The Best Horror Movies of All Time

This disturbing neo-noir thriller follows a brilliant but troubled mathematician who is searching for an elusive 216-digit number that may bring order to the chaos in the world – or at least the chaos in his own mind.

A remake of the 1956 classic, 1978’s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” follows Donald Sutherland’s Matthew Bennell as he begins to notice changes in those around him after the appearance of organic pods around town. The movie is a nerve-racking horror film, steeped in paranoia, while also exploring ideas that were only briefly touched upon in the original.

Lewis Allen’s atmospheric “The Uninvited” finds a pair of London siblings who have bought a seaside house faced with the specters that already call it home.

From one of America’s favorite comedic duos, this film includes a cast of classic spooky characters including Count Dracula, who seeks to implant Costello’s brain into Frankenstein’s monster, and the Wolf Man, who tries to stop him.

John Landis directed one of the most acclaimed horror comedies of all time with “An American Werewolf in London.” The movie – which tells the story of two American college students who face a horrific situation abroad – has grown in reputation since its release, due in part to makeup artist Rick Baker’s exceptional effects.

Based on the Sherlock Holmes novel, this 1939 film is considered one of the best of over 20 film and television adaptations that have been made. It concerns Holmes and Watson as they investigate the suspicious death of one of the last heirs to a family fortune, and navigate rumors of a murderous phantom dog that prowls the family estate.

A tale of the ultimate gaslighting, based on the H.G. Wells novel of the same name, this film is about a woman who escapes from an abusive relationship, only to find that her ex – who apparently committed suicide after she left – may still be alive and stalking her.

Bela Lugosi made a career out of playing the blood-sucking vampire, Count Dracula. While it was not the first vampire movie, the 1931 version of Dracula may be the most influential.

“The Incredible Shrinking Man” is among the most existential of science fiction films, praised for its meditation on notions about acceptance and the gradual loss of power and prestige, and for its special effects. In the film, a young man vacationing on a boat is enveloped by a mysterious dark cloud causing him to gradually shrink, ultimately to the size of an atom.

Author William Peter Blatty adapted his own novel when penning the script for this graphic horror film. Directed by William Friedkin, it presents the unrelenting demonic possession of a young girl (Linda Blair). Extreme viewer reactions such as vomiting and fainting arguably fueled word-of-mouth momentum, hence the film’s enduring blockbuster status.

David Cronenberg’s remake of the sometimes schlocky 1958 movie “The Fly” is frightening, funny, and, at times, grotesque. Jeff Goldblum plays scientist Seth Brundle who accidentally combines his DNA with that of a house fly, with horrifying results. The movie benefits from the slow and sometimes hard-to-watch transformation of Brundle into “Brundlefly.”

“A Nightmare on Elm Street” introduced one of horror’s most recognizable villains: Freddy Krueger, a burned killer who stalks his victims in their dreams. Krueuger appears in all nine of the franchise’s movies. The movie also features a young Johnny Depp in his first movie role.

An adaptation of the novel “The Hands of Orlac,” this film follows an unhinged doctor who has an unhealthy obsession with a married woman, as he replaces her husband’s maimed hands with the hands of a serial killer.

In a post-apocalyptic world where blind aliens with ultra-sensitive hearing stalk the remaining humans, an isolated family must go about their daily lives in silence in order to survive.

This early film from Sam Raimi put the director – who would go on to shoot three big budget Spider-man movies – on the map. Its use of inventive filmmaking techniques and dark humor was a huge hit with audiences, leading to the creation of two more films in the franchise and a 2013 remake.

“The Wailing” is a South Korean thriller with a supernatural twist. A policeman is trying to save his daughter who is suffering from a mysterious sickness, which has started spreading after a stranger moves into town.

“The Birds,” based on the horror story by British writer Daphne du Maurier, is about our feathered friends who one day inexplicably attack people. New Yorker critic Richard Brody said, “Few films depict so eerily yet so meticulously the metaphysical and historical sense of a world out of joint.”

This indie silent film based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft has the look of a ’20s-era motion picture. The plot involves a young man who finds puzzling documents among his late great-uncle’s possessions that pertain to an unspeakable evil that lurks deep in the ocean.

Claude Rains, known for his roles as a debonair sophisticate, made his starring debut in this classic directed by horror maestro James Whale. Rains plays enigmatic scientist Jack Griffin, who experiments with a formula that renders him invisible. The formula’s side effects cause him to go insane, prompting him to go on a reign of terror.

“Curse of the Demon” received a Freshness score of 100% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, who hailed it for “unforgettably nightmarish sequences” and called it “one of the most intelligent and thoughtful horror movies ever made.” The film centers around an American professor’s investigation of a devil-worshiping cult in England.

Based on Howard Hawks’s “The Thing from Another World” (1951), John Carpenter’s “The Thing” was critically panned upon its release in 1982. The movie — with its apocalyptic tone and special effects by Rob Bottin — has since risen to the status of horror and sci-fi classic.

