Polar arrived on Netflix last week to middling reviews. The consensus seemed to be that while the story itself was underwhelming and it felt a bit too early-00s for comfort, the film’s action was still decent, and no one appeared too angry to have spent two hours watching Mads Mikkelsen be at maximum Mads Mikkelsen.

The streaming service’s movie, an adaptation of the Dark Horse graphic novel Polar: Came From The Cold by Victor Santos, leaves room for a sequel in the closing minutes, and there’s plenty of story left in Santos’ source material. Buzz online also indicated that over the weekend a lot of people were taking a chance on the John Wick-y tale of an assassin who has his retirement snatched away after some influential criminals decide that maybe he shouldn’t be allowed to walk – literally and figuratively.

So, do two and two equal four at Netflix? Possibly. In a new interview with Screen Rant, director Jonas Åkerlund was asked if he would be keen to do another Polar film, based on material from the remaining books:

“Well, it’s supposed to be based on the first book, but we kind of borrowed a little bit from the second and the third book as well. And we also added some stuff that aren’t even in the book. So, we had the freedom of working with these characters as we wanted – and, yeah, the Polar story has way more to give. He actually wrote five books, and there’s a lot more stories in there; and the characters are great, so why not?”

Why not indeed? You can see the interview below…

Let’s face it: The Crimes Of Grindelwald wouldn’t be a Fantastic Beasts film without some, erm, fantastic beasts. But luckily for writer JK Rowling and director David Yates, they had a world-class army of visual effects artists at their disposal for the second installment in the latest Wizarding World film saga.

It’s a good job, too. As well as the return of Newt Scamander’s (Eddie Redmayne) existing pals like the Niffler and his pet Bowtruckle, Pickett, Beasts 2 sees the introduction of a whole new menagerie of creatures, including the magnificent, dragon-like Zouwu and the sinister, cat-aping Matagots.

It’s not just the beasts, either: The Crimes Of Grindelwald expands the scope of the first film, with the adventure taking place across 1920s Paris, London and New York. Physical sets can only go so far, meaning that the effects team also had their work cut out making the wider world look as good as its magical inhabitants.

One of the men ultimately responsible for making the onscreen magic happen is Christian Manz, a Potterverse veteran and creative director of London-based effects studio, Framestore. Along with Tim Burke, he served as The Crimes Of Grindelwald‘s joint overall VFX supervisor – and the team has now been rewarded with a Bafta nomination for their efforts.

“As we’re going through the process of creature design, Jo [Rowling] will come in and have a look at what we’ve been up to,” says Manz of the writer’s involvement in bringing her creations to the screen. “On the second film especially, she really wanted to understand the process of what we do in effects. She has a lot of input and some very definite ideas of what she wants, but she’s also willing to let other people explore her universe.”

Here, Manz takes Den of Geek through some developing FX shots, and throws in a bit of behind-the-scenes insight for good measure…

Broadening horizons

“There’s a huge amount of collaboration with [production designer] Stuart Craig and his team when it comes to deciding what’s built physically and what’s built digitally. He’s the man who’s visually created the universe that we’re playing in. I think we’re there to augment that reality, not to create it.

“For interiors like the French Ministry of Magic, the level of VFX augmentation all comes down to Stuart’s concept designs and what is going to be built physically on our backlot. For the scenes in real places like Paris, there’s a lot of background work – our backlot is big, but Paris is massive! But we could actually go and film reference plates. We digitally scanned 90 locations – full buildings and full streets, like the whole of the Avenue de l’Opéra and the Sacré-Cœur.

“I think what sets these films apart visually is there’s still a lot of set, which is there lighting the actors and giving them something tactile to interact with. But we’re obviously still creating a massive part of it; we’re like the digital construction crew. We have a lot of magical creatures rampaging around, and one of the biggest reasons why a lot of the environment is digital is to allow for that creature interaction to be as authentic as possible.”

Niffler returns

“We had a physical version of Newt’s case on the set for when Eddie points his wand at it, but then we replaced it with a CGI one so we could animate it to open and let the Niffler out, before he sits on top of it. [The first picture] is the stage before the animation is rendered, where we work out how the animation is working in the scene.

“We go through a three-stage process with visual effects. The first is ‘pre-vis’, where we create a lot of the set-pieces as lo-fi animated sequences before filming so that we’ve got a guide to shoot what we need. The second stage is ‘post-vis’, where as we’re filming, we’ll start putting lo-fi versions of the visual effects into every single shot – so as they’re cutting the film together, they’re seeing the creatures. And then the third process is that the animation goes off to be done properly by all the companies all over the world who are doing the work. There are about 1,500 people working on the VFX on a film like this, which is bigger than the crew that actually shot it.”

