The 20 Best Episodes of ‘Seinfeld,’ Ranked

14: “The Abstinence” (Season 8)​

The Plot: George is forced into involuntary celibacy when his girlfriend informs him that she has mono. Now, free of the obsession with how to get sex, George is finally able to use his brain for other things. He becomes a genius, learning Portuguese in a day, rattling off correct answers to Jeopardy, devouring Old Testament-sized textbooks. But will George continue to abstain and use his intelligence for the good of mankind or choose to have sex and go back to being hapless George Costanza? Take a wild guess.​

Best Moment: Jerry explaining his theory of the makeup of George’s sex-obsessed brain using a head of lettuce.​​

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13: “The Fusilli Jerry” (Season 6)​

The Plot: Kramer’s latest hobby involves making miniature statues of his pals using a pasta that best captures their personality. Jerry gets fusilli because he’s silly. Get it? Unfortunately, George’s dyspeptic dad (Jerry Stiller) accidentally falls on the corkscrew pasta action figure while arguing with Kramer, who he believes hit on George’s mom. In a million-to-one shot, the fusilli gets lodged in such a way that Frank is brought to a proctologist whose personalized license plate (which reads “assman”) Kramer has mistakenly received from the DMV.​

Best Moment: Jerry Stiller’s hilarious description of his signature “stopping short” seduction move, which involves slamming on the car brakes and then reaching over to brush against the passenger’s breasts while protecting them.​​

12: “The Comeback” (Season 8)​

The Plot: Here’s one everyone can relate to. In a work meeting, George is hogging on a free shrimp platter. One of his coworkers razzes him: “Hey, George, the ocean called. They’re running out of shrimp.” At a loss for words, the humiliated George comes up with the perfect comeback hours later in his car on the way home. Determined to use what he believes to be the perfect put-down, George becomes obsessed with creating a scenario in which he can unleash this bon mot: “Oh yeah, Reilly? Well, the jerk store called and they’re running out of you.”​

Best Moment: George blowing his top as Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer offer comebacks that they think are better than the jerk store one. ​​

11. “The Face Painter” (Season 6)​

The Plot: We’ve got to have a Puddy episode on this list, and for my money, this is the best of the bunch. Elaine’s dim-bulb, himbo boyfriend (Patrick Warburton) reveals himself to be a New Jersey Devils superfan and a face painter when Jerry scores four tickets to a New York Rangers hockey playoff game. Elaine is humiliated that she’s dating the kind of knucklehead who would smear his face with red and black paint to root for his favorite team, while Warburton gives a masterclass in deadpan idiocy. ​

Best Moment: George reveals that he has said “I love you” only one time in his life. And it was to a dog, who then licked himself and left the room.

​​10. “The Soup Nazi” (Season 7)​

The Plot: This may be the most famous Seinfeld episode — and the most quoted (“No soup for you!”). Kramer becomes obsessed with a local soup vendor who makes waiting customers queue up in militaristic precision. The rules are strict, and George and Elaine run afoul of the chef’s short fuse by refusing to follow them to the letter. Based on a real-life soup kiosk in Midtown Manhattan at the time, “The Soup Nazi” was both an instant watercooler sensation and proof that sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.​

Best Moment: Kramer talking to the Soup Nazi and explaining that he (and only he) understands how the man suffers for his art.​​

9. “The Library” (Season 3)​

The Plot: An early gem of an episode, mostly thanks to guest star Philip Baker Hall as Mr. Bookman, the Sgt. Friday–like New York Public Library investigator who comes after Jerry for failing to return a copy of a racy Henry Miller book he borrowed decades earlier. Hall’s just-the-facts hard-boiled gumshoe patter is deadpan perfection, and you can see Seinfeld almost break into laughter every time Hall opens his mouth. Meanwhile, the flashbacks to Jerry and George in middle school are priceless. ​

Best Moment: George getting an atomic wedgie from a bunch of jock classmates directed by a sadistic P.E. teacher with little “baked-bean teeth.”

8: “The Summer of George” (Season 8)​

The Plot: When George is finally fired from his job working for the New York Yankees, he’s surprised to learn that he’s been given severance. With the unexpected cash and no ambition, Costanza proclaims that it will be “the summer of George.” What to do? What else: eat a block of cheese while draping himself in a velour track suit and lounging in a La-Z-Boy with a built-in fridge. Truly one one of the great Costanza episodes.

