Every ‘Scream’ Movie, Ranked Worst to Best

It takes a lot for a horror movie villain to enter the pantheon of most recognizable scary movie bad guys. The big bad needs to rise to the level of a truly horrifying slasher the likes of Freddie Krueger (Nightmare on Elm Street), Michael Myers (Halloween), Chucky (Child’s Play) or Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th).

In 1996, the world was introduced to another of these terrifying killers: the Scream franchises’ Ghostface. The character’s now-iconic combination of an elongated white facemask framed by pitch-black robes were already a common Halloween costume when the movie was made, but it quickly became one of the most popular choices of the mid-90s. It also introduced us to long-running characters like Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox).

The original Scream, directed by master of the horror genre Wes Craven (also the mind behind Kruger and Elm Street), is considered one of the best horror-slasher films ever made, and it spawned a franchise now going six films strong.

With Scream 7 hitting theaters on Feb. 27, 2026, there’s no better time to revisit the series and see how each entry ranks from best to worst, so you know where to start and which films to skip if you want to get caught up on Scream lore before seeing the newest film.

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‘Scream’ Movies, Ranked Worst to Best

Here’s our ranking of all six existing Scream movies from worst to best.

6. ‘Scream 3’ (2000)

Director: Wes Craven

Main Cast: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Patrick Dempsey

Reception: Rotten Tomatoes 45%, IMDb Metascore: 56

Plot Synopsis: Hidden secrets about Sidney’s mother surface on the Hollywood set of the film Stab 3 as a lone killer draws the original survivors into a final, theatrical confrontation.

Scream 3, long considered the most reviled of the Scream films by fans, takes the lowest spot on this list. Heavy script interference from the studio in the wake of the 1999 Columbine massacre famously and significantly shifted the tone of the franchise in this film. Set in Hollywood itself, the beloved elements of horror and violence that made the first two films work so well were supplanted with a muted, more satirical approach that just didn’t land with audiences.

5. ‘Scream 4’ (2011)

Director: Wes Craven

Main Cast: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Emma Roberts

Reception: Rotten Tomatoes: 61%, IMDb Metascore: 52

Plot Synopsis: Years after the original murders, Ghostface returns to target a new generation of Woodsboro high schoolers, subverting the “rules” of horror remakes for the social media age.

Eleven years after Scream 3 flopped, Craven revisited the franchise in what would be his final film in the series before his 2015 death. While better than the third movie, this one was also generally considered a weak entry, mostly due to its subpar storyline and poor choice of lens filter in shooting. Though the series is known for its humorous meta-commentary, this one is also considered to have gone a little overboard on that concept.

While antagonist Jill Roberts, with her ahead-of-its-time motive of gaining fame for the sake of becoming famous, regardless of the method, is considered one of the franchises’ best Ghostfaces, her co-killer Charlie was much less compelling.

4. ‘Scream IV’ (2023)

Director: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett

Main Cast: Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Hayden Panettiere, Courteney Cox

Reception: Rotten Tomatoes 77%, IMDb Metascore: 61

Plot Synopsis: The survivors of Scream (2022) leave Woodsboro for New York City, only to find themselves hunted by a more aggressive Ghostface in the crowded streets of Manhattan.

Also known as Scream 6, The second of the reboot films followed just a year after the release of the first and once again took the series out of the small-town setting of Woodsboro and into an urban metropolis, New York City, as the survivors of Ghostface’s latest rampage try to rebuild their lives. Like Scream 3, this shift didn’t land as well as many had hoped, and the movie felt a bit less refined than the first of the reboots.

3. ‘Scream’ (2022)

Director: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett

Main Cast: Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox

Reception: Rotten Tomatoes 76%, IMDb Metascore: 60

Plot Synopsis: Twenty-five years later, a new killer unearths Woodsboro’s deadly secrets, forcing a group of teens linked to the original cast to seek help from the legacy survivors.

Scream (2022) was the first film in the new reboot series of entries, technically a “Scream 5.” Released eleven years after Scream 4, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett were faced with a monumental task in making this film: Living up to the legacy of Wes Craven, one of the greatest horror directors of all time, and the rest of the entries in the now-iconic Scream series.

Fortunately, they did a great job. Scream (2022) stands as one of the strongest entries in the franchise. It introduces a new generation of characters for Ghostface to stalk, including Melissa Barrera’s Sam Carpenter, the illegitimate daughter of Billy Loomis, the original film’s Ghostface, and her sister, Jenna Ortega’s Tara Carpenter. This creates a direct connection to the Craven films, and the movie has been lauded for staying true to the franchise’s beloved legacy.

2. ‘Scream 2’ (1997)

Director: Wes Craven

Main Cast: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Timothy Olyphant

Reception: Rotten Tomatoes 83%, IMDb Metascore: 62

Plot Synopsis: While Sidney attends college, a copycat killer begins picking off survivors and students to prove that cinematic sequels are always bloodier than the original.

Following the original just one year later, Scream 2 stands to this day as one of the best horror film sequels of all time and a rare case where a follow-up film was considered just as good as its predecessor. This film cranked up both the level of violence and the meta-commentary: brilliantly poking fun at the fact the film itself was a sequel and leaning into its satire of both horror movie tropes and the society’s fixation on sensational and violent events by having one of the major plot points revolve around the making of the Stab films, a recurring series of movies about the massacre in the first film being made throughout the franchise.

1. ‘Scream’ (1996)

Director: Wes Craven

Main Cast: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Skeet Ulrich

Reception: Rotten Tomatoes 78%, IMDb Metascore: 66

Plot Synopsis: A masked killer stalks a group of horror-savvy teens in Woodsboro, forcing Sidney Prescott to survive a deadly game where the killer follows the rules of slasher movies.

This was the film that started it all, and it stands as the best entry in the franchise. Scream established the series’ core concepts: self-aware meta-commentary, satirical themes, murder mystery and a violent, masked killer who conforms to the “rules” of horror films: Never tell someone “You’ll be right back,” don’t investigate scary noises, engage in sexual intercourse or become intoxicated, the killer can’t be killed, etc.

At the time of its release, the horror genre was in a bit of a rut. Craven brilliantly came to the rescue with this film, and he did it specifically by lambasting and lampooning the exact stereotypes and tropes that had led people to become disillusioned with the scary movies of the time.

The result? One of the most iconic slasher films that delivered some of the most memorable, shocking scenes of all time, including the murder of top-billed actress Drew Barrymore’s character just minutes in.

Scream was so successful that it influenced the direction of future entries of some of the most popular existing horror franchises.

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