Enter the Zouwu

“It’s about a year’s work to get that shot looking great. We have puppeteers who have performance experience with very low-tech puppets, and we have a Zouwu head. The reason for that is if the actors are just looking at a tennis ball, you just don’t get a performance or an interaction that makes the shot believable. And then it doesn’t matter what we do. If the actor isn’t feeling like he’s actually touching that thing, then the shot’s broken no matter how well we render our Zouwu, so that’s a really important part of the process.

“For the Zouwu itself, we started the initial simple designs in March 2017. And then by the time we were filming – from July to Christmas 2017 – we’d kind of worked out what he would look like, because we’d done lots of little animation tests to show David and Eddie, so he knew what he was acting against and how it behaves. And then we go through to post-production, where the artists at Framestore are building the creature for real, deciding how this creature looks when it’s fully fleshed out – what the mane is made of, how much hair it’s got… By March 2018, they just start putting it into the shots and then they had until the end of September to finish it. So it’s really much more than a year’s work.”

Wizard’s best friend

“Giving CG creatures a personality is challenging. What we’re trying to do here is to not think of the beasts as characters, but as real animals. We’re always looking at references of real animals. Like with the Zouwu – this huge Chinese dragon-like creature with big eyes. Getting some emotion out of it was quite hard. But the scene in the film where Newt brings up its little toy to get it into the case and it behaves exactly as a dog would do… Every time I watch the film, I see people laugh at that because they see something that they see in reality at home, only in this massive creature.

“With Pickett, it has always been a little bit more difficult because he is literally a little stick man. These pictures are from the beginning of the film, where he takes the button from Newt’s coat and then chases it. We thought it would be funnier if he doesn’t notice Newt at all at first – and then suddenly he does notice him, but carries on for a bit. Again, we are relating to the sorts of things that domestic animals do that we all see.

“The most difficult thing is to work out how to make those moments really sing. With Pickett, it’s almost like the Gromit effect – those simple poses and expressions that replicate what we see as humans in each other, which get across those emotions – that he’s really cross or he’s really happy. Everybody loves those moments because you really get his connection with Newt.”

Cat people

“As the guardians of the French Ministry, the Matagots had to have a bit more menace. We went through quite a journey with the design of them. Because they are more ‘familiars’ than beasts, initially we had them posed on two legs – almost human-like but cat-like at the same time.

“But again, we went back to nature. We started looking at bald cats, and how evil they can look. And then we added the slow gait of a prowling tiger. Then we started playing around with the proportions, so that they’ve got greater limb length and more human-like front legs so it just feels a little bit more uncomfortable. And then obviously the glowing blue eyes, so they have have a bit more sense of threat – we initially tried them with more realistic eyes, but they just looked bizarre.

“The idea of them turning into real black cats came to us quite early in preproduction. We had a wonderful artist who had the idea of what they would look like when they come out of the magical boundaries of the Ministry and how they would appear in the real world. That idea actually did make the cut. It’s a good example of where we are given the freedom by David and Jo to play and come up with stuff, which makes these films – and we’re going into the third one now – such a collaborative experience. It’s not a bad job!”

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald will be available in the UK via digital from 9 March, and it’ll be out on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray and DVD on 18 March.

David Lynch, master of weirdness, took a run at Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi saga Dune back in 1984. It would be understating it to say that it didn’t go well. It went even less well for Alejandro Jodorowsky, who spent years trying to get his adaptation made. But if anyone can make Dune both an eye-popping reality and actually good, it’s the man behind Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, surely?

We’ll be keeping everything we know about Denis Villeneuve’s Dune right here. You’ll be able to find details on the cast, news about the direction the movie is taking, posters, filming info and even trailers, when they arrive.

Feel free to check back here for more, as it happens.

Dune cast

Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Ex Machina) is the latest cast member to sign up for Dune, according to THR. He’ll be playing Duke Leto Atreides, father of Paul ‘Muad’Dib’ Atreides (Timothée Chalamet). Paul’s mother, Lady Jessica, will be played by Rebecca Ferguson (Mission: Impossible – Fallout).

Chalamet was the first person to be confirmed for Dune, as the leading man and as the central character of the story.

The young actor is a white-hot rising star, coming off critically acclaimed performances in Lady Bird, Call Me By Your Name and Beautiful Boy.

“Denis is one of my favourite filmmakers,” he told The Playlist. “What’s especially inspiring about Denis’ films are the size of them. They reach a big audience. These are films meant to play in front of big crowds. And, conversely, he’s also made movies like Incendies that are like intimate affairs. So, that would be a dream come true and is going to be a dream come true. And, I’m chomping at the bit for that experience. I can’t wait.”

Other confirmed members of the cast include Dave Bautista as Glossu Rabban Harkonnen (Beast), who will be reuniting with Villeneuve again after having a small role in the director’s 2017 effort Blade Runner 2049. Stellan Skarsgard is also aboard, and so is Charlotte Rampling. She’s been cast as the galactic emperor’s Truthsayer, Gaius Helen Mohiam, aka Reverend Mother.