​Best Moment: The sight of George, a grown man, being chased by a bee in terror.​​

7: “The Invitations” (Season 9)​

The Plot: Maybe the darkest — and funniest — Seinfeld episode ever. After spending months trying to find a way to break off his engagement to Susan, it looks like George will finally have to go through with the deed. But he’s unwittingly saved by his cheapness. After skinflint George picks out the least expensive wedding invitations he can find, it turns out that the glue on the envelopes is toxic, killing his fiancé mid-lick. His (and the gang’s) lack of sympathy for her fluke death is cruelly perfect. ​

Best Moment: George’s pricelessly blasé reaction to the doctor as he delivers the “bad” news.

6: “The Opposite” (Season 5)​

The Plot: George’s constant failure with the opposite sex, his inability to stay employed, and his futile efforts to emerge from the caustic quicksand of living under his parents’ roof is turned on its head in this brilliant episode in which he finally realizes that every life decision he’s ever made has been wrong — so why not try the opposite. Miraculously, it works! Meanwhile, Kramer goes on Regis and Kathie Lee’s morning show to hype his new coffee-table book about coffee tables, with disastrous results. ​

Best Moment: As George’s fate swings up, Elaine’s swings down as a counterbalance. The look on her face when she comes to the realization that “I’ve become George!” is priceless.​​

5: “The Hamptons” (Season 5)​

The Plot: This one fires on all cylinders. The gang heads out to the Hamptons to visit friends who’ve just had a (very ugly) baby. Kramer illegally poaches a fisherman’s lobster trap, Elaine gets swoony for a doctor who describes both her and the ugly baby with the same word (breathtaking), and George (straight out of the pool) gets caught with his pants down by Jerry’s girlfriend, who laughs at his “shrinkage” and shares that intel with the woman George is trying to date, who everyone has seen sunbathing topless except George. Wall-to-wall perfection.​

Best Moment: Jerry and George explaining the concept of “shrinkage” to Elaine. She replies: “It shrinks? ... I don’t know how you walk around with those things.”​​

4: “The Chinese Restaurant” (Season 2)​

The Plot: It may not have the most — or the biggest — laughs, but this Season 2 standout was the first to really prove that Seinfeld and Co.’s so-called “show about nothing” was more than just an ordinary setup/punchline gag machine. It’s the most groundbreaking and formally daring episode in the early part of the show’s run. Set in one location, a Chinese restaurant, while the gang waits for a table, this is like Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat but, you know, funny. “The Chinese Restaurant” toyed with the idea of what a situation could be in a situation comedy.​

Best Moment: On a dare, Elaine attempts to eat off of another group of diners’ plates.​​

3: “The Bizarro Jerry” (Season 8)

​The Plot: Elaine is just about at her wits’ end with her group of friends. And then she meets another trio of male pals who are the exact opposite of Jerry, George and Kramer. They’re kind, they go to the library, they eat at a diner but a different one. It’s like Superman’s alternate-universe bizarro world. Meanwhile, George manages to gain entry into the rarified world of supermodels when a photo of a knockout he claims is his dead fiancée gets him past the velvet rope. But really, this terrific episode is all about Elaine finally looking at her life (and friends) and realizing how ridiculous it is. It would be sad if it wasn’t so funny.​

Best Moment: George, preparing for a big night out at a secret club, blow-drying his hair next to a poster of his style icon, Dennis Franz.​​

2: “The Marine Biologist” (Season 5)

​The Plot: The most successfully Rube Goldbergian episode of Seinfeld ever. While Kramer is busy hitting a bucket of golf balls into the ocean, Jerry bumps into an old female high school classmate, who asks whatever happened to poor old pitiful George? Jerry lies and says that George is, in fact, a successful marine biologist. George plays along with the ruse in order to woo her. As they walk along the beach on their first date, a whale in distress requires the attention of … you guessed it, a marine biologist. George is reluctantly forced into duty. The retelling of the event later at Monk’s coffee shop is, hands down, one of the best moments in the show’s run. ​

Best Moment: George retelling his whale yarn for Jerry, Kramer and Elaine: “The sea was angry that day, my friends. Like an old man sending soup back in a deli …” ​​

1: “The Contest” (Season 4)​

The Plot: It simply doesn’t get any better than this. After George gets caught by his mother while pleasuring himself to a copy of Glamour magazine, the gang decides to make a wager about who can hold out from doing the deed the longest. Temptation arrives on every front. Jerry is dating a virgin who's breaking down his resistance; Kramer spots a neighbor through whose window he can see her constantly walking around in the buff; Elaine takes an aerobics class and flirts with JFK Jr.; and George visits his mother in the hospital while the knockout she shares a room with gets a sponge bath behind a translucent curtain. Something’s gotta give. Who can remain the Master of Their Domain the longest?

​Best Moment: Kramer, the first to be knocked out, bursting into Jerry’s apartment and slapping his hundred bucks down on the counter about 30 seconds after leaving.​​​