Ranking the English Language Seasons of The Traitors (Mid-2025 Update)

Now that I have completed my watch of the all English language seasons of The Traitors currently available to us in the US (most seasons discussed below are streaming on Peacock – well worth the money to snag the streaming service, for reasons I’ve outlined in previous reviews), as well as a couple Canadian seasons that are a bit harder to come by in the US, I come to you with a definitive ranking of the twelve games. Don’t worry! I won’t spoil the ending of any of them in case you haven’t managed to find the 100+ hours necessary to complete the twelve season watch yourself. But, if you’re in the market for a new season of Traitors to check out, this list will help to let you know just which ones are must watch, and which season is an utter mess from start to . . . well, not quite the finish.

12. Australia, Season Two

I had heard some bad things about the season before diving in and boy, were they right. If you’ve ever wondered just how unbelievably gullible human beings can be, this season is a prime example. For reasons known only to them, the Faithful of this season are so utterly awful at playing the game that I honestly started fast forwarding through the latter episodes to get to the Banishments just to see how wrong they would get it this time around. And it turns out that when the Faithful cannot get their act together at all, the game loses a ton of its momentum – and its fun. Sure, host Roger Corser is still a delight (he’s a bit looser this time around, which helps a lot when things are laughably bad for the Faithful), and the finale is absolutely worth a look for reasons I won’t reveal, but this is far and away the worst season of The Traitors. And, as the Australia version of the series was cancelled, it’s such a bummer to end this version of the series on such a down note.

11. Canada, Season One

While this crop of Faithfuls wasn’t as gullible as season two of Australia, they were still pretty darn bad. And that’s why they ended up ranked this far down the list. While overzealous Traitors can blow up a game (a bit on that phenomenon shortly), dumb Faithfuls can do the same. Yes, you have to give some credit to the Traitor(s) who are able to manipulate the Faithful to banish their brethren despite odds telling them not to, but the number of times the Faithful in this game could have gotten rid of Traitors and just plain didn’t was shocking. And none of the Traitors were all that great at their jobs. The Faithful were just plain bad. Couple that game play with a disappointing host in Karine Vanesse and this season of The Traitors is pretty forgettable.

10. US Season Three

While season two of the US version – the first which was all media personalities – was a fun romp with some interesting allegiances from the world of reality TV, the third season was decidedly less fun. Personally, one of the things I love about the other English language series is that, aside from occasional past reality TV contestants that the shows can’t seem to avoid, there are enough regular folks to really see how the show plays out as a game and as a psychological experiment. When you’ve got folks used to playing to the camera and creating stories, you can start to see the cracks. Another thing that made this season a cut below others? The in-fighting between the Traitors started almost from the word go. When the Traitors are orchestrating backstabbing plots at the round table right out of the gate, it makes for bad game play. Yes, it’s a strategy that has occurred in every single season on this list – the closer you get to the end, the better it is to stab your fellow Traitor in the back – but when the Traitors start out doing that? It gives such a huge advantage to the Faithful that it skews the game. Oh, and don’t get me started on the addition of the Seer, which was a mistake both in this season and season three of the UK series.

9. Canada, Season Two

Both seasons of Traitors: Canada suffer from the same issues, namely a disappointing host in Karine Vanesse and using the combination of former reality stars and normal people to make up their contestant pool. But season two of the series clocks in a spot higher because of the excellent game play by Traitor Neda Kalantar. A reality TV vet, she was able to manipulate early rounds of the game like a puppet master, offering a blueprint on how even someone folks know is a master at these sorts of social strategy games can fly under the radar. Some of the US contestants should watch this season and take a page from her book. Whether it carries her to victory, I won’t say, but it was also the rare time I didn’t get annoyed at the “vote out your fellow Traitors” strategy because, you know what? She was right to implement it from the jump. Now the gullibility of the Faithful? That was a bit more disappointing.

8. New Zealand, Season One

Compared to Australia Season Two, New Zealand’s sole season (thus far – Season Two will come out later this year) is excellent. However, when compared to the other five entries on our list, it just doesn’t quite make the grade. Perhaps it’s because New Zealand is a much smaller country than the other three on the list, but the casting for the season was strange. Several of the contestants knew each other from outside of the game (some for decades), and those established relationships (and the entertainment-based careers those players had) made it so that those who weren’t friends with those players had targets on their back from day one. Knowing your competition can be an advantage – when a player pointed out that they’ve known one of the Traitors for years and that he had started acting strangely immediately following Traitor selection, that’s a huge plus . . . if you can get his other friends to agree to vote him out – but being one of the few people who doesn’t have a built in ally can also put you in a precarious position from the word go. Add in a host in Paul Henry who lacks the chops of Corser, Alan Cumming, or Claudia Winkleman, and you have a series that doesn’t live up to the heights of its brethren.

7. UK Season Three

Just edging out season three of the US version, these two seasons shared one painfully awful element: the Seer addition. While it’s a move that sounds cool on paper, it only ends up blowing up the endgame for both the Seer and the person they unmask. The Seer comes back to the group with a choice: Tell the truth about the other person’s identity or manipulate things. A Traitor Seer can manipulate, a Faithful will want to tell the truth. But, there’s no way to tell if the Seer is a Faithful or Traitor (unless, in a rare turn, one of the clearly faithful Faithfuls gets the role). So, the best move for the remaining players? Remove both people from the game. You can’t trust what either one tells you. In both third seasons, but especially in this one, the endgame gets blown up in a pretty spectacular way by this new twist. And it left me pretty disappointed. Still a solid group of players and Claudia remains at the top of her game. But that Seer twist dropped the season in the rankings for me.