Dune director

Director Denis Villeneuve supposedly turned down the chance to direct Bond 25 in favour of pressing ahead with his version of Dune. He revealed in an interview back in March of last year that “Dune will probably take two years to make” and that “The goal is to make two films, maybe more”. So there you have it, he’s in for the long haul with this adaptation!

Villeneuve’s last film, Blade Runner 2049, received plenty of critical acclaim, but it didn’t find success at the box office, which was disheartening. Legendary Entertainment, the company behind this film, are likely hoping that Dune won’t meet a similar fate.

Dune plot

Frank Herbert wrote six Dune books before his death in 1986 and since then the story has continued under the pen of his son, Brian, and Kevin J Anderson. Adaptaing the sprawling material is an absolutely mammoth task that even the television version of the story has struggled with, so it’ll be interesting to see how these new films handle this virtually impossible duty.

Dune is set in a complex futuristic society in the year 10,191. The human race has mastered space travel, and colonised planets throughout the universe. Initially focusing on the planet Caladan, Duke Leto of the House of Atreides (Oscar Isaac) is about to take over the role of governor of Arrakis, a desert planet that produces a popular drug (the spice must flow!). Leto, Jessica, and son Paul (Chalamet) start to suspect that they’ve been set up by the Harkonnens, a rival family, but he still decides to move forward with his settlement plans on Arrakis, despite grave warnings that tragedy may befall him and his family if he does so.

Dune release date

The project will begin filming on location in Budapest and Jordan this spring. We’re still looking at a 2021 release date for Dune, until we hear otherwise.

Detroit: Become Human and Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream will no longer be a PlayStation exclusive developer.

In a recent interview, Quantic Dream bosses Guillaume de Fondaumière and David Cage revealed that they have reached an agreement with Chinese publisher NetEase in order to secure funding for future projects. The trade-off of this arrangement is that the studio will no longer exclusively develop games for PlayStation.

“Our objective is to be present on all platforms where there is an audience that can enjoy our experiences,” said de Fondaumière. “We will, of course, continue developing on PlayStation, a platform that we know very well after having worked with Sony for 12 years, but we will also be present on all other relevant platforms.”

While the news that Quantic Dream will no longer be a PlayStation exclusive developer is significant enough, there’s actually quite a bit more to this story. For those who don’t remember, Quantic Dream was the subject of a fairly extensive investigation involving complaints of harassment and an inhospitable workplace. The extent of these allegations was significant even if the investigation itself was ongoing. However, NetEase says they considered the allegations when making this decision and decided to move ahead with the funding anyway.

“A company of our size and stature doesn’t make investments lightly, and we have of course taken great care in analysing all aspects of Quantic Dream, in particular, the studio culture,” said NetEase executive, Simon Zhu. “This is very important for us, as we take great care of these matters in our own company. We have been able to spend time with the Quantic Dream team, to get to know the studio culture, and we have seen nothing that points to any of the allegations published by certain press.”

The extent and possible fallout of these allegations not only means that Quantic Dream could be facing an uncertain future, but it also makes you wonder whether the studio’s hit and miss critical reception will be further complicated by the studio’s recent social baggage. In any case, it certainly makes sense that NetEase would want Quantic Dream games on as many platforms as possible in order to mitigate the potential damages.

This review contains spoilers.

On paper, the closing monologue from 24-year-old Marnie in episode one of Pure could read like a suicide note. “People here don’t care what I do… I could do anything and no-one would even notice me. I’m anonymous, a nobody, a stranger.” As performed by new talent Charly Clive, those words are jubilant. London’s doesn’t-give-a-shit attitude is liberating to Marnie. It’s somewhere she and her aberrant thought patterns can go unnoticed

Marnie, as episode one’s soundtrack reminds us, is not like everybody else. Since adolescence, her brain has been playing her unwelcome X-rated movies she can’t switch off. On loop. Featuring people, animals and things—her parents, bus drivers, Lorraine Kelly’s shoes—that few would welcome. “Not just sex, sex. Fucked up sex. Sex that gets you arrested sex.”

Pure stages Marnie’s illness with the help of nifty editing and a group of very game supporting artists who lose their clothes and inhibitions in the blink of an eye. At first it’s incongruous and funny: a coachload of pensioners bare all, a polite anniversary party becomes a Caligulan orgy… but it quickly becomes unsettling, and then suffocating. First to last, it’s never arousing.

Marnie’s sexual thoughts aren’t titillating, they’re intrusive, disturbing and destructive. They’re a symptom of her OCD, not that she’s reached that diagnosis by the end of episode one.

By the end of episode one, Marnie has run away from her tiny Scottish hometown and moved into the cupboard-sized spare room of former school friend Shereen (Kiran Sonia Sawar). She’s attempted to pin down her sexuality by picking up stranger Amber (Niamh Algar) in a gay club. She’s deposited a puddle of Listerine-blue vomit on a London street. And she’s made friends with Amber’s housemate Joe (Anthony Welsh) in what would traditionally be considered a rom-com meet-cute if there were anything cute about Listerine-blue vomit.

