Fans of our hotly contested roundup of all of the Tenth Doctor’s TV adventures will know the drill by now. We’ve taken every Matt Smith golden moment, and ranked them according to wonderment and tremendousness. 
That doesn’t mean the least highly ranked examples are poor, of course. In every Justice League, someone has to be Aquaman. But at least we can finally put to bed any further debate as to which of Eleven’s many hours are empirically the finest. 
At least, that’s the plan anyway. Let’s take this in reverse order, countdown style: 
40. "Closing Time" 
The Doctor revisits Craig from “The Lodger” and the thrills come fast and thick: The Doctor gets a job in a toy shop! He can talk baby! It turns out Cyber-conversions are reversible!  
39. "Nightmare in Silver" The Doctor plays chess against the brain of the Cybermen in an abandoned theme park. Clara takes a more practical role, against an upgraded and sped up Cyber army.
38. "The Beast Below" 
Amy’s first trip aboard the TARDIS, and we see the United Kingdom flying through space on the back of a star whale. We also see the Doctor properly lose his temper and scare his new friend. 
36. "Journey to the Center of the TARDIS" 
The title is not misleading. The Doctor and Clara and some opportunistic space junk collectors embark on a quest through the lost corridors, rooms and clifftops of the TARDIS. 
35. "The Curse of the Black Spot" The Doctor, Amy and Rory visit a pirate ship in thrall to a glowing alien siren who pinches people, including Rory.  
34. "The Name of the Doctor"
It’s a drumroll for “The Day of the Doctor” featuring creepy poems (something of a theme for the Eleventh Doctor), the Great Intelligence, the Doctor’s grave and some creepy Edwardian eyeless gents with bad teeth. 
33. "Victory of the Daleks" 
What if a Dalek was nice? What if the nice Dalek served tea (but alas, no Jammie Dodgers) during World War II? What if some other Daleks had a makeover? And what if a scientist was a bomb? 
32. "The Bells of Saint John"The true cost of free WiFi turns out to be a visit from some concave skulled beings who make sure your connection to the network is permanent, but not in a good way. Also, the Doctor finds Clara Oswald (again) and drives a motorbike up a skyscraper. 
31. "The Hungry Earth" / "Cold Blood" 
The Silurians are back! In Wales! Amy gets eaten by the floor and the Doctor once again tries to make peace between the lizards and the humans while his efforts are undermined by violent humanity. 
30. "The Crimson Horror" 
It’s the Industrial Revolution and people are being turned into red dummies by a revolting worm (and the alien is pretty gross too). The Doctor gets processed, then nursed by a kind lady and then rescued by the Paternoster Gang. He then kisses Jenny and is rightly slapped for his presumption. 
29. "The Power of Three" A story in which nothing happens. And then everything does. 
28. "The Rebel Flesh" / "The Almost People"
In which people are cloned using plastic custard and then the clones are treated as second-class citizens. Definitely worth watching to see the Doctor flirt with his Ganger self.
27. "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe" 
A more touching story than it was given credit for at the time. The Doctor exposes a family to a Narnia-style wormhole into a forest of sentient trees. They pull themselves together (literally) by willpower and festive love. 
26. "The Vampires of Venice"Another early outing for Rory and Amy, and this time, they face an alien race of blood-sucking aquatic fish-people, while the Doctor and Rory bicker over Amy’s affections.  
25. "Cold War" 
A soviet submarine has picked up an Ice Warrior in the mid-1980s. One of the crew has a Walkman and loves Duran Duran. The Ice Warrior takes off its armor to crawl around in the sub’s hidden nooks and tries to make the US and the USSR blow the world apart. 
24. "A Town Called Mercy" 
A classic Wild West revenge plot, but with a cyborg twist. Once again the Doctor relies upon Amy to act as his conscience in moments of high temper. 
23. "The God Complex" A trip to a supernatural hotel with a specific room for the phobias of every guest. And a Minotaur. Everyone’s scared of Minotaurs, right? 
22. "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship"
The title encapsulates the plot, tbh. Rory’s dad comes along for the ride. 
21. "A Good Man Goes to War" 
The universe comes out to back the Doctor in battle, ready to rescue Amy’s baby. Things take a turn. 
20. "Night Terrors" An upsetting tale of alien adoption and fear, blessed with some exceptionally creepy life-sized peg dolls. Treat the title as a trigger warning for your sensitive children before watching. 
