“Survivor” is nearing its 50th season after over two decades on the air — and somehow, the formula of watching players in a remote tropical locale try to “outwit, outlast, and outplay” each other just never really gets old. Still, not every season of “Survivor” is created equal. Some introduce amazing new casts stocked with all sorts of classic reality TV characters. Some reunite now-iconic “Survivor” players, from winners to “fan favorites,” and make them duke it out all over again. Some are beautifully chaotic. Some just stink, actually.

Sorry, but it’s true. Not all “Survivor” seasons are very good. Ask any fan, and they’ll probably tell you that you can skip some installments like “Redemption Island” or “Island of the Idols,” and some will even tell you that the new generation of “Survivor,” meaning Season 41 and beyond, pales in comparison to its earlier counterparts. (That’s honestly sort of true, because aside from “Survivor 46,” they’re not that great; as a result, you’ll notice none of them make this list.

Here are the top 8 “Survivor” seasons you should absolutely watch (or re-watch, if it’s been a while), ranked from “least amazing” to “most amazing” (because these are all winners). Speaking of winners, though, this list is a little different — we will not name any of the winners, so don’t worry about seeing any spoilers by accident if you haven’t watched these.

You simply cannot ignore the “Survivor” season that started it all. Retroactively titled “Survivor: Borneo,” this was the season where literally nobody knew what they were doing, from the players to the crew to host Jeff Probst — and improbably, it worked. The personalities assembled by producer Mark Burnett — who adapted the show from a Swedish series called “Expedition Robinson” — created an absolutely fascinating dynamic in the wilds of Borneo, where 16 “castaways” competed for 39 days for the title of “Sole Survivor” and $1 million (which, frankly, was worth a lot more back in 2000).

In her 2024 book “Cue the Sun! The Invention of Reality TV,” New Yorker critic Emily Nussbaum devotes an entire chapter to “Survivor: Borneo,” revealing that on-set conditions were incredibly dangerous for both the cast and crew (dangerous creatures lurked in the dark, and on the whole, everybody was a little unprepared for just how wild the terrain would be). That didn’t matter to the millions of viewers who tuned in, and “Survivor” legends like Gervase Peterson, Kelly Wiglesworth, and Richard Hatch were born. (Hatch, who was known for wandering the castaway camps fully nude, has spent his years since “Survivor” not paying his taxes and has served multiple sentences in prison as a result.) The first season of “Survivor” is special precisely because nobody had ever seen anything quite like it before; while later seasons benefit from the fact that the players understand the game, “Survivor: Borneo” made the rules in the first place.

There are some pretty solid seasons between “Survivor: Borneo” and “Survivor: Pearl Islands” — like “The Australian Outback” and “Marquesas” — but the seventh season introduces some major players who would end up becoming defining figures in the “Survivor” franchise. For God’s sake, this is the season where Jon “Jonny Fairplay” Dalton got his best friend to lie and pretend his grandmother died during the customary “loved ones” visit. (She was very much alive; Fairplay just wanted to score some sympathy points, which totally worked.)

Borderline caveman Rupert Boneham, whose gruff, tough exterior barely masks a gooey, friendly center, broke onto the scene in “Pearl Islands” as someone who could probably survive in the tropical wilderness without much help from anyone. Sandra Diaz-Twine, who eventually started referring to herself as the queen of “Survivor,” is first introduced in Pearl Islands, where she exhibits the gameplay that would come to define her: sit out of a bunch of challenges so you don’t out yourself as a physical threat, and play a social game so ruthless that nobody ever sees you coming. “Pearl Islands” is early enough in the “Survivor” timeline that people definitely aren’t experts in the game just yet, but a wonderfully weird and combative group of contestants help make it one of the show’s best seasons.

Another season that introduced a new cast of “Survivor” players who go on to become legends, “Survivor: China” is only unpleasant to watch for one specific reason: the terrain is just terrible — it rains a lot during the season, and the players often just find themselves sitting in mud on at their camps — without any sort of tropical vista to help you forget that all the contestants are sleeping on the ground next to creepy crawling creatures. Still, “Survivor: China” uses the country’s history to its advantage, gifting challenge winners with visits to major sites like ancient temples and the Great Wall, creating a real sense of awe and splendor throughout the season.

The interpersonal relationships in “Survivor: China” are also uniformly excellent, in that they’re constantly sniping at each other (Courtney Yates and Todd Herzog, both of whom take on the role of the season’s “bad guy” at various points, are hilarious), and Amanda Kimmel and James Clement both make their “Survivor” debuts on this season. (They both return, one season later, for “Survivor: Micronesia,” which is incredibly when you consider how physically rough “China” was at times.) Thanks to an excellent cast and gripping gameplay, “Survivor: China” is easily one of the show’s ten best outings.