“Invasion of the Body Snatchers” is a thinly veiled commentary on the communist witch hunt in the 1950s by Sen. Joseph McCarthy and the accompanying blacklist of artists said to have had communist leanings. The plot is about a small-town doctor who sees behavior changes among his friends and neighbors, and to his horror he discovers aliens are replacing humans.

Six years after the release of “Evil Dead,” Sam Raimi released this sequel, which according to Rotten Tomatoes, “is better, funnier, scarier and superior to the first indie gore-fest.” The movie’s much larger budget allowed Raimi more freedom to indulge in his creative style of filmmaking, resulting in a horror classic that is equal parts fun and frightening.

Jordan Peele directed a modern classic with his 2017 feature debut, “Get Out.” The movie is both frightening and funny and is loaded with social commentary. The movie was a huge success at the domestic box office, grossing more than $176 million on a $4.5 million budget.

John Carpenter’s “Halloween” is a slasher classic that inspired countless imitations. The film’s premise is relatively simple: a man who murdered his sister as a young boy returns to terrorize the town in which the crime took place after spending years in a mental asylum. The movie’s restraint works in its favor, however, as the masked, silent killer proved hugely popular.

Director Tod Browning followed up his directorial triumph “Dracula” with this macabre tale of vengeance set against a circus sideshow. The story revolves around a trapeze artist who schemes to marry a midget and kill him for his fortune. The plot is foiled by his fellow “freaks” who exact terrible revenge on the woman.

George A. Romero’s debut film “Night of the Living Dead” created the prototype for the modern zombie film genre. The movie, which was independently produced with only a small budget, has grown to be considered one of the best horror movies ever because of its raw violence, bleak vision, and political subtext.

A Stephen King adaptation that famously deviates from its source material, Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” is endlessly intriguing, despite its relatively simple premise. Jack Nicholson plays Jack Torrance, a writer who has agreed to oversee the Overlook Hotel through a long, snowy winter accompanied by his wife and young, psychic son.

Considered to be one of the best sequels ever made, James Whale’s 1935 masterpiece “Bride of Frankenstein” picks up right where the original “Frankenstein” leaves off, with Dr. Frankenstein renouncing his Monster but believing that he’s still destined to unlock the secrets to immortality. He creates the Bride as a companion for the Monster, who’s played to perfection by Boris Karloff.

This horror comedy features Abbott and Costello as two gas station attendants with big aspirations who inherit a potential fortune from a gangster only to end up trapped in a haunted house while they search for the hidden loot.

Ten years after the release of his groundbreaking “Night of the Living Dead,” director George A. Romero returned to the subject of zombies with another classic, “Dawn of the Dead.” This time, the zombies return to that which they were most familiar with during their lives. For many, one such place is the shopping mall in which most of the film takes place.

“King Kong” pairs blonde beauty (Fay Wray) with a 50-foot ape in a frightening twist of the Beauty and the Beast tale. The movie’s special effects were revolutionary at the time and continue to deliver a certain creepiness to this day.

“Rosemary’s Baby” takes an unfantastic approach to its premise of a woman who believes her unborn child may have had demonic origins. The result is one of the decade’s most frightening films, which spawned countless occult films.

Edgar Wright’s 2004 film “Shaun of the Dead” is undoubtedly a comedy, yet it doesn’t neglect its zombie movie basis by including scares, violence, and a fair amount of gore. Critics and audiences weren’t the only ones to enjoy the movie. George Romero, who directed the original “Night of the Living Dead” (1968), called the movie “an absolute blast.”

The thriller “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” relaunched the storied careers of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford and prompted similar melodramas in the mid-1960s such as “Hush…Hush Sweet Charlotte.” Davis plays an aging child vaudeville star living in a decrepit Hollywood mansion with her crippled sister, played by Crawford, herself a former star actress, whom Davis torments out of jealousy.

“Frankenstein” is among the greatest of the classic monster movies. It was among English director James Whale’s earliest films and was heavily influenced by German Expressionist movies such as “Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari” (1919) and “Der Golem” (1915). The movie was added to the United States National Film Registry in 1991 — 60 years after its release.

A shockingly macabre silent classic, “The Unknown” follows a wanted fugitive who hides undercover as an armless knife thrower in a traveling circus. When he falls in love with the circus owner’s daughter, he goes to great and horrible lengths to win her over.

“Alien” tells the story of the crew of a commercial space tug named Nostromo, who are awoken from stasis on their way back to earth in order to investigate a transmission coming from a nearby alien moon. All hell breaks loose after they land, and before long there’s a horrifying rogue alien — brilliantly designed by H.R. Giger — terrorizing them (and bursting forth from poor John Hurt’s chest).

A quintessential horror film whose shower scene is one of the most infamous moments in cinematic history, “Psycho” depicts the unfortunate fate of a woman on the run with stolen cash as she stops at a small motel and meets its polite but eerie proprietor.