She’s also set herself the goal of finding herself, even if—in her words—that makes her sound like a massive wanker.

Marnie’s words, written by Clique’s Kirstie Swain and inspired by Rose Cartwright’s 2015 memoir, are modern, comic and naturalistic. Her opening monologue delivered straight to camera YouTuber-style sets an intimate, confessional tone that lets viewers identify with her predicament. (Yes, we’ve all had thoughts like that, but no, we haven’t had them unstoppably recur.)

The vulnerable but determined voiceover makes Marnie easy to warm to, while her public clowning makes her fun to watch. Pure’s writing is accessible and entertaining, nimble enough to move between real-feeling desperation and self-aware laughs. It’s quite a feat.

Charly Clive is either a rare talent or especially well-directed here (by Lovesick’s Aneil Karia). Most likely, it’s both. It’s fitting that we meet Marnie on stage with a microphone, because Clive conveys the sense that in public, she’s always performing. Chatting someone up in a bar, or going through their cupboards for alcohol-as-anaesthetic, Marnie’s twitterpated, self-deprecating persona is a front. The real her is… well, that’s the point of coming-of-age drama, the real Marnie is still TBA.

All episodes of Pure are available to stream now on All4. Read our interview with writer Kirstie Swain here.

This review contains spoilers.

On paper, the closing monologue from 24-year-old Marnie in episode one of Pure could read like a suicide note. “People here don’t care what I do… I could do anything and no-one would even notice me. I’m anonymous, a nobody, a stranger.” As performed by new talent Charly Clive, those words are jubilant. London’s doesn’t-give-a-shit attitude is liberating to Marnie. It’s somewhere she and her aberrant thought patterns can go unnoticed

Marnie, as episode one’s soundtrack reminds us, is not like everybody else. Since adolescence, her brain has been playing her unwelcome X-rated movies she can’t switch off. On loop. Featuring people, animals and things—her parents, bus drivers, Lorraine Kelly’s shoes—that few would welcome. “Not just sex, sex. Fucked up sex. Sex that gets you arrested sex.”

Pure stages Marnie’s illness with the help of nifty editing and a group of very game supporting artists who lose their clothes and inhibitions in the blink of an eye. At first it’s incongruous and funny: a coachload of pensioners bare all, a polite anniversary party becomes a Caligulan orgy… but it quickly becomes unsettling, and then suffocating. First to last, it’s never arousing.

Marnie’s sexual thoughts aren’t titillating, they’re intrusive, disturbing and destructive. They’re a symptom of her OCD, not that she’s reached that diagnosis by the end of episode one.

By the end of episode one, Marnie has run away from her tiny Scottish hometown and moved into the cupboard-sized spare room of former school friend Shereen (Kiran Sonia Sawar). She’s attempted to pin down her sexuality by picking up stranger Amber (Niamh Algar) in a gay club. She’s deposited a puddle of Listerine-blue vomit on a London street. And she’s made friends with Amber’s housemate Joe (Anthony Welsh) in what would traditionally be considered a rom-com meet-cute if there were anything cute about Listerine-blue vomit.

She’s also set herself the goal of finding herself, even if—in her words—that makes her sound like a massive wanker.

Marnie’s words, written by Clique’s Kirstie Swain and inspired by Rose Cartwright’s 2015 memoir, are modern, comic and naturalistic. Her opening monologue delivered straight to camera YouTuber-style sets an intimate, confessional tone that lets viewers identify with her predicament. (Yes, we’ve all had thoughts like that, but no, we haven’t had them unstoppably recur.)

The vulnerable but determined voiceover makes Marnie easy to warm to, while her public clowning makes her fun to watch. Pure’s writing is accessible and entertaining, nimble enough to move between real-feeling desperation and self-aware laughs. It’s quite a feat.

Charly Clive is either a rare talent or especially well-directed here (by Lovesick’s Aneil Karia). Most likely, it’s both. It’s fitting that we meet Marnie on stage with a microphone, because Clive conveys the sense that in public, she’s always performing. Chatting someone up in a bar, or going through their cupboards for alcohol-as-anaesthetic, Marnie’s twitterpated, self-deprecating persona is a front. The real her is… well, that’s the point of coming-of-age drama, the real Marnie is still TBA.

All episodes of Pure are available to stream now on All4. Read our interview with writer Kirstie Swain here.

We’d previously heard rumblings of a Chucky TV show, but now it’s official! A Chucky TV show is in the works at Syfy. According to The Wrap, the network has landed the rights to develop a TV show based on the horror film franchise about the doll possessed by the soul of serial killer Charles Lee Ray.

“I’ve long wanted to bring Chucky to television and Syfy is the perfect network for us,” said Don Mancini, who has written all seven films in the Chucky franchise so far, as well as directed three of them. He is on board to write and executive produce the TV adaptation.

