Ranking "Doctor Who"'s Doctors is an extremely subjective affair. Ask any "Who" fan and their list is bound to be different, their choices shaped by when they were born, when they discovered the long-running sci-fi show, and, of course, personal preference.
Because while the Time Lords' ability to regenerate means that all of the "Doctor Who" Doctors are fundamentally the same person, every actor to play the role has brought something different to Gallifrey's most famous export. And thanks to the 62-year-old show's ability to reinvent itself every week, every single one has had highs and lows during their residency in the TARDIS.
This guide to every "Doctor Who" ranked embarks on a mission every bit as audacious as putting the James Bonds in order. Below we count down all 14 (technically 15) regular Doctors — from William Hartnell through to current incumbent Ncuti Gatwa — before landing on our favourite of the "Doctor Who" Doctors. We've also found room for a few honourable mentions.
Doctor Who Doctors, ranked
14. The Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker)
- Years active: 1984-1886
It feels harsh to put anyone at the bottom of this list, seeing as every Doctor has had their share of memorable moments. Besides, any Doctor is as much a product of decisions made by writers and producers as an actor's performance.
Indeed, "Doctor Who"'s second Baker had more to battle than Daleks, Cybermen, and the Rani, faced with an eyesore of a costume and a BBC One boss (Michael Grade) who had little time for the show — "Doctor Who" took an enforced 18-month hiatus during Baker's tenure.
The character's worst moment came early on, however, when a post-regeneration Sixth Doctor attempted to strangle companion Peri (Nicola Bryant). Although a plan was in place to mellow this angry, arrogant Time Lord as time went on, it was always going to be hard for the Sixth Doctor to recover from such unforgivable, out-of-character behaviour.
13. The Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann)
- Years active: 1996
Either the longest or shortest-serving Doctor, depending on your point of view. Paul McGann was technically the TARDIS incumbent from the 1996 TV movie until the show's 2005 revival, though he only appeared in one story during that time. While that TV movie didn't win fans over, McGann's performance did, and he's since made up for that lack of screen time in numerous audio dramas.
He also got a belated regeneration scene, morphing into John Hurt's War Doctor in the 2013 short "The Night of the Doctor", and appeared as a vision to the Thirteenth Doctor in her own regeneration episode, "The Power of the Doctor". McGann would arguably have become one of the GOATS if he'd starred in more adventures on TV.
12. The Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison)
- Years active: 1981-1984
The Doctor who had the near-impossible challenge of following on from Tom Baker. Davison (then a rising star thanks to his role in cosy BBC One drama "All Creatures Great and Small") wisely made no effort to imitate his iconic predecessor. Instead, his Doctor came over as a very nice, very human public school boy, whose most obvious eccentricity was the celery pinned to the lapel of his cricket-inspired outfit.
Perhaps not one of the all-time TARDIS greats but a strong midtable performer — and his final regeneration story, "The Caves of Androzani", is up there with "Doctor Who"'s very best.
11. The Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee)
- Years active: 1970-1974
The Time Lord smartened up his appearance when he regenerated into this more dandyish Third Doctor incarnation, the first to appear on colour TV. Jon Pertwee's Doctor spent much of his tenure exiled on Earth — a punishment doled out by the Time Lords for his perpetual interference in other cultures — but found plenty of work as a scientific advisor for UNIT, an organisation that remains integral in the modern era of the show.
This Doctor was more action-oriented than any other, not afraid to get himself stuck into a fist fight and a practitioner of the martial art of Venusian aikido — perhaps, at times, a little more James Bond than Doctor Who.
10. The Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker)
- Years active: 2018-2022
After Steven Moffat had laid the groundwork — Time Lords changing gender during regenerations, a female Master known as "Missy" — it would have felt like a missed opportunity if new "Who" showrunner Chris Chibnall hadn't cast a woman in the lead role for the first time (aside from Joanna Lumley's appearance in 1999 Comic Relief special "The Curse of Fatal Death").