6. UK, Season One

Now, the UK version of the series has the best host of the lot in Claudia Winkleman (fight me, Alan Cumming stans), but season one was just a hair less successful than it’s US counterpart (more on that one in a second). There were several memorable personalities – and some I think we’d all rather forget – but when it comes down to it, the season as a whole wasn’t all that memorable. Especially when compared with Season Two of the series which was pretty darn exceptional. But it was a good start – teaching future contestants how to play the game, both Traitor and Faithful. And that definitely counts for something.

5. US, Season One

The first version of the series most of us here in America got to see introduced the country to not only the game, but also to Alan Cumming’s delightful, over-the-top host persona. Eating the scenery, Cumming became the real star of this installment – something that only became more apparent in season two, which saw him leaning even further into the character he concocted (the players are living in his Scottish manor house and he’s simply there to watch them bicker and kill each other off for the fun of it – none of which, naturally, is at all true). The decision to have normal folk play the game alongside Reality TV veterans was the major twist of this season – and while it worked in some cases, much like the situation in New Zealand, it put those without a television past at a decided disadvantage. While there weren’t clear alliances between the TV folks (which was a plus), it did mean that those with a competition reality background were able to navigate the twists and turns of the game with ease whilst some of those without that training were lost. And it was clear that for those who understand the gamer mentality, the idea that this is all just a game was easier to keep in mind than it was for those without that background.

All-in-all, this is a very satisfying season of The Traitors, and absolutely worth a watch (I would even suggest watching it prior to US Season Two, if only to see how this version of the game have evolved in just a single year). But the imbalance in playing abilities knocks this one down the list a bit.

4. New Zealand, Season Two

While this season hasn’t yet made it to Peacock (and in a surprise move, it appears the series was renewed for a third season, although without its previous host, Roger Corser), it’s leagues better than season one. The major reason? Unlike in season one, it doesn’t feel like there’s a clique of friends playing against a group of newbies, so the playing field is much more level. There are also a number of interesting moves in this game that don’t happen in other versions – including an instance of someone not accepting a recruitment and opting to be murdered instead. Lots of interesting twists and perhaps a few too many shields at play, along with some very interesting players with a variety of game play types make this one worth a watch if you can.

3. US, Season Two

As mentioned above, season two of the US edition of the series dispensed with the normal folk and instead pulled all its contestants from the world of Reality TV. This meant that Real Housewives mixed with Survivor alums and MTV’s The Challenge champions. How would the non-gamers fare against those who have made their reputation outsmarting, outwitting, and outrunning their competition? Shockingly well, to be frank. And for someone like me, who has an extremely limited knowledge of either world of Reality TV, this season was also shockingly engaging. I may not have known many of the contestants when it began, but boy did I know who they were by the end – and I was fully entertained along the way.

From introducing Phaedra Parks (a former cast member of The Real Housewives of Atlanta who broke the internet with her various outbursts in the game, not least of which was the excellent “Lord, not Ekin-Su!”) to the masses, to showing us that folks like CT from The Challenge still had gas in the tank after years of grueling work on TV, this season was utterly compelling from start to finish. Add in Alan Cumming appearing to be more at ease with a cast of TV veterans than he was with the combined crew back in season one, and this is now the gold standard for the series in America.

2. UK, Season Two

If there’s one thing that is learned after watching all seven seasons of The Traitors currently out there, it’s that a truly exceptional Traitor can only take the series so far. Sure, it’s fun to watch a Traitor – or Traitors – run circles around the Faithful, but as was learned from Season Two of Australia, that gets old very fast. You need strong Traitors and a couple strong Faithful players in order to truly make a game of it. Who ends up winning out, well, that’s less important in the end, so long as the winner(s) got there through strong gameplay.

But UK Season Two offers the best of both worlds. We get one of the best Traitors to play the game in Harry, an Army officer with the ability to manipulate those around him with his cheery personality and team-forward demeanor, and we get several exceptional Faithful, including Jaz, a smart guy who manages to keep his head above water while deducing just who might be a Traitor, and Mollie, a truly kind young woman who may, sadly, have poor taste in friends. It’s a wonderful game to watch and despite the thrust of the competition, it rarely devolves into anger or a sense of entitlement (unlike some versions of the series). And watching Harry try to go the distance? That’s worth the price of admission alone.

1. Australia, Season One

Where Season Two of Australia was an utter disaster, Season One is the absolute best that The Traitors has to offer as a series. A string of strong, competent, and compelling Traitors (including arguably the absolute best to play the game thus far, and that’s saying something) mesh with a group of interesting Faithful. Sure, there are a few contestants who get shockingly little screen time and then become important in the game’s final moves (which confounded many a fan while watching), and the first handful of episodes feel long and tedious. But those final six or so episodes? Just sensational, edge-of-your-seat intense. The series also does a good job of letting us know more about our key players – Faithful and Traitor – as the final episodes roll out. Knowing what they would spend the winnings on, who they are when they aren’t playing the game, and just what their gameplay includes helps to create characters we can root for (or against). I couldn’t turn it off, desperate to see just who would win and if one of the most interesting Traitor runs would result in victory. If you’re looking for an entry point into the series, this is it.