5 Best Nathan Fielder TV Episodes, Ranked

No one makes television quite like Nathan Fielder. In the modern entertainment landscape, audiences are extremely lucky to have such a dedicated truth teller, or, better yet, truth seer, compelled to put a mirror up to the world around him, both for his and their benefit.

From Comedy Central's "Nathan For You" to Showtime's "The Curse" and HBO's "The Rehearsal," every episode of television Fielder has worked on is a lesson in and of itself, some larger and more impactful than others — but the overall sentiment stands: Fielder has been, and continues to be, in service of interrogating the line between reality and fiction. Both as it pertains to the entertainment industry and the realities of a society obsessed with image. 

With his movie collaboration with filmmaker Lance Oppenheim and co-starring Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, "You Can See Everything," now in theaters, we wanted to explore and rank Nathan Fielder's best episodes of television. At times funny, but always profoundly human, these are the five that made the cut. 

While this wasn't the first time audiences got a taste of what Fielder was capable of — the gas station rebate in "Nathan For You" Season 1, Episode 4 or Season 2's Dumb Starbucks debacle arguably planted that seed — "Smokers Allowed" set the groundwork for the kind of far-reaching thinking Fielder would become synonymous with as his career expanded. The episode saw him help a bar owner frustrated with a smoking ban affecting her patrons. His ingenious solution was to turn the bar into a performance space with a small paying audience, under which smoking would be permitted.

The loophole allowed Fielder to "stage" an evening at the bar — which not only fulfilled his goal of giving patrons a legal way to smoke, but was beloved by its "audience" attendees for its compelling realism, likening the work to plays by iconic playwrights Sam Shepard and John Patrick Shanley. Of course, in the Fielder style we now know and love, he's forced to go a step further and literally recreate the first night's patronage to the point where side-by-side video is nearly indistinguishable. 

To anyone familiar with his work, this episode is a clear precursor to the almost mad scientist dot-connecting he would execute with meticulous precision in HBO's "The Rehearsal" years later, showing the early wellsprings of his unique ingenuity. 

The Season 1 finale of Fielder's 2022 barnburner "The Rehearsal" was the culmination of truly special television. The show revolved around the concept of staging elaborate "rehearsals" for major life events in a way that prepares someone as much as possible for their upcoming event by using sets, hired actors, and lots of time to play out different scenarios.

After unsurprisingly wedging his way into a rehearsal as his subject Angela's fake husband, Fielder finds himself raising their fake child as a single father when she quits in the show's penultimate episode. In the finale, things get truly shocking and undeniably revelatory. When the child actor becomes entirely too attached to him, Fielder analyzes his "Fielder Method" and the psychological and philosophical impact it inevitably has on participants.

Fielder's first "Rehearsal" finale interrogates the cold notion that we are forever performing for an audience of our peers, while also questioning if there is actually a way to really understand or know one another. It also acknowledges that we will always be in pursuit of the kind of security and acceptance that comes in the right performance and just enough knowledge of one another. In the face of that existential reality, Fielder lets go in this episode, fully succumbing to the ironic absurdity of his own design.

2023's "The Curse" is a stark, uncomfortable, and unyielding look at racism, gentrification, and class through the lens of the perverse reality TV system. The show follows Asher (Nathan Fielder) and his wife, Whitney (Emma Stone), as they make an HGTV reality series about a low-income New Mexico town helmed by producer Dougie (Benny Safdie). During the shoot, Asher is cursed by a local child who he carelessly uses as a prop.

In the penultimate episode, the couple watches a cut of an episode where Whitney reveals that she feels their relationship has held her back in life. What comes after is why this episode is so strong. Asher explains that he feels that he is actually the curse put upon their lives. In his rant/confession, he frantically pushes himself to the limit like a desperate man on borrowed time trying and failing to stay afloat.

It's an inspired feat of acting from someone so tapped into realism that the lines blur like in his other projects, and as a result, the performance speaks strongly to his overall body of work. Between his enthralling monologue, sharp directing, and Stone's complete immersion in the scene, this is easily one of Fielder's most compelling and impressive hours of television.

Season 2 of "The Rehearsal" is completely different from the first, delving into interpersonal workplace relations to help airline pilots and co-pilots communicate effectively in the event of life-threatening in-flight emergencies. Fielder takes his method, once again, to its most natural endpoint — culminating in acquiring his real-life commercial pilot's license and, in the high-flying finale, piloting a flight of actor-passengers.

The scene itself is masterfully directed by Fielder and endlessly mysterious, as the short California flight (dubbed "the miracle over the Mojave") technically could have been faked. The scene is magical, especially considering Fielder employed another airliner to fly close by and get a shot of him in the cockpit. It's a move as bold and daring as any jaw-dropping drama twist, solidifying not only how far he would go in service of his artistic thesis, but how skilled he is at making amazing television out of it.

Staggeringly, the episode also grapples with autism and mental health in pilots, a sensitive subject that can take them out of the cockpit permanently. Fielder's bravery in confronting his own mental health on television adds a personal layer to his broader exploration of perpetual performance. By bringing the concept of "masking," particularly as it relates to the autism spectrum, into the conversation, he delivers a remarkably honest piece of television.

The wild and weird finale of "The Curse" was lauded as one of the most surreal, unexpected, and exhilarating endings to a show in some time. It's no surprise Fielder is responsible for creating something so memorable, original, and thought-provoking. Here, his ability to push the limits of writing, performance, and direction comes together into a perfect marriage, melding with his co-stars to build a tension that bursts into something unfathomable.

The episode sees Whitney and Asher preparing for their first child's arrival as they navigate the middling reception to their HGTV show. Suddenly, the couple wakes up to find gravity reversed for Asher, with the all-powerful atmosphere seemingly sucking him upwards into the sky as Stone's character goes into labor. His fierce and terrified performance matches the moment without losing its truth or naturalism. Fielder's harrowing turn is drenched with dread, and lays the essential groundwork for the episode's revelatory, pitch-perfect final minutes.

"Green Queen" received critical acclaim upon release, and for good reason. Fielder reminds us with the finale of "The Curse" that he is more than prepared to push his concepts to the brink, and proves that he's ready to push himself that far too.