Jodie Whittaker (who'd worked with Chibnall on "Broadchurch") instantly made the role her own, playing the Doctor as an engaging mix of enthusiastic schoolteacher and worlds-weary traveller with thousands of years on the clock — and she could make that switch in an instant. She'd be much higher on this list if she'd had a few more classic stories to sink her teeth into.
9. The Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa)
- Years active: 2023-present
While many older "Who" fans were asking "Ncuti who?" when Gatwa got the keys to the TARDIS, this was a truly inspired piece of casting from returning showrunner Russell T Davies. As well as being a brilliant actor and the show's first Black lead, Gatwa's successful stint on "Sex Education" had given him the sort of Gen Z following that might just come in handy for attracting a new generation of fans.
The Fifteenth Doctor is even more comfortable around humans than the Tenth, a bona fide force of nature with killer fashion sense and empathy to burn. He's also rather more prone to romantic entanglements than most of his predecessors, as proved when he fell for time-travelling bounty hunter Rogue (Jonathan Groff). This incarnation frequently hints at greatness — he just needs more adventures to prove it.
8. The Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston)
- Years active: 2005
With the possible exception of Patrick Troughton, no new Doctor has faced a more daunting task than Christopher Eccleston. Sixteen long years had passed since the show's original cancellation in 1989, and nobody really knew how this sci-fi institution would go down in the 21st century.
Eccleston (who'd previously worked with showrunner Russell T Davies on "The Second Coming") quickly eliminated any doubts, and over the course of a single season this Mancunian Time Lord pointed out that "lots of planets have a north", reminded us why Daleks are bad news, and formed a wonderful double act with Billie Piper's Rose Tyler. When he bids Rose a heartfelt farewell in "The Parting of the Ways", you can't help wishing he'd stuck around a bit longer than a year.
7. The Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy)
- Years active: 1987-1989
With an outfit considerably toned down from the Sixth Doctor's assault on fashion, this incarnation gradually morphed from a somewhat clownish figure (Sylvester McCoy had a background in physical comedy) into a darker, more irritable Time Lord powered by righteous anger — this regeneration certainly made the most of the character's penchant for a powerful monologue.
Having featured in classic stories like "The Happiness Patrol" and "Remembrance of the Daleks", McCoy was unlucky to be the incumbent Doctor when the show was unceremoniously axed in 1989. He returned for the obligatory regeneration scene in the 1996 TV movie.
6. The First Doctor (William Hartnell)
- Years active: 1963-1966
If your introduction to "Doctor Who" came in the 21st century, no incarnation of the Doctor will feel more alien than the original model. Hartnell's Doctor started out as a crotchety OAP living in a London junkyard, though his travels through time and space with granddaughter Susan and other companions gradually softened those edges until he simply became a twinkly old man with a magical blue (or, on black-and-white TV, grey) box.
While it's sometimes hard to get your head around the fact that this is the same character who'll eventually be played by Matt Smith, Jodie Whittaker, and Ncuti Gatwa, Hartnell's performance was as important to the show's early years as the Daleks. The First Doctor has since been played by Richard Hurndall and David Bradley.
5. The Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi)
- Years active: 2014-2017
The show was so popular back in 2013 that the announcement of Peter Capaldi's casting was given its own primetime show on BBC One. For kids raised on a diet of David Tennant and Matt Smith, the unveiling of a 50-something actor — then best known for turning swearing into poetry in political sitcom "The Thick of It" — must have been a real shock to the system.
But the time was arguably right to take the Doctor in a different direction, and lifelong "Who" fan Capaldi successfully explored the range of the character. The gradual mellowing of his original irascible self — "She cares so I don't have to," he said of companion Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) — worked much better than the Sixth Doctor's similar arc, while his one-hander in "Heaven Sent" is one for the ages. The Twelfth Doctor also had few rivals when it came to delivering a rousing speech.
4. The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith)
- Years active: 2010-2013
The success of David Tennant's tenure had changed perceptions of who the Doctor could and should be. Arguably for the first time in his history, the Time Lord was regarded as cool, of his time, and, dare we say it, a sex symbol — meaning that incoming showrunner Steven Moffat had one of the hardest casting decisions imaginable.
