From Mimi Imfurst slinging India Ferrah over her shoulders to Valentina’s premonition of the COVID pandemic and Sasha Velour’s rose-petal ruse, the lip-sync format on RuPaul’s Drag Race has delivered some of reality television’s most iconic moments. Since 2009, hundreds of queens have unleashed every trick in their arsenal to lip-sync for either a) their lives, b) their legacy or c) the crown, and the internet has never stopped debating which smackdown reigns supreme.

Here, we place ourselves in great peril by ranking the 12 best lip-syncs of all time. And yes, we mean peril — because several fierce battles didn’t make the cut, and we’re fully bracing for backlash. The showdowns below were chosen for their overall impact and their enduring ability to elicit gay gasps to this very day.

Read on, and if you have strong opinions, please let us know. We! Love! It!

(FYI: not all of these lip-syncs are available on YouTube in HD, so apologies in advance for the crunchy clips.)