“The show will be a fresh take on the franchise,” continued Mancini, “allowing us to explore Chucky’s character with a depth that is uniquely afforded by the television series format, while staying true to the original vision that has terrorised audiences for over three decades now.”

“It’s very rare that you get the opportunity to bring such an iconic character to your network, let alone with the original creator attached,” said Bill McGoldrick, president, scripted content, NBCU Cable Entertainment. “We look forward to working with Don, David and Nick on putting their blood, sweat, and more blood into bringing the ‘Chucky’ story to television.”

Syfy’s TV series will be named Chucky. David Kirschner, who has produced all of the films in the franchise, will also act as an executive producer alongside Mancini. Most recently, the two released Cult Of Chucky in 2017.

The film franchise is set to see a remake of the original 1988 film, Child’s Play, released in theaters in June 2019. Starring Gabriel Bateman, Aubrey Plaza and Brian Tyree Henry, the remake is being made by MGM and Orion, with director Lars Klevberg and producers Seth Grahame-Smith and David Katzenberg.

Supernatural will be airing its 300th episode this month, a milestone very few shows of any kind reach, and even fewer genre shows. In nearly 300 episodes, of course, there have been some stinkers, and there have been moments of brilliance. Supernatural has done scary episodes, gross-out episodes, funny episodes, tragic episodes, tragically funny episodes and episodes set on its own soundstage. Here are 20 of the very best.

20. Scoobynatural

By season 13, inevitably some viewers had drifted away from the show, as people will when something runs as long as Supernatural has. Scoobynatural had a concept so enticing, it brought some of those viewers back (only out-performed in the ratings that year by the season opener). Not only was the idea of Sam and Dean in a Scooby Doo cartoon too good to miss, Supernatural also has an excellent track record in comedy episodes. These can be hit and miss on most shows, but Supernatural’s comedy misses are few and the hits are plentiful enough that six of them are on this list. Viewers trusted the show to make this work, and that trust paid off – the episode is both very funny and touching, as all the show’s best comedy episodes are.

Best moment: Sam and Dean trying to explain to the Scooby Gang that no really, ghosts are real.

Quotable: “We’ve been stopping real estate developers when we could have been hunting Dracula? Are you kidding me?! My life is meaningless!” (Fred)

Watch if you like: Scooby-Doo, crossovers

19. No Rest For The Wicked

The writers’ strike cut season three short (yes, Supernatural has been going that long), which meant the planned story arc, in which Sam and Dean desperately tried to find a way to get Dean out of the deal he made with a Crossroads demon, also had to be wrapped up in fewer episodes than anticipated. The solution was truly shocking – they failed. Dean was sent to Hell and viewers were left with an image of him being tortured and screaming out Sam’s name. OK, no one really thought he was going to stay there for ever, but it was still a bold move.

Best moment: Sam joining along in a singalong to Bon Jovi’s ‘Wanted’ with his brother, knowing they only had a few hours left.

Quotable: “Family don’t end with blood, boy” (Bobby)

Watch if you like: Dante’s Inferno, soft rock anthems

18. All Hell Breaks Loose, Parts 1&2

Like No Rest For The Wicked, this was a real game-changer for the show. Sam’s death and the deal Dean makes to bring him back set in motion just about every major storyline since. But these episodes don’t make the list just for that reason. They also make up a dramatic, satisfying season finale in which the bad guy of two years is dispatched, the Winchester men get some closure (this is most recent appearance of Jeffrey Dean Morgan as John Winchester, excluding voice-only) and the mythology gets a bit more development.

Best moment: Sam’s first death. The regularity with which the Winchester boys die and come back to life is a long-running joke and has even been the focus of more than one episode over the years, so it’s easy to forget just what a huge, horrifying moment that first death is, back when they used to take it seriously.

Quotable: “That was for our mom, you sunnnuvabitch” (Dean, to Azazel’s dead body)

Watch if you like: The Hunger Games, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as John Winchester

17. Abandon All Hope…

Season five was Supernatural creator Eric Kripke’s final season as showrunner, and it was written to be the final season of the show. The story arc followed the boys’ attempts to stop the oncoming Apocalypse and recapture the Devil himself, with the stakes getting higher and higher as the season wore on. Abandon All Hope… is a turning point, hammering home the seriousness of the situation by killing off half the regular supporting cast, after which the story became increasingly grim until our heroes faced an impossible choice in the season finale. It’s also the episode that introduces later regular Mark Sheppard as Crowley, King of the Crossroads Demons.

Best moment: Ellen staying with a mortally injured Jo as they sacrifice themselves to save the boys.