Bringing back a full cast of previous winners on “Survivor” basically guarantees a good time, and for Season 40 of the show, host Jeff Probst and his team did just that. (So as not to spoil the winners of individual seasons, we won’t specify which seasons spawned each victor; luckily, a lot of these winners played “Survivor” a handful of times before appearing on “Winners at War.”) This isn’t the only nostalgic thing about “Winners at War” — the challenges, save for two, are all based on challenges that each of these winners plated in previous seasons, which is a neat little throwback … and gives some of the survivors a chance to defeat hurdles in those challenges that bested them before.

To be honest, not everything about “Winners at War” totally works; the season brings back the slightly irritating “Edge of Extinction” twist that allows players to be voted off and then fight their way back into the fray with specific competitions, and players like Ethan Zohn and Boston Rob Mariano, who have been playing “Survivor” for decades by that point, just seem tired. Still, the group of returning is at once familiar and exciting, and the idea of picking a winner amongst winners is, well, a winning concept.

No matter what anyone says, a “second chance” season of “Survivor” is an excellent idea, and the specific players who returned to try and win the game after striking out the first time were uniquely great (and insane, in some cases). That’s probably because fans got to pick the second chance players, which means the audience went ahead and picked a seriously chaotic bunch … including “Blood vs. Water” standout Ciera Eastin (who memorably voted her own mom out in that season) and “Tocantins” favorite Stephen Fishbach, just to name a few. Few “Survivor” casts have ever been quite as desperate to win as this bunch, and watching them gleefully screw each other over for another shot at a million bucks and the title of Sole Survivor is, frankly, pretty glorious.

Again, there’s no spoilers here, but something that’s important to note: the winner of “Survivor: Cambodia — Second Chance” was selected unanimously by a jury, which is a pretty remarkable feat for a season with some of the fiercest non-winners in the show’s history. Between a masterful idol play by “San Juan del Sur” player Kelley Wentworth and constant scheming from “Cagayan” veterans Spencer Bledsoe and Tasha Fox (we’ll circle back to “Cagayan” shortly), “Cambodia” is a juicy, ridiculous, and outright fun season of “Survivor” that a lot of fans sort of forget about in favor of splashier installments.

Let’s get this out of the way: the premise of “Survivor: Cook Islands” is not great. Why’s that? The original tribes — four of them, which is also honestly too many to kick off a season of “Survivor” — are divided by ethnicity and racial background, which is just a pretty bad look. Still, “Cook Islands” manages to be one of the very best seasons of “Survivor” and transcend its awkward conceit thanks to its cast, which introduced some of the best “Survivor” players to ever join the game in the first place.

“Cook Islands” serves as the debut season for Candice Cody (née Woodcock), Oscar “Ozzy” Lusth, Jonathan Penner, Yul Kwon, and last but not least, Parvati Shallow — and each and every one of these powerhouse players make it clear right from the start that the cast of “Cook Islands” is downright formidable. Candice is a physical and social threat who’s basically beloved by everyone in any given camp, and the same can be said of Yul, who charms everyone more or less immediately and is also a physical force. Jonathan Penner’s social game and quick thinking is unmatched (and his confessionals are always excellent). Ozzy might as well be part-fish and immediately establishes himself as one of the strongest swimmers in “Survivor” history, and Parvati? She’s a “Survivor” legend for good reason — she’s always willing to flirt her way through any hurdle, but don’t underestimate her in challenges either (especially the endurance challenges, where she always fulfills the “outlast” part of the “Survivor” motto). Add in some classic “Survivor” backstabbings and broken alliances, and “Cook Islands” makes the best out of a very dubious concept and becomes essential “Survivor” viewing.

In its 28th outing, “Survivor” proved it was as fresh as ever when it assembled a brand-new group of players for “Cagayan,” a season that split said players into three categories: “beauty,” “brains,” and “brawn.” Much like “Cook Islands,” this setup was outright silly — albeit less offensive than the “Cook Islands” situation — but the “Cagayan” contestants transcended the limited framework and made “Cagayan” into a genuinely incredible season. Right off the bat, audiences know what kind of season “Cagayan” will be when J’Tia Taylor dumps a bag of precious rice directly onto the fire (as a twisted act of vengeance against her fellow Luzon, or “brains,” tribe members, though the rice also was meant to feed J’Tia), and the tension only escalates from there as Spencer Bledsoe and Kassandra “Kass” McQuillen form a Luzon alliance and then end up turning on each other over and over again throughout the remainder of the season.

