The most terrifying films are often those that are firmly rooted in reality. When audiences see characters they can identify with having their world upended by forces beyond their control, they recognize their own vulnerability – “what if these events were to happen to me?”

Unlike most fictional films, terrifying movies based on true events are no make believe — and moviegoers can’t pretend they are. There is no escape from the fact that they’re witnessing events that actually happened – at least to some extent.

24/7 Wall St. has identified 40 of the most terrifying movies based on true events. These films portray the strange, dark, and dangerous chain of events that happened to real people, put on the silver screen as a way to share the experience.

Click here to see 40 terrifying movies based on true events.
Click here to see our detailed findings and methodology.

1. 127 Hours (2010)
> Directed by: Danny Boyle
> Starring: James Franco, Amber Tamblyn, Kate Mara
> Domestic box office: $18.3 million
> Based on: Outdoorsman Aron Ralston’s story of being pinned by boulder

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2. Annabelle (2014)
> Directed by: John R. Leonetti
> Starring: Ward Horton, Annabelle Wallis, Alfre Woodard
> Domestic box office: $84.3 million
> Based on: Doll found in Lorraine Warrens’ Occult Museum in Monroe, CT

3. Black Water (2007)
> Directed by: David Nerlich, Andrew Traucki
> Starring: Diana Glenn, Maeve Dermody, Andy Rodoreda
> Domestic box office: N/A
> Based on: 2003 crocodile attack on Brett Mann in Australia’s Northern Territory

4. Borderland (2007)
> Directed by: Zev Berman
> Starring: Brian Presley, Jake Muxworthy, Rider Strong
> Domestic box office: N/A
> Based on: Drug dealer and cult leader Adolfo Constanzo

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5. Changeling (2008)
> Directed by: Clint Eastwood
> Starring: Angelina Jolie, Colm Feore, Amy Ryan
> Domestic box office: $35.7 million
> Based on: Wineville Chicken Coop Murders

6. Christine (2016)
> Directed by: Antonio Campos
> Starring: Rebecca Hall, Michael C. Hall, Tracy Letts
> Domestic box office: $298,525
> Based on: Suicide of news reporter Christine Chubbuck

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7. Compliance (2012)
> Directed by: Craig Zobel
> Starring: Ann Dowd, Dreama Walker, Pat Healy
> Domestic box office: $319,285
> Based on: McDonald’s strip search phone call scam in Mount Washington, Kentucky

8. Compulsion (1959)
> Directed by: Richard Fleischer
> Starring: Orson Welles, Dean Stockwell, Diane Varsi
> Domestic box office: N/A
> Based on: Leopold and Loeb murder of Bobby Franks

9. Dead Ringers (1988)
> Directed by: David Cronenberg
> Starring: Jeremy Irons, Geneviève Bujold, Heidi von Palleske
> Domestic box office: $8 million
> Based on: Twin gynecologists Stewart and Cyril Marcus who had drug habits

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10. Deepwater Horizon (2016)
> Directed by: Peter Berg
> Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, Douglas M. Griffin
> Domestic box office: $61.4 million
> Based on: Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion

11. Deliver Us from Evil (2014)
> Directed by: Scott Derrickson
> Starring: Eric Bana, Edgar Ramírez, Olivia Munn
> Domestic box office: $30.6 million
> Based on: Demonologist Ralph Sarchie’s memoir

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12. First They Killed My Father (2017)
> Directed by: Angelina Jolie
> Starring: Sareum Srey Moch, Phoeung Kompheak, Sveng Socheata
> Domestic box office: N/A
> Based on: Childhood of Loung Ung under the Communist Khmer Rouge regime

13. Four Days in September (1997)
> Directed by: Bruno Barreto
> Starring: Alan Arkin, Pedro Cardoso, Fernanda Torres
> Domestic box office: $397,517
> Based on: 1969 kidnapping of the United States Ambassador to Brazil by radicals

14. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
> Directed by: John McNaughton
> Starring: Michael Rooker, Tracy Arnold, Tom Towles
> Domestic box office: $609,939
> Based on: Serial killers Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole

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15. In Cold Blood (1967)
> Directed by: Richard Brooks
> Starring: Robert Blake, Scott Wilson, John Forsythe
> Domestic box office: N/A
> Based on: 1959 Clutter family murders

16. Jaws (1975)
> Directed by: Steven Spielberg
> Starring: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss
> Domestic box office: $260 million
> Based on: The exploits of shark hunter Frank Mundus

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17. Monster (2003)
> Directed by: Patty Jenkins
> Starring: Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Bruce Dern
> Domestic box office: $34.5 million
> Based on: Serial killer Aileen Wuornos

18. My Friend Dahmer (2017)
> Directed by: Marc Meyers
> Starring: Ross Lynch, Alex Wolff, Anne Heche
> Domestic box office: $1.4 million
> Based on: Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer

19. Open Water (2003)
> Directed by: Chris Kentis
> Starring: Blanchard Ryan, Daniel Travis, Saul Stein
> Domestic box office: $30.6 million
> Based on: Disappearance of Tom and Eileen Lonergan in the Coral Sea

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20. Psycho (1960)
> Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
> Starring: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles
> Domestic box office: $32 million
> Based on: Serial killer Ed Gein

21. River’s Edge (1986)
> Directed by: Tim Hunter
> Starring: Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye
> Domestic box office: $4.6 million
> Based on: Murder of Marcy Renee Conrad

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22. Rope (1948)
> Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
> Starring: James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger
> Domestic box office: N/A
> Based on: Leopold and Loeb murder of Bobby Franks

23. The Amityville Horror (1979)
> Directed by: Stuart Rosenberg
> Starring: James Brolin, Margot Kidder, Rod Steiger
> Domestic box office: $86.4 million
> Based on: Paranormal experiences of the Lutz family

24. The Boston Strangler (1968)
> Directed by: Richard Fleischer
> Starring: Tony Curtis, Henry Fonda, George Kennedy
> Domestic box office: N/A
> Based on: Boston Strangler murders between 1962 and 1964

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25. The Conjuring (2013)
> Directed by: James Wan
> Starring: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Ron Livingston
> Domestic box office: $137.4 million
> Based on: Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren

26. The Conjuring 2 (2016)
> Directed by: James Wan
> Starring: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Madison Wolfe
> Domestic box office: $102.5 million
> Based on: Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren

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27. The Devils (1971)
> Directed by: Ken Russell
> Starring: Vanessa Redgrave, Oliver Reed, Dudley Sutton
> Domestic box office: N/A
> Based on: French Catholic priest Urbain Grandier who was convicted of witchcraft

28. The Exorcism Of Emily Rose (2005)
> Directed by: Scott Derrickson
> Starring: Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson, Shohreh Aghdashloo
> Domestic box office: $75.1 million
> Based on: Exorcism of Anneliese Michel

29. The Exorcist (1973)
> Directed by: William Friedkin
> Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Linda Blair
> Domestic box office: $232.9 million
> Based on: Exorcism of Roland Doe

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30. The Honeymoon Killers (1970)
> Directed by: Leonard Kastle, Donald Volkman
> Starring: Shirley Stoler, Tony Lo Bianco, Mary Jane Higby
> Domestic box office: N/A
> Based on: The Lonely Hearts Killers, Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck

31. The Impossible (2012)
> Directed by: J.A. Bayona
> Starring: Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland
> Domestic box office: $19 million
> Based on: Story of María Belón and her family during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami

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32. The Onion Field (1979)
> Directed by: Harold Becker
> Starring: John Savage, James Woods, Franklyn Seales
> Domestic box office: $9.9 million
> Based on: 1963 kidnapping of two LAPD officers

33. The Revenant (2015)
> Directed by: Alejandro G. Iñárritu
> Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Will Poulter
> Domestic box office: $183.6 million
> Based on: Ordeal of American frontiersman Hugh Glass