Quotable: “Your choice. You can cling to six decades of deep-seated homophobia, or give it up and get a complete bailout for your ban’s ridiculous incompetence” (Crowley)

Watch if you like: Mark Sheppard as Crowley, tear-jerkers

16. Nightshifter

Sam and Dean spent much of the first few years of the series on the run from the law, despite having several police officers in their debt. This would continue until the police thought they were dead, only for the pair of them to turn up again, and the threat of jail time if they’re ever caught and identified has never quite gone away. This episode, in which a shape-shifter is carrying out bank robberies, really notches up the tension as they come to the attention of the FBI in the worst possible way, as well as observing the tragedy of a well meaning civilian caught up in something he doesn’t understand.

Best moment: The brothers escape to the tune of ‘Renegade’, by Styx.

Quotable: “We’re not working for the Mandroid!” (Sam, to Ronald)

Watch if you like: Bonnie And Clyde, The Lone Gunmen

15. Death’s Door

The decision to kill off Bobby permanently in season seven was controversial, to say the least, but it’s hard to deny his final episode as a living member of the team is a great one. Poor Bobby’s backstory is revealed to be even more tragic than we already knew it was, but more importantly, his bond with the boys and the reasons their relationship is so important both to them and to him are explored. It also prompts the show to explore a fairly obvious question – we’ve seen plenty of ghosts on the series whose bodies were burned, so even with hunters’ funerals, how is it we haven’t seen more beloved deceased characters return after death?

Best moment: Bobby giving his alcoholic father a proper telling off in his imagination

Quotable: “As fate would have it, I adopted two boys, and they grew up great. They grew up heroes” (Bobby)

Watch if you like: Bobby and Rufus, daddy issues

14. Dark Side Of The Moon

The earliest episode to acknowledge how often the boys have died and come back to life, Dark Side Of The Moon sets its cards on the table by abruptly killing them both in the first few minutes. We finally get to see what happens when you go to Heaven in the world of Supernatural, and it’s a little weird and oddly lonely (with the exception of “soulmates”, everyone is off in their own little worlds) but it’s a satisfying journey nonetheless. Not that Dean or Castiel would agree, as this is the episode in which they give up on searching for God, having been told He isn’t interested.

Best moment: Dean’s Heaven – playing with fireworks with Young Sam. It’s a truly joyful sequence.

Quotable: “Gentlemen, I don’t mean to be a downer, but I’m sure I’ll see you again soon” (Ash)

Watch if you like: Family drama, nihilism

13. Baby

The Supernatural team have always been clear that the Impala is the third main character on the show (sorry, Castiel) so this season eleven episode shifts focus to tell a story entirely from the car’s point of view. No, this isn’t a Herbie or Transformers situation – rather, the entire episode is shot from inside the car. What this means for the story is that we get to see different parts of Sam and Dean’s day – while they’re off investigating, we see the Impala get taken for a joy ride by a car park attendant, and Sam and Dean’s traditional emotionally-charged conversations are given a little more space to breathe. This is how you shake a show up while keeping its unique feel after eleven years.

Best moment: All of Castiel’s hilarious phone calls.

Quotable: “Never use Swayze’s name in vain, OK? Ever” (Dean)

Watch if you like: Classic cars, Bob Seger’s ‘Night Moves’

12. What Is And What Should Never Be

Towards the end of season two, as the series started to grow in confidence, Supernatural started to do slightly more experimental episodes that took us away from the straightforward “Sam and Dean hunt a monster” set-up. The first meta-fictional episode was the fun Hollywood Babylon, while this was an early glimpse of an alternative timeline – or, rather, an hallucination of Dean’s under the influence of a djinn. The result was a fun “what if” scenario and a lovely penultimate appearance from Adrianne Palicki as Jessica, but it culminated in a truly heart-breaking moment for Dean as he confronts everything he, Sam, and their father have had to sacrifice in their attempts to help others, and is forced to choose life at the expense of happiness.

Best moment: Dean breaks down at his father’s grave.

Quotable: “Look, whatever stupid thing you’re about to do, you’re not doing it alone. And that’s that” (Sam)

Watch if you like: Alternate timelines, wishes gone wrong

11. The French Mistake

In this episode, Sam and Dean are pulled into a parallel universe where they are the actors Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, the stars of the TV show Supernatural. The story takes the highest of high concepts and makes it work beautifully, including an appearance from Padalecki’s real life wife and former co-star Genevieve Padalecki and Misha Collins sending himself up gloriously. A joy from start to finish.

Best moment: Sam and Dean trying to act. They are not good at it.

Quotable: “You married fake Ruby?!” (Dean)

Watch if you like: High concept comedy, Misha Collins

10. The End

What better way to raise the stakes early in the season than to flash forward five years and reveal what the world will look like after the Apocalypse has come about? Funny and heartfelt in equal measure, this is a classic alternate timeline story with a twist. It is also a really important episode in the development of Lucifer as a character, here played with squirming intensity by Jared Padalecki, who gets to sit out most of the story while Jensen Ackles pulls double, only to come and steal the show at the end.