“Cagayan” also introduces Sarah Lacina and Tony Vlachos — two “Survivor” contestants who, like Spencer and Kass, would return for future seasons of the show — who end up forming a “cops” alliance (even though both Sarah and Tony both participate in a long-standing “Survivor” tradition of lying about their professions, with Tony telling most people he works in construction). Sarah is a great player, but Tony is on another level, which is both a compliment and an insult; the guy spends his spare time building “spy shacks” so he can eavesdrop on other players while they plot. (To be fair to Tony, this works really well. It also makes him look unhinged.) “Cagayan” assembles some of the biggest, loudest, and wildest “Survivor” personalities in the show’s history, and it’s basically required viewing for anyone who wants to see the show at its very best.

One of the best “Survivor” seasons of all time is pretty recent (compared to many of the others on this list), and it also has one of the strangest concepts — but thanks to some wickedly excellent gameplay from its brand-new cast, “Survivor: David vs. Goliath” succeeds wildly. The idea that one tribe, the “Davids,” would be made up of people who looked “weaker” and lived as underdogs, while their opposition the “Goliaths” would be strong, successful Type-A personalities who win at just about everything, seems absolutely absurd, but in the very first challenge of the season, the Davids absolutely crush the Goliaths … and the gauntlet is officially thrown. A few Davids, like robotics scientist Christian Hubicki, blow their competition out of the water with sheer force of will and brains, and the Goliaths predictably butt heads over the best way to do literally everything, from challenges to building their camp. (The results are hilarious, like when Goliath Natalie Cole is voted off and Angelina Keeley spends her entire exit begging for Natalie’s jacket because their camp is so unexpectedly cold.)

“David vs. Goliath” is one of the most exciting seasons in the entire run of “Survivor,” especially when the tribes merge and the Davids and Goliaths are stuck together to fight individually. Plus, it spawned one of the best pop culture projects in recent memory; after competing on “David vs. Goliath,” screenwriter Mike White felt inspired to write the first season of “The White Lotus” — and the rest is TV history.

For its landmark 20th season back in 2010, “Survivor” took cues from a previous installment, “All-Stars,” and devised a plan to pack the cast with returning players divided into two clear sides: Heroes and Villains. On the Heroes side, you’ve got sweet yet conniving veterans like Cirie Fields, Amanda Kimmel, Candice Cody, and Rupert Boneham; the stacked Villains tribe brings Parvati Shallow, Russell Hantz, Sandra Diaz-Twine, “Boston” Rob Mariano, and Tyson Apostol back into the mix. (Jerri Manthey, one of the series’ “original” villains from “The Australian Outback,” also shows up to teach the “younger” villains how it’s done.) With a cast of familiar faces, “Heroes vs. Villains” wastes absolutely no time in terms of drama, and both tribes find themselves scrambling to form alliances — plus, for most of the early challenges, the Villains absolutely decimate the Heroes for both rewards and the tribal Immunity idol.

Even the Heroes end up turning on their own, and the Villains really live up to their name; in one of the most thrilling tribal councils on all of “Survivor” history, Parvati plays not one but two idols just to strategically oust one of the Heroes after the two tribes merge into a group they dub “Yin Yang.” While you can quibble with the eventual winner of “Heroes vs. Villains” (and some do), “Heroes vs. Villains” is an outstanding season, but it does require a little bit of homework; you should at least familiarize yourself with major players like Parvati, Russell, Sandra, and Boston Rob before you press play.

No season of “Survivor” can ever possibly top its 16th outing “Micronesia — Fans vs. Favorites.” With one tribe made up of rabid “Survivor” fans and another made up of beloved “Survivor” veterans, “Survivor: Micronesia” gets off to a strong start when the starstruck fans first meet the favorites and immediately show their collectively soft underbelly by sucking up to the repeat players, and in its very first tribal council, returning schemer Jonny Fairplay basically begs to be voted out because he misses his family. From there, “showmances” seem to form between Amanda Kimmel and Ozzy Lusth as well as James Clement and Parvati Shallow, frustrating the other favorites, and Jonathan Penner, returning after “Cook Islands,” faces a devastating and dangerous situation on the island. Over in the fans camp, newbies like Kathleen “Kathy” Sleckman ruffle everyone’s feathers by just being really annoying, while young players like Erik Reichenbach quietly dominate physical challenges. This is the season with “it’s a f***ng stick” and “You’re crazy. You officially go down as the dumbest Survivor ever. In the history of ‘Survivor.’ Ever.” You can’t discuss “Micronesia,” though, without touching on the “Black Widow Brigade.”

After the merge, several of the female players — many of whom are physical powerhouses, like Amanda, Natalie Bolton, and Parvati — form an airtight alliance and quietly pick off the men one by one. This concludes in one of the most exciting and unhinged tribal councils ever seen on “Survivor” … and without getting into spoilery specifics, it’s beautifully brutal. To paraphrase “Saturday Night Live” favorite Stefon, “Survivor: Micronesia” has everything.