Every Pretty Little Liars Season, Ranked (2024)

Pretty Little Liars was a thrilling young-adult and teen-targeted drama series aired on ABC Family and Freeform. It ran for seven seasons from 2010 to 2017. The show was wildly successful upon its release, with fans unable to get enough of the never-ending mysteries. As such, it’s unsurprising that the PLL name lives on.

The Liars saga started in 2006 with the coming-of-age mystery novel Pretty Little Liars by author Sara Shepard. Several PLL novels filled the franchise before the first show aired in 2010, and by the time the show ended, Shepard had 16 books in the popular series. While the adaptation wasn’t faithful to the source material, the on-screen Liars franchise remains active. The only Pretty Little Liars still airing is Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, which has a brand-new season to compete with the original’s seven iconic seasons.

7 Season 7 Wrapped it Up

The seventh season of Pretty Little Liars opens with chaos following Hanna’s kidnapping by the Liars' latest Rosewood foe, “Uber A.” In the first couple of episodes, the Liars and their respective bedroom buddies team up to save Hanna, and the danger shifts toward the group’s other blonde, Alison, as she gets locked up in a psychiatric facility. As the Liars try to uncover Uber A or A.D.’s identity, they face several challenges, including relationship troubles, trauma, and the final stages of the A Game, which they’re hellbent on ending after years of torment.

PLL set Season 7 up to end the game and tie up loose ends for the show before its finale. The show ran for seven years, so the writers would ideally have the ending planned and foreshadowed long in advance. Fans often rejoice in spotting clues to the show’s twists throughout the early seasons, but there wasn’t much leading up to the finale. Spencer got the spotlight in the second half. But it was still surprising to learn that Veronica Hastings wasn’t her biological mother, and it was even more mind-blowing when the Liars uncovered A.D’s identity as Alex Drake, the estranged biological daughter of Mary Drake, half-sister of CeCe Drake and identical twin of Spencer Hastings. The evil twin trope wasn’t new to the show, as Season 7 introduced Mary Drake as Jessica DiLaurentis' twin, but the A.D. twist was half-baked. Regardless, the final episodes wrapped up the series, giving the show’s favorite couples happy endings and bringing the show full circle with a new set of girls mirroring the pilot episode, which also teased potential spinoffs.

6 Season 6 Featured the Beginning of the End

While Season 6 wasn’t the only Pretty Little Liars saga split into two, it’s the biggest split out of the entire show. The first half picks up immediately after the Season 5 finale, with the Liars and Mona trapped outside the “Dollhouse” where their longtime tormentor, A, or Charles, kept them prisoner with nowhere to run and a constant cycle of psychological and physical torture. Most of the first half revolves around the group dealing with or moving past their trauma while hunting for information about the mysterious Charles. The final episode of Season 6A features the reveal of A as CeCe Drake, born as Charlotte DiLaurentis and forced to live as Charles for most of her early life. The reveal also uncovers the mystery of Alison’s near-death experience, as Charlie admits to hitting Ali with a rock, mistaking the blonde for her Radley Sanitarium roommate, Bethany Young. After A’s game ends, the final scene of the 6A finale features the girls packing their cars and saying their goodbyes as they head across the country for college. 6B jumps five years forward, featuring the girls thriving or surviving outside of Rosewood. They’re different people, with every couple breaking up throughout the years and life taking its toll. The Liars reunite in their hometown to assist Ali in her quest to bring her sister home. But, of course, in true PLL fashion, the Rosewood PD finds Charlie’s body after a night of blackout drinking for the Liars, and they’re all suspects in her murder.

Much like the Season 1 and 2 quest to solve Ali’s murder, Season 6B mainly highlights the Liars as they search for Charlotte’s killer. Aside from their struggles balancing their old lives with their new lives, the Liars also deal with the return of A and the resurfacing trauma from years past. The penultimate season of Pretty Little Liars, especially the second half, focuses heavily on the Liars and their personal lives. After years of watching A play their games, it was nice for fans to experience an equally or more compelling glimpse into the characters and their lives after high school. While the reveal of CeCe Drake as Charles was a well-done unmasking, everything after the reveal felt slightly anticlimactic, and many fans consider the final two seasons drawn out.

5 Season 5 Brought the Game to Extremes

Season 5 of Pretty Little Liars picks up immediately after the Liars find Ali in the city and the subsequent confrontation with A in New York City. The first episodes of Season 5 feature Ali’s grand return to Rosewood after two years in hiding and the almost immediate return to her classic TV mean-girl vibe. She spins a story about a kidnapping, forcing the Liars to lie along with her as the Rosewood PD breathes down their necks. The other major storyline in Season 5 puts Liars in more trouble than ever, as Mona Vanderwall seemingly dies and Ali gets thrown behind bars for murder. The chaos intensifies toward the season’s end as every Liar dons orange prison uniforms before landing in A’s underground prison, the Dollhouse.

PLL Season 5 was packed with drama and action, especially off the back of the Season 4 cliffhanger. Fans generally enjoyed the Dollhouse storyline, and the Mona storyline undoubtedly raised the stakes while following the same investigation format introduced in the first season. With that said, though, Season 5 was full of filler episodes, which diluted the story. The biggest flaw of the season is Alison DiLaurentis, as upon her return, any ounce of maturity and character development crumbled, leaving her insufferable for most of the season.