Best moment: The reveal of Hippie Future Castiel, who has taken a surprising attitude towards the end of the world.

Quotable: “When you get back there, you hoard toilet paper. You understand me? Hoard it like it’s made of gold. Cause it is” (Chuck – i.e. this advice is literally from God Himself. Hoard toilet paper, people)

Watch if you like: Dystopias, toilet paper

9. Fan Fiction

The show’s 100th episode was an important moment in its then-current story arc, but it was the 200th that was really celebrated in style. Watching a girls’ school put on a musical version of the Supernatural story (the Kripke years) sounds like a terrible idea but they pull it off brilliantly, making an episode that is both funny and sweet. Most of all, though, this is just a treat for long-term fans, full of call-backs, references, and in-jokes, and that finally ties up a loose end from Dark Side Of The Moon in an emotionally satisfying way.

Best moment: The lovely cover of ‘Carry On, Wayward Son’ at the end of the show.

Quotable: “That is some of the worst fan fiction I ever heard!” (Marie, on hearing what happened after the end of season five)

Watch if you like: Musicals, subtext

8. Don’t Call Me Shurley

Supernatural is often kind of a grim show, it’s no secret. One of the pleasures of watching it is that, however crappy your life is at that moment, it’s not as crappy as Sam and Dean’s. There are occasional moments of satisfaction (like the killing of Azazel in All Hell Breaks Loose) and there’s certainly plenty of humour, but real, honest to Chuck, joy? That’s rare, and the best example (Dean’s Heaven) required both main characters to be dead. So there’s something really special about this season eleven episode, in which God finally comes back (and reveals that He has, in fact, been helping out on the odd occasion all along). The rest of the episode, in which Metatron makes the case for humankind to God, is a philosophical and meta-fictional treat as well, but it’s that conclusion that really makes it something to remember.

Best moment: Dean pulls his old amulet out of Sam’s pocket – signalling that God has returned.

Quotable: “You know what humanity’s greatest creation has been? Music. That, and nacho cheese” (Chuck)

Watch if you like: Philosophy, happy endings

7. The Monster At The End Of This Book

Don’t Call Me Shurley would never have been possible without the episode that introduced Chuck in the first place, though back then he was nothing more than a cowardly writer and (apparently) reluctant prophet. Supernatural had done a few meta-fictional episodes by this point but The Monster At The End Of This Book was the moment they took it to new places, creating the fictional Supernatural universe within the Supernatural universe and allowing the show to explore fandom, fan fiction, fan conventions and fan musicals further down the line. The whole concept is a real treat for the show’s real life fans.

Best moment: Sam and Dean discover online fandom and slash fiction.

Quotable: “They do know we’re brothers, right?!” (Dean)

Watch if you like: Fan fiction, meta fiction

6. Faith

This low-key season one episode may seem like an odd choice for the sixth best episode ever out of nearly 300. But there are two reasons for singling out Faith here. One is to highlight just how good Supernatural’s early ghost stories were. We could fill a whole list with classic examples of spooky tales done really well from the show’s early years (Dead In The Water, Bloody Mary, No Exit, Playthings, Roadkill – it would be a long list). Faith, though not strictly about a ghost, centres around a faith healer’s wife controlling a reaper. But Faith is more than a good yarn done well. It’s also the episode that showed what the series could be, as it started to deal with the deep and complex philosophical themes the show would later explore in more obvious, explosive ways. There’s also a great guest performance from Angel: The Series’ and Dexter’s Julie Benz, and because it’s such an early episode, the idea of Dean dying from something fairly mundane can still be taken entirely seriously.

Best moment: ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper’ is put to great use here as the reaper hunts down a jogger.

Quotable: “You better take care of that car, or I swear, I’ll haunt your ass” (Dean)

Watch if you like: Theology, Blue Oyster Cult

5. Mystery Spot

The best comedy episodes of Supernatural are not only side-splittingly funny (and they are), they also have a dramatic punch, an element of real drama behind the comedy. Mystery Spot is based around a twist on the Groundhog Day concept, in which Sam has to relive a day on which Dean seems doomed to die over and over and over again, unable to prevent it. Dean’s many, many deaths caused by all manner of strange things (just how did he manage fatally to slip in the shower?) are very funny, but Sam’s increasing difficulty in dealing with the situation, and then his terrible three months without Dean (this was the first time that had happened since the series began) bring sincere emotions to the table as well.

Best moment: Sam working out that the Trickster is behind everything.

Quotable: “OK, look. Yesterday was Tuesday, right? But today is Tuesday too” (Sam)

Watch if you like: Groundhog Day, Final Destination

4. Pilot

Not too many shows can claim their pilot as one of their best episodes. But Supernatural’s Pilot really is a great episode of the show. It kicks off the series’ major plot arc, of course, but it also introduces the show’s humour and heart. On top of all that, the Pilot also features a classic Ghost of the Week that’s spooky and sad and ghoulish, as all good ghost stories should be.

