It’s spooky season, and that means it’s time to assemble your watchlist of the most frightening films ever to hit the big screen to fill your creepy watch calendar for those dark, cold nights.
We crunched the numbers — and measured our heart rates — to determine the best horror films to date. Fair warning: These movies are not for the faint of heart, and they’ll be haunting you for days after you watch them, so viewer beware!
Here are the top horror movies, heart-stopping flicks and bloody slashers of all time. They’ve got all of the ghastly apparitions, anxiety-inducing scenes, creepy haunted houses, demonic possessions, jump scares and more that have defined the horror genre for decades.
Watch these scary movies at your own risk!
The Exorcist (1973)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Psycho (1960)
Get Out (2017)
Jaws (1975)
The Shining (1980)
Hereditary (2018)
The Witch (2015)
Halloween (1978)
Alien (1979)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Midsommar (2019)
The Devils (1971)
The Babadook (2014)
Audition (1999)
Evil Dead II (1987)
Eraserhead (1977)
The Conjuring (2013)
The Wicker Man (1973)
The Thing (1982)
28 Days Later (2002)
The Descent (2005)
The Fly (1986)
Friday the 13th (1980)
The Omen (1976)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Raw (2016)
Let the Right One In (2008)
Event Horizon (1997)
‘The Exorcist’ (1973)
Fifty years later, The Exorcist remains one of the greatest horror movies of all time. The supernatural thriller tells the story of a young girl possessed by the devil and two priests attempting to rescue her through an exorcism.
The film was an instant cultural touchstone. Crowds lined up outside theaters in the dead of winter, some moviegoers fainted and vomited at some of the more intense scenes and multiple cities tries to ban it for being shown.
Beyond the horror drama, The Exorcist is considered one of the best films of ever made.
Another one of the most iconic horror films of all time is one of the original slashers. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is responsible for a number of genre-defining elements including power tools as weapons and a giant masked killer.
Shot on a shoestring budget, the film is exceptionally violent, especially for the time. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s gore earned bans from numerous theaters for its violence. If you’ve got a strong stomach, it’s a must watch.
Speaking of slasher films, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho remains of the greatest horror films of all time. It’s one of the most influential, the most analyzed and the most celebrated of Hitchcock’s works.
One of the most well-known slashers, Psycho tells the story of an on-the-run embezzler who runs into a motel proprietor and his disturbed mother. The film introduced movie goers to the characters of Norman Bates and Norma “Mother” Bates, who have since been spun into various iterations, and popularized the phrase “going psycho” in cultural slang.
Another one of the most influential films in Hollywood history, Stephen Spielberg’s Jaws follows three man tracking down a ma-eating shark of the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.
Not a horror film in the haunty-spooky sense, Jaws employs exceptional tension building techniques including one of the most recognizable villain themes in movie history.
‘Get Out’ (2017)
Jordan Peele’s directorial debut follows a young black man who learns a terrifying secret about the family of his white girlfriend. The films screenplay won an Oscar and Peele and star Daniel Kaluuya were each nominated for an Academy Award.
Get Out earned critical acclaim and commercial success and it’s hailed for its writing, direction and biting social critiques.
Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, The Shining follows writer Jack Torrance, his wife and their young son, who is beginning to display psychic powers, as they care for a resort hotel with a violent past over the winter season.
Stanley Kubrick’s chilling horror film blends psychological and supernatural elements, classic sequences and dynamic performances from Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. Stephen King’s follow up, Doctor Sleep, was adapted in 2019.
Another A24 film, another instant classic horror movie. The Witch takes viewers back to puritanical New England, where a family is preyed upon by an evil force in the woods.
Starring Anya Taylor-Joy in her theatrical debut, the film is also the debut of horror director Robert Eggers. The Witch received critical acclaim and commercial success on its way to being considered one of the best horror movies of the 21st Century.
Halloween introduced the world to Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode and the terrifying serial killer Michael Myers. The film that spawned various sequels and remakes across multiple timelines, Halloween made a distinct mark on the slasher and horror genres. It remains one of Hollywood’s great movie franchises and a defining film in the horror and thriller genres.
Horror films tend to conjure haunted houses, ghost stories, Ouija boards and spirit worlds but not necessarily outer space. Alien is one of the most original horror films for that very reason.
Ridley Scott’s Alien skirts the line between science fiction and horror, taking place aboard the commercial space tug Nostromo as its crew is hunted by a terrifying extraterrestrial creature.
Alien was critically acclaimed, won an Oscar for visual effects and spawned an entire TV and movie franchise that continues to this day.
Easily one of the best horror movies of the 1990s, The Silence of the Lambs follows Clarice Starling as she attempts to track down a serial killer known as “Buffalo Bill,” relying on the advice of imprisoned serial killer Hannibal Lecter to aid her hunt.
Jody Foster as Clarice and Anthony Hopkins as Lecter each won an Oscar for their performances, and they light up the screen with scenes that’ll allow you to hear your heart rate rise. It also remains the only horror film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
‘The Blair Witch Project’ (1999)
The Blair Witch Project remains of the most successful indie films and best horror movies of all time. The film follows the “found footage” of three teens attempting to track down the urban legend of the Blair Witch. The movie starred complete unknowns to give the film a more authentically horrifying air and was one of the first and most well-known examples of the found footage format. The film’s successful and viral marketing campaign revolutionized film promotion by portraying the actors as if they were real people who were actually missing or dead.