He found the perfect blend of 21st-century zeitgeist and Gallifreyan eccentricity in a then-unknown actor who remains the youngest ever to play the Doctor. At the time, Moffat described Matt Smith as "strikingly handsome but like a cartoon of handsome," and the Eleventh Doctor always felt like an old man trapped in a young man's body. He even did his bit to make bow ties cool.
3. The Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton)
- Years active: 1966-1969
Viewers had only known one Doctor when William Hartnell surprised viewers by regenerating into Patrick Troughton in 1966. That ingenious storytelling device (or, depending on your point of view, quirk of Gallifreyan biology) is arguably the reason we're still talking about "Doctor Who" nearly six decades later.
It wouldn't have worked, however, had Patrick Troughton not perfectly nailed the role. Rather than delivering a facsimile of Hartnell he made it clear that his Doctor was a very different man, a "cosmic hobo" with a jollier disposition than his predecessor and a penchant for playing the recorder. How sad that nearly half of his episodes have been lost
2. The Tenth/Fourteenth Doctor (David Tennant)
- Years active: 2005-2010, 2023
If ever there was a case of right time, right actor, this was it. David Tennant had already played the lead in Russell T Davies' "Casanova" by the time he landed in the TARDIS, and the combination of a star and show on the rise proved utterly irresistible. Unlike many of the Time Lord's previous incarnations, the Tenth Doctor was entirely comfortable around humans, and had considerable chemistry with Rose Tyler — to the extent that the duplicate "Meta-Crisis Doctor" created in series 4's "Journey's End" settled down with Rose in a parallel universe.
Tennant's skinny suit and Converse trainers ensemble captured a fashion moment and, with the likes of "Blink", "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood" and "Midnight", he was lucky to coincide with many of the best stories of the modern "Who" era.
So popular that the Thirteenth Doctor regenerated back into a slightly older version of the Tenth Doctor for three 60th anniversary specials.
1. The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker)
- Years active: 1984-1981
It's remarkable that, more than four decades after he left the TARDIS, Tom Baker remains synonymous with the Doctor. For many casual viewers, the fedora, the excessively long scarf and unmistakable voice are still the quintessential image of the show. It's easy to see why.
There was something unmistakably alien about Baker's performance, frequently coupled with his Doctor's unbridled joy at the wonders of the universe. But the eccentricity never got in the way of the character's gravitas, most notably when he opted not to prevent his greatest foes' existence in classic serial "Genesis of the Daleks". Still the greatest, most watchable Doctor of them all.
Honorable mentions
None of these actors has ever headlined the show but they've most definitely played the Doctor...
The movie Doctor (Peter Cushing)
His Doctor is not described as an alien and his two movie adventures ("Dr Who and the Daleks" and "Daleks — Invasion Earth: 2150 AD") are both adaptations of existing BBC serials. But the future Grand Moff Tarkin did take the TARDIS to the big screen in what now feels like an alternative universe take on "Doctor Who".
The War Doctor (John Hurt)
After Christopher Eccleston turned down the opportunity to return for 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor", showrunner Steven Moffat was left with a hole in his multi-Doctor adventure. He filled it with this previously unseen incarnation of the Doctor, considered an outcast by his more jovial successors but actually a surprisingly warm and empathetic version of the Time Lord.
The Fugitive Doctor (Jo Martin)
No Doctor in history has opened a bigger can of worms than the Fugitive Doctor. After fans had spent six decades believing that the First Doctor (William Hartnell) was, well, the first, series 12's controversial "Timeless Children" arc revealed that there'd been many regenerations before him.
Jo Martin's Fugitive Doctor is on the run from her former employers at the Division, is much happier around guns than her successors, and doesn't suffer fools gladly. She's also turned up opposite Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor — as well as fronting some audio dramas — and will hopefully turn up in the show again.
New episodes of "Doctor Who" are available on BBC iPlayer in the UK and Disney+ in the US. If you want to go back further in time, most existing episodes from the show's 60+-year history are available on BBC iPlayer in the UK.
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