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The Best Episodes of American Playhouse

Every episode of American Playhouse ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of American Playhouse!

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American Playhouse is an anthology television series periodically broadcast by Public Broadcasting Service in the United States.

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Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Fan Favorite
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    American Playhouse Season 1 Episode 15 - Weekend
    10.0/10(1 votes)

    S1:E15

    A drifting, affluent couple spend a weekend at their country home, where the husband cheats on his complacent wife as they host guests for their son's first birthday.

    Director:Paul Bogart
    Writer:Ann Beattie

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  2. American Playhouse Season 6 Episode 5 - A Mistaken Charity
    9.6/10(17 votes)

    S6:E5

    Two elderly, impoverished women are forced from the family farm by well-meaning neighbors. Ensconced and miserable at a Home for Elderly Ladies, the duo begin their journey back home.

    Director:Chuck Portz
    Writers:Chuck Portz, Lawrence DuKore

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  3. American Playhouse Season 3 Episode 13 - Hughie
    9.3/10(25 votes)

    S3:E13

    In the lobby of a small hotel in midtown New York, small-time hustler Erie Smith talks to the hotel's new night clerk Charlie Hughes, lamenting how Smith's luck has worsened since the death of Hughie, Hughes' predecessor.

    Directors:Terry Hughes, José Quintero
    Writer:Eugene O'Neill

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  4. American Playhouse Season 6 Episode 7 - Eleanor: In Her Own Words
    9.3/10(28 votes)

    S6:E7

    A one-woman show featuring Lee Remick as former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who gives forth with her views — many controversial at the time and which infuriated the right wing of both parties, as they still do today — on integration, women's rights, communism, and other important subjects of the day.

    Director:Mark Cullingham
    Writer:Russell Vandenbroucke

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  5. American Playhouse Season 12 Episode 1 - Tales of the City
    9.3/10(109 votes)

    S12:E1

    Mary Ann Singleton, a naïve young secretary from the mid-west, tumbles head first into the colorful world of San Francisco, where carefree chaos revolves around the funky old apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane.

    Director:Alastair Reid
    Writer:Richard Kramer

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  6. American Playhouse Season 4 Episode 20 - Three Sovereigns for Sarah (3)
    9.0/10(70 votes)

    S4:E20

    In 1703 Salem, accused witch Sarah Cloyce, seeking justice for her sisters, recounts the events leading up to the trials, focusing on feuding neighbors and the girls' accusations, including those by Abigail Williams.

    Director:Philip Leacock
    Writer:Victor Pisano

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    The 20 WORST Episodes of American Playhouse

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  7. American Playhouse Season 5 Episode 15 - Painting Churches
    9.0/10(13 votes)

    S5:E15

    Gardner and Fanny Church prepare to move out of their Beacon Hill home to their summer cottage on Cape Cod. Once a famous poet, the now-retired Gardner slips in and out of senility as his wife valiantly tries to keep them both afloat. They've asked their daughter, Mags, to come home and help them move. Mags agrees, for she hopes as well to finally paint their portrait. She is now on the verge of artistic celebrity herself and hopes, by painting her parents, to reconcile.

    Director:Jack O'Brien
    Writer:Tina Howe

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  8. American Playhouse Season 6 Episode 9 - Story of a Marriage: Courtship
    8.9/10(18 votes)

    S6:E9

    In the early 1900s, a young couple in love struggle with their deeply divided families. Elizabeth Vaughn hails from a wealthy, strict Methodist household. Horace Robedaux is viewed by her family as having poor prospects, as he has been largely on his own since age 12, works humble jobs, and is an Episcopalian who enjoys dancing.

    Director:Howard Cummings
    Writer:Horton Foote

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  9. American Playhouse Season 6 Episode 3 - The Wide Net
    8.8/10(15 votes)

    S6:E3

    William Wallace searches for his pregnant wife, Hazel, who has withdrawn from him, using a net in the Pearl River during the vernal equinox, a ritualistic search that delves into the mysteries of relationships and the feminine.

    Director:Anthony Herrera
    Writer:Anthony Herrera

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  10. American Playhouse Season 8 Episode 2 - Ask Me Again
    8.8/10(55 votes)

    S8:E2

    Rebellious young literary editor Elizabeth Leopold clashes with her wealthy, snobbish mother over her life choices, including her job and a leftist boyfriend, as her mother tries to arrange a more 'suitable' marriage for her.

    Director:Deborah Reinisch
    Writer:Richard Greenberg

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  11. American Playhouse Season 8 Episode 10 - A Great Wall
    8.8/10(31 votes)

    S8:E10

    When computer programmer Leo Fang is passed up for promotion, he feels it is because he is Chinese, and quits. He takes his Chinese-American family to Mainland China to visit his relatives, the Chao's, for a vacation. The clash of cultures, between the men, wives, and teenagers, leads to some confusion, and misunderstanding.

    Director:Peter Wang
    Writers:Shirley Sun, Peter Wang

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  12. American Playhouse Season 10 Episode 7 - O Pioneers!
    8.8/10(37 votes)

    S10:E7

    A young woman inherits her father's farm after he dies. Over the years, she overcomes challenges and turns it into a success, all the while yearning for her childhood love to return.