34. The Rite (2011)
> Directed by: Mikael Håfström
> Starring: Colin O’Donoghue, Anthony Hopkins, Ciarán Hinds
> Domestic box office: $33 million
> Based on: Exorcist Father Gary Thomas

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35. The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015)
> Directed by: Kyle Patrick Alvarez
> Starring: Ezra Miller, Tye Sheridan, Billy Crudup
> Domestic box office: $660,561
> Based on: 1971 Stanford prison experiment

36. The Stoning of Soraya M. (2008)
> Directed by: Cyrus Nowrasteh
> Starring: Shohreh Aghdashloo, Jim Caviezel, Mozhan Marnò
> Domestic box office: $637,421
> Based on: Iranian stoning victim Soraya Manutchehri

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37. The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)
> Directed by: Charles B. Pierce
> Starring: Ben Johnson, Andrew Prine, Dawn Wells
> Domestic box office: N/A
> Based on: Texarkana Moonlight Murders

38. United 93 (2006)
> Directed by: Paul Greengrass
> Starring: David Alan Basche, Olivia Thirlby, Liza Colón-Zayas
> Domestic box office: $31.5 million
> Based on: United Airlines Flight 93 hijacking

 

39. Unstoppable (2010)
> Directed by: Tony Scott
> Starring: Denzel Washington, Chris Pine, Rosario Dawson
> Domestic box office: $81.6 million
> Based on: CSX 8888 runaway freight train incident

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40. Zodiac (2007)
> Directed by: David Fincher
> Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo
> Domestic box office: $33.1 million
> Based on: Serial killer Zodiac Killer

Detailed findings:

The films on the list cover multiple genres and approach their source material in various ways. For example, the movies “Monster” and “Psycho” are based on the crimes of serial killers – Aileen Wuornos and Ed Gein, respectively.

“Monster” is an emotionally moving biographical drama that, as critic Nick Rogers noted, “[emphasizes] Wuornos’ fraying sanity, not her crimes’ sensationalism.” Alfred Hitchcock’s horror classic, “Psycho,” on the other hand, is a master class in sensationalism, relying on some of the most shocking aspects of Gein’s life – such as his obsession with his mother and comfort around cadavers – to build its story.

The liberties that “Psycho” takes with its source material are not uncommon among the films on our list. Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws,” which tells the story of a team of men hunting a great white shark after a series of attacks off the coast of New England, is actually based on Long Island-based shark hunter Frank Mundus, who is widely reported to have served as inspiration for Robert Shaw’s character Quint.

While Peter Benchley, the man behind the source novel, would later deny it as an influence, a series of shark attacks that took place in New Jersey in 1916 are also very similar to those in the film. While the movie veers off into fictional territory, the existence of man-killing sharks lurking by resort towns is all too real.

Other films’ true life inspiration may be less trustworthy. The 2014 horror movie “Annabelle” is based on a Raggedy Ann doll whose owner, paranormal investigator Lorraine Warren, claims is haunted. Horror films often claim to be based on true events, yet the truth of these episodes can be difficult to confirm.

The veracity of films such as Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours” is much easier to verify. Based on the memoirs of Aron Ralston, the movie details the events after Ralston fell during a hike, had his arm pinned by a boulder, and his wrenching decision to amputate the arm. Ralston told British newspaper The Guardian that “the movie is so factually accurate it is as close to a documentary as you can get and still be a drama.”

Methodology:

To identify the 40 terrifying movies based on true events, 24/7 Wall St. looked at the 819 movies within the biography genre and those tagged on IMDb as being “based on a true story.” For each movie, we considered the Rotten Tomatoes average critic rating, Rotten Tomatoes’ average audience rating, and IMDb average user rating. To be considered, each film had to have at least 5,000 user ratings between IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes and 10 approved Tomatometer critic reviews.

Once we had that list, we used editorial discretion (and knowledge of specific films) to choose those highest rated films that we would consider “terrifying” and adding some additional titles that we deemed essential.

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