Ari Aster cemented his status as one of the best in horror filmmaking with Midsommar. The film follows a grieving young woman who joins a group trip to a midsummer festival in a remote Swedish village with cultish practices. With just a twinge of special effects, Aster offsets the horror of the story with bright colors and cheerily atmospheric cinematography to create an iconic psychological thriller.
A historical psychological horror film, The Devils dramatizes the downfall of a 17th-century priest accused of witchcraft by a nun following a rash of demonic possessions throughout France.
The Devils is a co-production between the US and the UK and based on multiple written works. Its graphic violence and sexual content initially earned it an X rating in both countries. The film is so controversial, it’s not even available to stream.
‘The Babadook’ (2014)
Don’t let the fun name fool you, The Babadook is a supernatural horror film that caused William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist, to proclaim he had “never seen a more terrifying film.”
An instant classic, The Babadook is writer and director Jennifer Kent’s feature debut and based on her short film Monster. One of the best monster movies of all time, watch this horrifying film at your own risk.
‘Audition’ (1999)
Audition was one of Japan’s first global horror successes. The story follows a widower who stages a fake TV audition to meet a new girlfriend, but the woman he chooses has a dark past that doesn’t quite fit the match he is looking for.
‘Evil Dead II’ (1987)
Bruce Campbell stars as Ash Williams in the comedy horror film from Sam Raimi. Vacationing with his girlfriend in a cabin in the woods, he finds an audio tape of readings from ancient texts that, when played, unleashes demons that possess and torture him.
The second in the Evil Dead trilogy is its most influential and it remains one of the most influential horror films of the 1980s.
David Lynch’s feature film debut is a surrealist body horror film that launched the acclaimed director’s career. Initially panned at its release, Eraserhead has enjoyed a renaissance of popularity in recent decades and has a dedicated cult following. The story follows a man left to care for his grossly deformed child, which led to some design work that set new standards for visual effects.
‘The Conjuring’ (2013)
Developed by Saw co-creator James Wan, The Conjuring gave us a cinematic universe of paranormal haunting tales based on the real-life husband and wife paranormal investigation team that famously investigated the Amityville Horror house.
When a family moves into a Rhode Island farmhouse, malevolent spirits begin to run wild. Their dog refuses to enter the house and dark entities begin casting a shadow over the whole family.
Starring Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee, The Wicker Man follows a policeman searching for a missing girl on a Scottish island, only to discover the that island itself poses a grave threat. The Wicker Man has made an indelible impact on pop culture and the horror genre and was remade in 2006. Another folk cult film for the cult fans out there.
Another film that caught a cult following after its initial disappointing release, The Thing has been lauded for its visual and special effects and revisionist history puts it among the best sci-fi and horror movies ever made. With The Thing, John Carpenter added another classic to the horror pantheon just a few years after the release of Halloween.
The post-apocalyptic horror follows a bike courier who awakens from a coma to find that society has collapsed and hyper-aggressive zombies roam the land due to a global pandemic caused by a highly contagious “Rage” virus that leaked from a research lab.
With its full-speed ahead undead, 28 Days Later upped the ante on the zombie genre by making them more horrifying than ever. The movie has multiple sequels including 28 Weeks Later (2007) and most recently, 28 Years Later (2025).
‘The Descent’ (2005)
The Descent brings claustrophobia to visceral life on screen when six spelunkers are trapped in an unchartered cave system inhabited by monsters. The film is a slow burn of nerve-fraying tension. The film is widely praised for featuring an all-female cast that doesn’t fall into stereotypical character traps.
‘The Fly’ (1986)
David Cronenberg is one of the body horror genre’s legends and The Fly is one of his best. The film won an Academy Award for its makeup design and helped launch Jeff Goldblum into superstardom as he slowly turns into a human-fly hybrid monster. As the film’s poster tries to warn you: Be afraid, be very afraid.
Naturally, the most notorious date on the calendar gets its own film. Friday the 13th is another iconic slasher film set at an abandoned summer camp with a haunted history. The film follows a group of counselors who are hunted down one by one by Jason Voorhees, the infamous, hockey mask-wearing slasher who has terrorized audiences for decades.
Helmed by legendary director Richard Donner, The Omen is a supernatural horror film that follows the mysterious events and deaths after the birth of a child many believe to be the Antichrist. An Oscar-winning score sets the tone for highly tense film.
No list of horror films would be complete without Freddy Krueger. The iconic killer in Wes Craven’s A Nightmare in Elm Street waits until its main characters are asleep to attack them in their dreams. The film spawned a beloved franchise, TV series and crossover films and remains one of the greatest horror films ever made.
A coming-of-age body horror film finds a young vegetarian at her first year at veterinary school. She tastes meat for the first time but develops a terrifying craving in the process. The film is widely acclaimed for its writing and directing that help them film linger in the minds of viewers long after the credits roll.
This Swedish romantic horror film follows a bullied 12-year-old boy develops a friendship with a strange boy in the suburbs of Stockholm. The film cleaned house at various international film festivals and even spawned an American remake.
‘Event Horizon’ (1997)
Another sci-fi entry in the horror genre, Event Horizon brings viewers into the year 2047, where a distress signal is sounded by a starship believed to have disappeared. The relief of finding the ship is quickly surprised by the horror that caused it to go missing in the first place.
Looking for a psychological thriller or a scare to make you jump clean off your couch? You can watch tons of other scary movies and top horror films right on DIRECTV!
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The Exorcist, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Shining are some of the most acclaimed horror films ever made.
Who are the most famous horror movie directors?
George Romero, Wes Craven, John Carpenter and David Cronenberg are among the most well-known horror film directors of all time.
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