30. Agent Pendrell. The hapless FBI tech helped uncover the truth behind Scully’s chip. We knew so little about him — but what we saw, we liked.
29. Donnie Pfaster. The necrophiliac serial killer, actually a demon? Scully-obsessed creep.
28. Eugene Victor Tooms. Kills people, eats his prey’s liver, then hibernates for years in a nest made of newspapers and his own bile.
27. Robert Partick "Pusher" Modell. A villain who “pushes” people's minds. He revealed certain truths about the Mulder-Scully relationship.
26. Bill Mulder. Cold, conniving, with a ton of secrets. His death made him a frustratingly intriguing mystery.
25. Duane Berry. Both the abductee and the Season 2 episode named after him — The X-Files would’ve looked a lot different.
24. Marita Covarrubias. We never quite knew what her allegiances were — even after the old black-oil-in-the-eyes treatment.
23. Diana Fowley. One of those people with mysterious agendas and shifting loyalties. Scully’s continual frustration point.
22. Jeffrey Spender. He was kind of a load… until he took definitive action on baby William’s behalf.
21. Alien Bounty Hunter. He didn’t come in peace: The vaguely Schwarzeneggerian extra terrestrial evoked terror, dread, and death.
20. Alvin Kersh. Evil in its most middle-management form. Mainly was around to say “No” to anyone investigating the X-Files.
19. Monica Reyes. Balanced out her partner’s steely, by-the-book nature. Scully’s de facto labor coach. CSM's minion.
18. Bill Scully. Scully’s older brother never did like Mulder.
17. Teena Mulder. The complicated relationship between mother and son was one that always held our attention.
16. Melissa Scully. We didn’t get to know Scully’s flibbertigibbet-of-a-flower-child sister better before she was killed.
15. Gibson Praise. Cute, comically blunt, and carrying alien DNA in his body, this mind-reading moppet.
14. William Scully. Ahab and his Starbuck.
13. Max Fenig. Marked by horrible alien abductions and the incapacitating illnesses that follow. Kind and helpful to the FBI agents who come poking around.
12. Jackson van de Camp (William). Brain bleach to ignore who fathered Scully’s son, and how?. What a cute baby he was.
11. Albert Hosteen. He was a giver in the extreme.
10. Margaret Scully. Pretty much the best mother figure on the show.
9. John Doggett. Despite being the new skeptic on the block, he earned Scully's trust in the process. Also, “Mul-dah.”
8. Deep Throat. Mysterious and cagey, alternately helpful and frustrating.
7. X. That heroic moment when he carried an unconscious Mulder off an exploding train car.
6. Cigarette Smoking Man. The less we knew about him, the scarier he was.
5. Alex Krycek. From Syndicate stooge to rogue assassin...
4. The Lone Gunmen. The best tech, the most paranoid brains, and the biggest hearts out there.
3. Fox Mulder. Without his singleminded determination to uncover the unknown, the show might have been endless hours of Scully rifling through filing cabinets, rolling her eyes, and then calling it a day. But Mulder’s zeal for the weird was also the millstone around his neck, and seriously, how many times can you ghost your partner before it’s not cute anymore?
2. Walter Skinner. His genuine care for the pair grew so much over the seasons — and he certainly risked his life/career/overall happiness enough in the interim.
1. Dana Scully. In Mulder’s own words, her “goddamn strict rationality and science” saved him a thousand times over. She kept him honest. Over the course of the show, her sense of possibility expanded, her faith in the universe took a hit, and her ability to balance a deeply flawed man reached expert levels. Oh, and she also nearly died a couple of times, had a kid on her own, saved Mulder from an execution, went on the lam, and might just have become immortal.