Targaryen both, and a likely contender for the Iron Throne.
The episode ended with Daenerys Targaryen setting sail for Westeros, with Tyrion Lannister as her Hand and her massive fleet and three dragons in tow. The episode gets all the chess pieces where they need to be for the story to soar.
That's only one of three Game of Thrones episodes to earn this sky-high rating. Another aired only the week before: