De slimste mens

De slimste mens (Dutch for 'The smartest human'), until 2009 known as De slimste, is a Dutch television quiz show. Contestants mostly have to find associations to certain terms or pictures.

In each episode, three contestants play against each other. The contestants vary from more to less known and each season aims to have a diverse group. During filming, the contestants take seats in three chairs. The contestant that won the previous episode takes the right spot, the runner-up from the previous episode takes the middle seat, and a new contestant takes place on the left. The order for the first episode is chosen at random.

Each round gives contestants the opportunity to earn more seconds to their clock. The rounds consist of different types of questions, where, for example, four or five answers must be given, connections must be found, keywords must be provided for a video about events from recent history, or puzzles must be made. By answering questions correctly, seconds can be gained, but these seconds are lost again by taking the time to answering. If a contestant says 'stop' or 'pass' when not all answers are given, the other contestants get a chance to earn the remaining seconds, always starting with the one who currently has the lowest amount of seconds left.

After five rounds, the contestant with the highest amount of seconds left is called 'the smartest of the day', and advances to the next episode by default. The two remaining contestants compete in a finale. The winner of that finale also advances to the next episode, while the losing contestant gets replaced by a new contestant in the next episode.

In the final week of each season, the five best players from the season return to the newcomer's seat on the left, counting the amount of episodes they were in and how many times they won an episode. For example, if one contestant was in 6 episodes with 3 wins, they were better than one with 6 episodes and 2 wins. The best player returns in the last episode, the season finale. In the last episode, the finale is played with the two with the highest scores after the fifth round, not with those in second and third place, as usual. The winner of that finale gets named 'de slimste mens'.

Each episode consists of five rounds, with an additional finale at the end. From the second to the fifth round, when a contestant passes before giving all the answers, the two other contestants always get a chance to complete it, starting with the one who has the least amount of seconds left at the time.

Each contestant gets 60 seconds to start with. In this first round, fifteen questions are asked, starting with the contestant on the newcomer's seat. If they answer correctly, they can answer the next question and so on. When they answer incorrectly, the question gets passed on to the next contestant. The 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th and 15th question are worth 10 seconds. In this round, the clock is not yet running when answering the questions, but there is a time limit for answering them.

In this round, questions are asked by a celebrity. The contestant with currently the least amount of seconds gets to choose first. Usually, each season has a small group of celebrities, with a few pre-recorded questions that are shown throughout the whole season. They start with a short story, and always end the question with "What do you know of....?". Four answers are to be given, each worth 20 seconds.

In this round, a grid of 3x4 is shown to each contestant, starting with the one currently in third place. Three words are to be found, each linked to four of the twelve keywords and each worth 30 seconds. Usually, the combinations make up expressions, compound words, famous names, et cetera.

Each contestant gets shown eight pictures, all with an overarching theme, again starting with the one currently in third place. Throughout answering, the contestant usually finds out what the connection is between the pictures. Each picture is worth 15 seconds.

Each contestant gets shown a video clip, again starting with the one currently in third place. With each clip, five terms are to be found. Just as the previous rounds, the other contestants can fill out the remaining answers, however, that has makes a bigger difference than usual. In this round, the first answer that is given is worth 10 seconds, the second is worth 20 seconds and so on, so the one who gives the fifth answer earns 50 seconds. Because of this, the ranking of seconds for each contestant is given after each clip. The one with the highest amount of seconds after this round is named 'de slimste van de dag' ('smartest of the day') and advances to the next episode by default.

In the finale (frequently called the 'day finale'), the contestant get asked "what do you know about...?". The question is always first asked to the one who has the least amount of seconds. Each question has five answers. For each correct answer, 20 seconds are removed from the opponent's clock. The goal is to get the opponent's clock to zero seconds. The winner of the finale advances to the next episode, taking the middle seat, while the losing contestant gets replaced by a new contestant in the next episode. In the last episode, the season is played with the two with the highest scores after the fifth round, not with those in second and third place, as usual. The winner of that finale gets named 'de slimste men's ('the smartest human).

The previous seasons from Talpa or RTL are not included in the amount of seasons that the show had. The 25th anniversary season was the 25th season from (KRO-)NCRV, not counting those from Talpa or RTL.

Three five-episode seasons were made with 'all stars'. Unlike the regular seasons, the All Stars editions have four chairs next to each other instead of three. The 2022 All Stars season was not aired on all weekdays as usual, but weekly on Fridays.