    Directors:Kirk Browning, Kevin Kuske
    Writer:Darrah Cloud

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  13. American Playhouse Season 2 Episode 5 - The File on Jill Hatch (1)
    8.7/10(15 votes)

    S2:E5

    A decade-spanning look at marriage of a Black American soldier and a white British woman.

    Director:Alastair Reid
    Writer:Kenneth Cavander

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  14. American Playhouse Season 10 Episode 1 - Into the Woods
    8.7/10(3219 votes)

    S10:E1

    In a woods filled with magic and fairy tale characters, a baker and his wife set out to end the curse put on them by their neighbor, a spiteful witch.

    Director:James Lapine
    Writer:Unknown

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  15. American Playhouse Season 3 Episode 5 - Popular Neurotics
    8.6/10(10 votes)

    S3:E5

    Two young urban professionals, Lynne and Murray, meet by happenstance and begin an on-again, off-again relationship in which they struggle to transcend modern-day neuroses concerning courtship.

    Director:Sheldon Larry
    Writer:Aubrey Wertheim

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  16. American Playhouse Season 2 Episode 3 - Family Business
    8.5/10(17 votes)

    S2:E3

    Isaiah Stern is a wealthy, but dying, toy manufacturer. Once more, Stern has gathered his grown sons to revise his will. Three of the four are used to these idiosyncratic changes, and have come to accept them: however, the fourth, a married psychologist, is heavily in debt and doesn't like his thin share, which sparks a confrontation. The remaining sons are a bachelor who runs the family store, an indecisive sort who still lives at home, and Daddy's favorite, a closet homosexual.

    Director:John Stix
    Writer:Dick Goldberg

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  17. American Playhouse Season 3 Episode 3 - True West
    8.5/10(479 votes)

    S3:E3

    Estranged brothers, screenwriter Austin and drifter Lee, clash while staying at their mother's house in suburban Southern California, leading to a chaotic role reversal that explores themes of identity, family, and the American Dream.

    Directors:Gary Sinise, Allan A. Goldstein
    Writer:Sam Shepard

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  18. American Playhouse Season 3 Episode 6 - The Cafeteria
    8.4/10(22 votes)

    S3:E6

    Esther Mirkin, a traumatized Holocaust survivor, frequents a Manhattan cafeteria where she meets Aaron, a Jewish writer, who tries to uncover the ghosts of her past.

    Director:Amram Nowak
    Writer:Ernest Kinoy

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  19. American Playhouse Season 3 Episode 14 - Concealed Enemies, Part I: Suspicion
    8.3/10(57 votes)

    S3:E14

    A dramatized account of the actual events that led to the 1950 conviction of former U. S. State Department official Alger Hiss of perjury before a federal grand jury and his resulting imprisonment.

    Director:Jeff Bleckner
    Writer:Hugh Whitemore

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  20. American Playhouse Season 5 Episode 19 - Sunday in the Park with George
    8.3/10(1051 votes)

    S5:E19

    The days leading up to the completion of his most famous painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat is struggling to make meaningful art and maintaining a relationship with his lover, Dot. Amid the scorn of the artistic community, Seurat's artistic ability thrives while his love diminishes. A century later, Seurat's descendant – named George and also an artist – finds himself burnt out and in search of what artistic path to follow, but he finds the answer to his future in the past.

    Director:Terry Hughes
    Writers:Stephen Sondheim, James Lapine

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  21. American Playhouse Season 7 Episode 1 - Strange Interlude, Part I
    8.3/10(56 votes)

    S7:E1

    Spanning decades, Nina Leeds, deeply traumatized by the death of her fiancé during World War I, is unable to move past the unconsummated relationship, she embarks on a turbulent journey across different roles in her life (daughter, wife, mistress, and mother).

    Director:Herbert Wise
    Writer:Robert Enders

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  22. American Playhouse Season 8 Episode 9 - Life Under Water
    8.3/10(21 votes)

    S8:E9

    Feeling alienated from the world and his mother, Kip enters a complicated relationship with two girls he meets on the beach.

    Director:Jay Holman
    Writer:Unknown

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  23. American Playhouse Season 4 Episode 9 - The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski
    8.2/10(97 votes)

    S4:E9

    Ralph Parker navigates his first serious romance with his new Polish neighbor, Josephine Cosnowski, during a Thanksgiving setting.

    Director:Fred Barzyk
    Writer:Jean Shepherd

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  24. American Playhouse Season 4 Episode 12 - Breakfast with Les and Bess
    8.2/10(15 votes)

    S4:E12

    An eccentric couple broadcast their morning radio talk show from their New York apartment in the 1960s.

    Director:Perry Rosemond
    Writer:Lee Kalcheim

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  25. American Playhouse Season 6 Episode 8 - The Innocents Abroad
    8.2/10(141 votes)

    S6:E8

    Reporter Mark Twain tours Europe and the Holy Land for a San Francisco newspaper in 1867.

    Director:Peter H. Hunt
    Writer:Mark Twain

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Best Episodes Summary

"Weekend" is the best rated episode of "American Playhouse". It scored 10/10 based on 1 votes. Directed by Paul Bogart and written by Ann Beattie, it aired on 4/20/1982. This episode scored 0.4 points higher than the second highest rated, "A Mistaken Charity".