Best moment: Our introduction to Dean’s “mullet rock” music collection, including two classics from AC/DC (‘Back In Black’ and ‘Highway To Hell’, of course).

Quotable: “We got work to do” (Sam)

Watch if you like: Mullet rock, ghost stories

3. Swan Song

The episode that would have been the series finale, if the show hadn’t been renewed and taken over (first by Sera Gamble, then Jeremy Carver, now Andrew Dabb). Swan Song would have made a great finale as well – it’s thrilling, satisfying, tragic and funny all at once. The main reason it’s not higher on this list is that it is a little bit of a downer – if the series had actually ended there, there would have been a lot of Fix Fic out there online, sorting it out. Indeed, there’s one loose thread from the conclusion here that’s still dangling (Michael made a much later return, but what exactly happened to Adam? Is he still in the Cage?).

Best moment: The opening narration, describing how the Impala has always been the boys’ real home.

Quotable: “Hey! Assbutt!” (Castiel, to Lucifer)

Watch if you like: Supernatural. Honestly, this one is the conclusion to five years’ story-telling – don’t start here!

2. Changing Channels

Is this the funniest comedy episode of Supernatural? It’s a tough contest, but the genital herpes commercial Sam is forced to star in might just give it the win. But Changing Channels is more than comedy. The reveal that the Trickster is actually the Archangel Gabriel in disguise really shouldn’t work, but somehow it does, and it brings a new dimension to the Trickster’s previous appearances (especially Mystery Spot) as well as a solid conclusion to this one. But really, the episode’s greatness lies in the fact that it’s just. so. funny.

Best moment: The Impala/Sam as KITT from Knight Rider.

Quotable: “Should I honk?” (Sam/the Impala)

Watch if you like: Grey’s Anatomy, CSI, Knight Rider, cheesy sitcoms, Japanese game shows, adverts for genital herpes treatments

1. Lazarus Rising

Having run for 14 years, Supernatural has gone through a fair few major upheavals and shifts that have sent the show in a new direction, and several of them are on this list (All Hell Breaks Loose, Swan Song, Don’t Call Me Shurley). Nothing, though, beats the appearance of real, possessing someone else’s flesh and blood, angels on the show. This was the episode that made Supernatural what it has become, for better or for worse.

But that alone isn’t the reason we’ve put it at Number 1 of 300 episodes. The episode is hugely emotionally satisfying – although Sam and Dean had both come back from the dead before by this point (Dean technically dozens of times) Dean coming back from being buried for months is undeniably huge. The series needed to show how much of a big deal this was, and they did. We immediately learn that angels are terrifying and that wherever they go, collateral damage follows (it’s easy to forget that the first thing Castiel does on this show is burn out an innocent woman’s eyes).

And then, we finally get to meet an angel face to face. Castiel, in his first appearance, is genuinely something to behold. The deep voice, before it became the subject of in jokes and deadpan comedy, was originally intended to convey gravitas and power, and it works. This is a force like nothing the boys have encountered before, and it is awesome in the classic sense of word – full of awe.

Later, of course, Castiel would become the third member of Team Free Will and one of the most important characters on the show, next only to Sam and Dean. Misha Collins has made the character funny and loveable and awkward and generally indispensable (we hope – he’s been killed off a few times but so far has always been brought back eventually). We wouldn’t change Castiel for the world and certainly don’t mean to suggest that it’s all downhill from his first appearance. Indeed, that later legacy is part of what makes this episode so special.

But really, it’s that entrance we can’t get enough of. We get shivers every time.

Best moment: Castiel’s entrance, of course. Though the rest of the episode is very good as well.

Quotable: “I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition” (Castiel’s first line)

Watch if you like: Castiel, angels

Honourable mentions:

There were so many great episodes we didn’t have room for here – My Bloody Valentine (gory and funny in equal measure), It’s A Terrible Life (a classic Angel Shenanigans of the Week story), The Born-Again Identity (Castiel’s return after it looked like they really had killed him off this time), Houses Of The Holy (the first references to angels on the show), Everybody Hates Hitler (a solid adventure during the course of which the boys discover the Bunker that has become their home), and LARP And The Real Girl (probably the best and most fun episode featuring fan favourite Charlie, played by Felicia Day) are just a few of the other greats.

Dis-honourable mentions:

We don’t want to spend too much time focusing on the negative, but we should probably acknowledge that, in 300 episodes, the show has occasionally got it wrong. Generally speaking, any time the show decides to feature dogs (the domesticated variety, not werewolves) the results tend to be less than excellent – Man’s Best Friend With Benefits is a real low point, and while many fans love Dog Dean Afternoon, we find it cringe-worthy. Bugs and Route 666 (the one about the racist truck) are the two most often picked on by the writers themselves as examples of terrible episodes, though since both are from season one, they’ve long receded into most viewers’ long-term memories.