19. "The Time of the Doctor"
A regeneration epic, in every sense of the word. The Doctor defends the planet on which his grave is sited against invasion from, well, everyone. Time catches up with him, and so do the Daleks. 
18. "The Rings of Akhaten" 
Eleven is good at speeches (part 1). Clara’s life leaf saves the day after the Doctor fails to fill a hungry planet with his life story. 
17. "A Christmas Carol"Pure Dickensian melancholy with a time-travel twist and some flying fish. Also contains one of Eleven’s best big entrances ever. 
16. "The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang"
Eleven is good at speeches (part 2). Once again, the universe bands together to deal with the Doctor, who promptly reboots time, because he can. 
15. "The Lodger" 
The Doctor moves in with risk-averse Craig and immediately makes him feel inadequate. Risky things start to happen and they bicker like the Odd Couple. 
14. "The Wedding of River Song"Time and romance are intertwined as the Doctor escapes assassination and becoming a fixed point in time. There is a lot of explaining and a lot of weird stuff, not the least of which is the Doctor’s beard.
13. "The Time of Angels" / "Flesh and Stone" 
Eleven is good at speeches (part 3). The second ever appearance of the (already) iconic Weeping Angels gives them a voice, some canonic new powers and a distinctly snotty attitude. 
12. "The Snowmen"
Wait, isn’t this the woman from “Asylum of the Daleks”? In Victorian London? With a traumatized and grieving Doctor, missing Amy and Rory? What’s going on here?
11. "Let's Kill Hitler" More cart-before-horse time travel shenanigans, in which the newly regenerated River Song reveals her life history, harasses Nazi Germany and kills the Doctor. Sorry, that should read “kisses,” not “kills.” 
10. "The Impossible Astronaut" / "Day of the Moon" 
The Doctor starts the story by being shot dead. He ends it by defeating an enemy no one can remember using a global TV broadcast as a memory jogger. This is known in storytelling circles as “quite the comeback.” 
9. "Hide" 
The Doctor and his assistant meet a doctor and his assistant in a haunted house. The TARDIS hates Clara, but they find a way to get along in the name of love. 
8. "The Angels Take Manhattan"In which we discover that cherubs are baby Angels, the Doctor has magic hands, and that Amy and Rory really take “till death do us part” seriously. 
7. "Asylum of the Daleks" 
A girl makes soufflés on a planet full of mad Daleks. The Doctor investigates with a bickering Amy and Rory. Spoiler: there are no soufflés. 
6. "Amy's Choice" 
Amy and Rory have a life of domestic bliss, and Rory has a ponytail. Except it is all a dream ponytail. Or is it? Yes. Or no? But yes. But no. Yes. 
5. "Vincent and the Doctor" Something happens to Vincent Van Gogh and a monster, but mostly he gets to see what modern art galleries are like and that is nice. 
4. "The Day of the Doctor" Eleven meets Ten! Ten meets Eleven! Both meet the War Doctor (who should really be called Half-Past Eight if we’re reading our Time Lords correctly)! And there are Zygons and Daleks and all of the other Doctors and a new Doctor (eyebrows!) and then the Time War ends differently and then there’s a special surprise for the hardcore fans. 
3. "The Eleventh Hour" It starts with fish fingers and custard and a crack in Amy’s wall, and it ends with the swaggering confidence of “I’m the Doctor. Basically, run.” Seldom has a stall been set out so perfectly. 
2. "The Doctor's Wife" 
What if the TARDIS was a person? That’s it. That’s the script. A perfect idea realized perfectly.  
1. "The Girl Who Waited" 
Eleven’s era is characterized by stories that play with time travel. There are alternate timelines and a running plot point involving the repetitive death of Rory Pond (who has had more comebacks than Sinatra). This nudges ahead of the other Eleven chronology epics because the consequences of all of this alternative timeline stuff are agonizing for everyone. Rory, who has successfully rescued Amy, has to choose between two versions of the woman he loves, and he bitterly resents the Doctor for making him do it. Young Amy has a chance to see a potentially devastating consequence of her future with the Doctor. For his part, the Doctor reveals that cold, cold streak that he tries so hard to keep hidden with levity and jigging about. And Older Amy, who wears years of bitterness like an extra piece of armor, has to come to terms with the fact that her eventual rescue and her untimely betrayal are the same thing. 
In a sense, the key points are similar to those in “Turn Left,” except this time it’s less about the butterfly effect of one tiny decision, and more concerned with the human cost of all those alternative stories that don’t quite happen in an adventure.
Whew. So, what are your own top-rated Eleven adventures?!