4 Season 3 Closed Windows and Tore Down Walls

Season 3 picks up around five months after the events of Season 2 and starts with the Liars back in the Hastings barn. Their night mirrors the first episode, with the girls discussing their summers and drinking until they wake up later to discover Emily missing. Fortunately, she didn’t die, but when the girls find her, they discover Ali’s grave dug up, the casket empty, and Emily dazed with no recollection of that night. The season highlights Hannah’s secret visits to an institutionalized Mona, Emily’s grief over Maya’s death, Aria’s PTSD, and their investigations into what happened to Maya, what happened to Ali, and what happened “that night” with Emily. The first episode ends with the first A text since Mona’s unmasking, effectively raising the stakes as the Liars each get a text reading, “Mona played with dolls. I play with body parts. Game on, bitches -A.” The season proves that, answering questions and creating more before ending in a blaze. Season 3 notably establishes that A isn’t one person but an entire team and shifts the focus to catching “Red Coat,” the leader of the A-Team.

Season 3 keeps the intense thrills that built Pretty Little Liars but proves that the game doesn’t have a simple finale. The season provides some much-needed answers to questions introduced in the first two seasons, including the circ*mstances surrounding Maya’s murder. But it also creates more mystery with branching pieces like Ezra’s son, Noel Kahn’s involvement in Maya’s death, Jenna and Shana, and Toby and Spencer’s mental health jumbling together to make the story more complex, convoluted, and slightly more confusing.

3 Season 2 Was Peak PLL

Season 1 of Pretty Little Liars ended on a strong cliffhanger with the death of the Liars' main suspect in Ali’s murder, Ian Thomas. The biggest problem the Liars face following Ian’s death is his body’s disappearance. Because there was no corpse, no adults in Rosewood believed the girls, and it created another mystery to solve. Season 2 mainly focuses on the Liars as they deal with A’s torment and parental scrutiny as their folks forbid them from spending time together and force them into therapy, which only makes things more stressful in their quest to solve their puzzles.

Even though the early seasons of Pretty Little Liars owe their nostalgia factor to the first season, fans widely consider Season 2 the peak of PLL nostalgia. It expands upon the story introduced in Season 1 while raising the stakes slightly. The season’s perhaps best remembered for the first A reveal of the show, as the Season 2 finale unmasks Mona as the tormentor and hits the Liars with back-to-back traumas. Similarly, Season 2 also puts the Liars in police custody for the first time and features the first Halloween-themed episode of the show, which flashed back to the Halloween before Ali’s disappearance. It simply ramped up the aspects that made the premiere season great.

2 Season 4 Featured the Show’s Biggest Twists

The first part of Season 4 centers around the lead detective on the DiLaurentis case, Detective Darren Wilden, after his murder. While none of the Liars are directly implicated in the murder, they quickly get involved to protect Hanna’s mom, the prime suspect. The Ashley Marin storyline primarily affects Hanna, while Spencer and Toby follow a path to solve his mother’s suspicious death. The halfway mark of the season takes the Liars to Ravenswood, hoping to find Ali, and unfortunately, the second half of the season unveils Ezra Fitz as a potential threat. In a quest to prove Ezra’s secret identity, Spencer gets overwhelmed by her hectic life and turns to amphetamines, which she unfortunately gets addicted to. The Liars uncover Ezra’s true intentions a few episodes before the finale, and although he wasn’t part of the A-Team, the betrayal hit Aria extremely hard. The girls, reeling from their problems, finally get answers about Ali’s disappearance. The finale episode reveals that Jessica DiLaurentis buried her daughter alive, and Ali went into hiding to survive A. The episode ends with a confrontation between the five girls and A, which Ezra saves them from. The final scene features Ezra collapsing into Aria’s arms with a gunshot wound and an unknown person dragging Jessica’s dead body across a yard to a grave, burying her like she buried Ali.

Audiences widely consider Season 4 the best of Pretty Little Liars, and even though there are less than ten critics' reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s the only season with a perfect score on the site. For the most part, fans and critics agree it’s the best executed, especially the mysterious A-centric scenes. Many also believe Ezra’s reveal as an A-like character is the best of the show. Some found it understandably disappointing that the show didn’t condemn the extremely problematic relationship between Ezra and Aria after the reveal. It could’ve been a great setup to the end, considering Ali’s disappearance built the show.

1 Season 1 Set the Stage

The first Pretty Little Liars episode opens at an end-of-summer slumber party in a backyard barn. Everything seems like a normal teenage party until three of the girls wake up to discover two of their friends aren’t in the barn anymore, with one returning soon after telling the group that their leader, Alison, is gone, and she heard a scream. The episode picks up two years later, as the four girls reunite at Rosewood High on the anniversary of Ali’s disappearance. The first episode also features the discovery of Ali’s remains under a gazebo in her backyard. Throughout the first season, the girls work to solve the case while dealing with their anonymous tormentor and facing harassment by the Rosewood Police.

Even though Season 4 has the highest praise out of all PLL seasons, it’s hard not to consider the premiere season the best. It starts the story by introducing every beloved character and establishing Rosewood’s greatest mysteries. Perhaps the season’s shining quality lies in the nostalgia factor, as experiencing the mystery for the first time is just special.

Pretty Little Liars (2010)

TV-14

Drama

Mystery

Romance

Four friends band together against an anonymous foe who threatens to reveal their darkest secrets, while also investigating the disappearance of their best friend.

Release Date

June 8, 2010

Cast

Troian Bellisario , Ashley Benson , Shay Mitchell , Lucy Hale

Creator

I. Marlene King