30 Best The X-Files Characters Ever, Ranked

Nobody here but the FBI's Most Unwanted... and a few friends.

We don't know about you, but we're missing The X-Files the way Scully misses Queequag — y'know, with a sense of fondness and a vague sense that a lake monster might have been involved. So we thought we'd take a UFO trip down memory lane and rank the sci-fi series' 30 best characters.

11. ALBERT HOSTEEN

The Navajo man got nothing but grief from helping Fox Mulder, and yet he saved the FBI agents' tush time after time. Even his final moments on our spiritual plane were used up in helping Scully pray for her partner: Albert was a giver in the extreme.

26. BILL MULDER

The man Fox Mulder believed was his father for most of his life was cold, conniving and never met a black ops government project he couldn't worm his way into. This meant he had a ton of secrets, and the fact that he died in Season 2 made him a frustratingly intriguing mystery for the show's entire run. 

18. BILL SCULLY

Scully's older brother never did like Mulder, a fact he made pointedly clear throughout the show. But, given all the disappearances and the alien cancer and the crying and the number of times Scully had to change her door lock after some job-related horrorshow broke in and tried to kill her... can you blame him?

6. CIGARETTE SMOKING MAN, AKA CANCER MAN, AKA C.G.B. SPENDER

The less we knew about him, the scarier he was, that shadowy figure smoking menacingly in the corner of an office in the series' pilot. Even after we got some back story on Mulder and Scully's biggest adversary, CSM's presence loomed so large over the series' entire run that it's hard to imagine the show without him (though we could've done without that William-related revelation in Season 11, thank you very much). 

21. ALIEN BOUNTY HUNTER

You didn't need to follow the show's mythology very closely (if such a thing was even possible!) to know that Alien Bounty Hunter didn't come in peace: The vaguely Schwarzeneggerian extra terrestrial evoked terror, dread and often death whenever he — or one of his many clones — showed up. 

8. DEEP THROAT

Mysterious and cagey, Mulder's first informan was alternately helpful and frustrating — qualities that led us to want to find out more about him (and, unfortunately, that also led to his death at the end of Season 1).

9. JOHN DOGGETT

We could wax poetic for days about how the former New York City cop pronounced "Mul-dah," or for how he'd clearly fallen for Scully just as Mulder came back from the dead. (Womp-womp.) Despite being the new skeptic on the block, Doggett supported his very pregnant partner through some truly odd situations, earning her — and our — trust in the process. 

25. DUANE BARRY

Without Duane Barry —  both the abductee and the Season 2 episode named after him — The X-Files would've looked a lot different: Barry's kidnapping of Scully led to her abduction by more nefarious forces, which in turn laid the ground for her cancer battles and seemingly miraculous pregnancy in later seasons.

23. DIANA FOWLEY

Of all the people with mysterious agendas and shifting loyalties on this list, Diana Fowley is one of the most puzzling — and that's saying a lot. Was she Mulder's OG ally? Cigarette Smoking Man's lackey? Scully's continual frustration point? (OK, that last one we know for sure.) 

3. FOX MULDER

David Duchovny's character was the reason there was an X-Files in the first place: Without his singleminded determination to uncover the unknown, the show might have been endless hours of Scully rifling through filing cabinets, rolling her eyes and then calling it a day. But Mulder's zeal for the weird was also the millstone around his neck, and seriously, how many times can you ghost your partner (and, in one case, summon actual ghosts with your partner) before it's not cute anymore? 

15. GIBSON PRAISE

Cute, comically blunt and carrying alien DNA in his body, this mind-reading moppet would return a few times in the series' run — notably as Mulder's roomie during The Lost Year and to speak up for Spooky at his series-ending trial. 

20. ALVIN KERSH

Ah, evil in its most middle-management form. Kersh (played by James Pickens Jr., who would go on to Grey's Anatomy) mainly was around to say "No" to anyone investigating the X-Files; he spent most of his time on the series as a wearing, wearying presence designed to end Mulder and Scully's (and Doggett's) efforts by making their work lives a living — albeit entertaining — hell. 

5. ALEX KRYCEK

From Syndicate stooge to rogue assassin, Krycek (and his increasingly hot pan-sexual appeal as the series progressed) was always one of our favorites. 

4. THE LONE GUNMEN

Richard Langly, Melvin Frohike and John Fitzgerald Byers had the best tech, the most paranoid brains and the biggest hearts out there, and they were always down to clown when it came to Mulder and Scully's spooky shenanigans. Sigh. Is it weird we really miss these guys?

