A good feel-good sit-com never goes out of style. It can easily become your comfort show. But sometimes, rewatching one from the very start gets boring as initial seasons take long to pick the pace. So, I’ve made up a list of the best episodes (and their iconic dialogues)for one of America’s most beloved sitcom, Seinfeld.
What’s Seinfeld?
Seinfeld is a sitcom that aired on NBC from 1989 to 1998, created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. It ran for nine seasons and 180 episodes. The show is famously “about nothing”: it doesn’t do big life lessons or heartfelt moments.
Instead, it finds comedy in the tiny, absurd details of everyday life: waiting in a restaurant, the rules of breaking up, the etiquette of a handshake, or the agony of a bad haircut.
“The Chinese Restaurant” (Season 2, Episode 11)
The one where they wait for a table, and we wait with them.
Jerry, George, and Elaine try to get a table at a Chinese restaurant without a reservation. That’s it. That’s the entire plot. They wait. They get hungry. They argue about whether to leave. George tries to use a pay phone to call a woman. It’s a masterclass in turning nothing into something, pure Seinfeld before the show even figured out what it was.
“The Marine Biologist” (Season 5, Episode 14)
The one where George pretends to be a marine biologist, and we all agree.
George lies to a woman that he’s a marine biologist. Later, a whale washes up on the beach, and George is forced to step up. The episode builds to one of the most famous monologues in TV history, delivered by George, of all people, that too about a golf ball, a whale, and a hole in one. It’s absurd, ridiculous, and therefore perfect.
“The Parking Garage” (Season 3, Episode 6)
The one where they can’t find the car, even when we search together.
The gang goes to a mall and loses the car in a massive parking garage. They wander around carrying a bagged goldfish, getting increasingly frustrated, sweating through their clothes, and turning on each other. It’s a claustrophobic, anxiety-inducing debacle that proves you don’t need a fancy set; just four people losing their minds in a concrete maze.
“The Puffy Shirt” (Season 5, Episode 2)
The one where Jerry wears a puffy shirt on national television, and we all compliment him from the comfort of our couch.
Kramer’s low-talking girlfriend designs a shirt for Jerry to wear on The Today Show. Jerry, too embarrassed to say no, ends up on national TV looking like a pirate. The episode is a perfect example of the show’s central rule: a character’s inability to speak up leads to total humiliation, even in real life.
“The Opposite” (Season 5, Episode 22)
The one where George does the opposite of everything, just like us when our best friend gives some advice.
George decides that every instinct he has is wrong, so he starts doing the opposite. He gets a job with the Yankees, a beautiful girlfriend, and his own apartment. Meanwhile, Elaine’s life falls apart because she keeps making the right choices. It’s the show’s most direct statement about its characters: being a good person gets you nowhere, again in-reality relatable.
“The Junior Mint” (Season 4, Episode 20)
The one where a mint falls into a surgery patient, let’s hope that’s not one of us someday.
Kramer and Jerry watch a surgery from an observation room while eating Junior Mints. One mint falls into the patient’s open body cavity. The patient survives, and Kramer takes credit for saving his life. It’s dark, absurd, and somehow completely believable in the Seinfeld universe.
“The Subway” (Season 3, Episode 13)
The one where everyone takes the subway, like you and I do everyday.
Each character takes the subway and has a separate, weird adventure. Jerry sits opposite to a naked man. Elaine gets invited to a lesbian wedding. George hits it off with a woman who convinces him to get off early, then robs him. Kramer races a horse at the track. It’s a perfect bottle episode that shows how the show can split its cast and still deliver on every front.
“The Outing” (Season 4, Episode 17)
The one where everyone thinks Jerry and George are a couple, I thought we’re supposed to think that throughout the show?
A college reporter assumes Jerry and George are gay, and they spend the entire episode trying to correct the record, but only make it worse. The episode gave us the most famous line in Seinfeld history.
It’s a brilliant satire of how people react to being misunderstood.
“The Hamptons” (Season 5, Episode 21)
The one with the shrinkage, wish we were talking about my weight.
The gang goes to the Hamptons, and George is caught naked by a woman: leading to the infamous “shrinkage” conversation. Meanwhile, Jerry dates a woman who looks better in the dark, and Elaine sees a baby that she thinks is ugly. Every character is at their most petty and insecure, and it’s hilarious.
“The Dealership” (Season 9, Episode 11)
The one where Jerry tries to buy a car, can’t relate here.
Jerry tries to score an insider deal on a new car through Puddy, Elaine’s on-and-off boyfriend turned salesman. George tags along starving, spiraling into a war with a mechanic over a Twix bar stuck in a vending machine. Kramer, meanwhile, talks a salesman into a joyride to see how far they can drive before the tank runs dry.
My favorite solely because chocolate is the main character here.
“The Merv Griffin Show” (Season 9, Episode 6)
The one where Kramer builds a talk show set in his apartment, this one, I wish I could relate with.
Kramer finds the old Merv Griffin Show set in a dumpster and rebuilds it in his living room, and starts hosting his own talk show. Meanwhile, George runs over some pigeons and insists they broke an unspoken “deal” with humanity, then brings a squirrel onto Kramer’s set, only for a hawk to crash the scene.
“The Soup Nazi” (Season 7, Episode 6)
The one with the soup stand that has strict rules, sounds like my mom.
A soup vendor with an iron fist runs a cart that makes the best soup in New York. But if you break his rules, you don’t get any soup. Elaine gets banned, George tries to smuggle bread, and Jerry dates the woman who got the soup recipe. It’s the most quotable episode of the entire series.
“The Contest” (Season 4, Episode 11)
The one where they bet on who can stay celibate the longest, I’d rather just enjoy and not comment on this one.
Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer make a bet to see who can go the longest without masturbating. The show never says the word, but everyone knows exactly what’s happening. It’s a fiasco incorporating innuendo, restraint, and turning a taboo subject into pure comedy. It’s widely considered the episode that made Seinfeld a cultural phenomenon.
Like I said, turning something absurd that we’d normally overlook into such comedic gold, your stomach will ache after all the laughing. The all-time favorite show is set to leave Netflix on October 1, 2026, so now is the perfect time to binge.