10. MARGARET SCULLY

Scully's mom had strength when she needed to (her de-escalation of Scully's paranoia in Season 3's "Wetwired) and softness when she needed to (literally every time Scully was upset), making her pretty much the best mother figure on the show... which isn't saying much, now that we think of it. 

24. MARITA COVARRUBIAS

The United Nations staffer played by future Walking Dead star Laurie Holden was Mulder's first female informant, and we never quite knew what her allegiances were — even after the ol' black-oil-in-the-eyes treatment, courtesy of The Syndicate.

13. MAX FENIG

Look, if your entire life is marked by horrible alien abductions and the incapacitating illnesses that follow, and you're still a kind and helpful presence to the FBI agents who come poking around, the least we can do is put you in the top half of this ranking. 

16. MELISSA SCULLY

You don't have to be psychic to see that we're in a very dark place about the fact that we didn't get to know Scully's flibbertigibbet-of-a-flower-child sister better before she was killed: At the very least, the fact that she sassed Mulder with abandon — and over her comatose sister's hospital bed, no less — made her one of our early favorites. 

7. X

Take everything we said about Deep Throat in the previous slide, but add to it the heroic moment when X carried an unconscious Mulder off an exploding train car, saving him from certain death. 

19. MONICA REYES

Pros: Balanced out her partner's steely, by-the-book nature; found Doggett when he was lost and grieving in Mexico; was Scully's de facto labor coach during a seriously hinky delivery (see also: whale sounds).

Cons: Eventually decided that working for Cigarette Smoking Man was a good idea — a choice that knocked her several places down on this list, as well as one that portrayer Annabeth Gish really wasn't into.)

14. WILLIAM SCULLY

We defy you to watch Scully's dead father talk to her in Season 2's "One Breath" and not come away with a deep love for Ahab and his Starbuck. 

1. DANA SCULLY

In Mulder's own words, Scully's "g-ddamn strict rationality and science" saved him a thousand times over. She kept him honest. But Gillian Anderson's character was far more than Spooky's sidekick: Over the course of the show, Scully's sense of possibility expanded, her faith in the universe took a hit and her ability to balance a deeply flawed man reached expert levels. Oh, and she also nearly died a couple of times, had a kid on her own, saved Mulder from an execution, went on the lam and might just have become immortal — quite a highlight reel, eh?

17. TEENA MULDER

Mulder's tormented mother certainly knew — or at least suspected — more than she ever said. And it wasn't OK of her to hide the true identity of Fox's father from him for so long. But we can't deny that the complicated relationship between mother and son was one that always held our attention. (That scene in "Sein Und Zeit?" Sob.)

27. ROBERT PATRICK 'PUSHER' MODELL

In his two appearances in the series, Modell — a villain who could make people do whatever he wished by "pushing" their minds — revealed certain truths about the Mulder-Scully relationship that maybe even the agents in question hadn't yet realized.

30. AGENT PENDRELL

The hapless FBI tech helped uncover the truth behind Scully's chip, harbored a not-so-secret crush on the redheaded G-woman and got a raw deal in the end. Honestly, the only reason he's this low on the list is that we knew so little about him — but what we saw, we liked.

28. EUGENE VICTOR TOOMS

Though he said little, this Monster of the Week's details spoke volumes: a creature who kills people, eats his prey's liver, then hibernates for years in a nest made of newspapers and his own bile? We were as fascinated (and grossed-out) as Mulder was.

29. DONNIE PFASTER

Was the necrophiliac serial killer, introduced in Season 2, actually a demon? We may never know for sure... which only adds to the mystery about this seriously scary, Scully-obsessed creep.

22. JEFFREY SPENDER

Let's be real: Cigarette Smoking Man's other son/Mulder's half-brother was kind of a load... until he took definitive action on baby William's behalf, and wound up serving as the kid's de facto guardian for the better part of two decades, earning himself a place as one of the series' heroes.

12. JACKSON VAN DE CAMP, AKA WILLIAM  

There isn't enough brain bleach in the world to ignore the show-skewering Season 11 revelation that upended who fathered Scully's son, and how. So we're choosing to focus on what the kid meant to Moose and Squirrel for so many years (remember Mulder in the Season 9 finale talking about how "I just missed you both so much"?) and what a cute baby he was.

2. WALTER SKINNER

The FBI Assistant Director was in way over his pay grade when he was assigned to keep Scully and Mulder in line. But his genuine care for the pair grew so much over the seasons — and he certainly risked his life/career/overall happiness enough in the interim — that he became an honorary third in their messed-up little duo.