Horror has existed as long as storytelling has existed, and horror movies have been around for the entire history of cinema. Anenormously popular, somewhat divisive genre, horror movies are churned out in enormous quantities year after year because they’re generally so profitable. The sheer amount of horror films, of course, means they’re not all going to be gold, but there undeniably are classics that will stand the test of time, and in some cases, transcend the genre.
There are many reasons to watch violent and scary movies (or even horror movies that aren’t really very much of either, settling for spooky). Hell,even awful horror movies can be a great timein the right mindset; also, the simple reality is watching a truly great horror film is an experience that hardcore genre enthusiasts and casual viewers alike will tell you is, truly, unforgettable. The following represent some ofthe greatest, most terrifying horror movies ever made.All of these horror classics are pretty much flawless, and anyone who loves film and filmmaking should watch each of them at least once.
10’The Silence of the Lambs' (1991)
Directed by Jonathan Demme
Among the best-loved Best Picture Oscar winners of all time (and more than likely the grisliest),The Silence of the Lambsis a movie that was quick to establish, and has long maintained, a kind of mythic status.Jodie FosterandAnthony Hopkinsgave their most iconic (and many might say, their best) performances in a gripping procedural based onThomas Harris' bestseller about a green FBI trainee probing the mind of one serial killer to track another, who’s recently kidnapped a senator’s daughter.
Mythic really is the named of the game here, as much of what makes this psychological horror crime film so enduring can be traced back to the classic hero’s journey popularized byJoseph Campbell, and other storytelling from way before the late 20th century. The quotable, erudite, endlessly charismatic Hannibal Lecter was perhaps more prolific in pop culture, but it’s important to rememberThe Silence of the Lambsalso gave us a hero for the ages: a rookie, imperfect agent whose male colleagues tower over her in an elevator. Harris' book andTed Tally’s script heavily imply that Clarice Starling’s innate feminine instincts are essential to her ultimate victory against Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine), and it’s hard to overstate the moral, sturdily determined center Foster brought to the part. This isone of those hyper-rare movies that improves upon an already great book in every conceivable way.
The Silence of the Lambs
A young F.B.I. cadet must receive the help of an incarcerated and manipulative cannibal killer to help catch another serial killer, a madman who skins his victims.
9’Alien' (1979)
Directed by Ridley Scott
Thanks in no small part toan immersive, cleverly disorienting screenplay that ranks among the best in the horror, the impeccable stylings of director Ridley Scott, and the disturbingly sexual creature design ofH.R. Giger, this studio-backed B-movie became perhaps the best haunted house movie ever. As an added bonus, it’s sci-fi, and the house is a spaceship.Sigourney Weavermade a name for herself in Hollywood as Ellen Ripley, the cool-headed sole survivor of the xenomorph’s rampaging of the USCSS Nostromo. Weaver would be Oscar-nominated forJames Cameron’s action-heavy 1986Aliens. Both films are high-water marks for genre craftsmanship; which one is “better” is a matter of personal preference.
The franchise these two essential genre pictures jump-started is uneven and weird, endearingly so. You’ll never hear two identical opinions aboutDavid Fincher’s visually splendidAlien 3, andAlien Resurrectionis often inspired, occasionally awful French chaos.Two late-career sequels from Scottare ambitious, inferior and extremely pretty. Generally consistent horror directorFede Alvárez’s recentAlien: Romulusdid a lot right, ultimately derailed by baffling, illusion-breaking callbacks to the original duology. The decades-spanning ups and downs that followed have done nothing to tarnish Scott’s original,a work of pure, vivid and dark imagination.
In deep space, the crew of the commercial starship Nostromo is awakened from their cryo-sleep capsules halfway through their journey home to investigate a distress call from an alien vessel. The terror begins when the crew encounters a nest of eggs inside the alien ship. An organism from inside an egg leaps out and attaches itself to one of the crew, causing him to fall into a coma.
8’Scream' (1996)
Directed by Wes Craven
Isn’t it funny how some of the most horror-obsessed people in this world are also among the kindest, most open-minded? By all accounts a teddy bear in real life, the late, untouchable and incomparably greatWes Cravenpushed boundaries his entire career, beginning with his infamous grindhouse debutThe Last House on the Left(still something of an endurance test over half a century later), further expanding with the startlingly original and wildly successfulA Nightmare on Elm Street.
ThoughA Nightmare on Elm Streetis hard to match for innovation, it was hindered slightly by a tacked-on, awful ending that Craven never wanted. Over a decade later, thanks toKevin Williamson’s sharp-as-hell, meta script about serial killers (spoiler!) who are obsessed with horror movies, Craven had another shot at making a perfect movie. He succeeded. The first and most famous sequence inScream(it wasDrew Barrymore’s own idea to play Casey Becker, who’s killed horribly 12 minutes in) sets an aggressively unpredictable tone, andScreamultimately gives ushorror’s toughest, bravest final girlthanks to an ace, star-making turn fromNeve Campbell.All at once, this movie is incredibly violent and scary, and it’s a glossy, fun and funny ride that even non-horror fans can easily dive into. It’s a pop masterpiece.
A year after the murder of her mother, a teenage girl is terrorized by a masked killer who targets her and her friends by using scary movies as part of a deadly game.
Directed by George A. Romero
More than likely the best horror sequel ever filmed (it’s between this andJames Whale’s classicBride of Frankenstein), and easily the king of zombie pictures,George A. Romero’s follow-up toNight of the Living Deadfrom a decade prior starsDavid Emge,Gaylen RossandKen Foreeas survivors of a flesh-eating apocalypse who seek refuge in a shopping mall.Dawn of the Deadwas remade rather well, and successfully from a financial standpoint, byZack Snyderin 2004. That was one of the higher points of the aughts' horror remake craze, but it still can’t hold a candle to the rawness and deadpan wit that made Romero’s film a historic achievement.
All the more commendable for being made in a time when movie sequels were a rarity, often stigmatized,Dawn of the Deadisabsolutely everything a sequel should be: it’s a better, more confident film made with more time and more resources. Roger EbertgaveDawn of the Deadhis highest rating of four stars,and said: “It is gruesome, sickening, disgusting, violent, brutal and appalling. It is also (excuse me for a second while I find my other list) brilliantly crafted, funny, droll, and savagely merciless in its satiric view of the American consumer society.”
Dawn of the Dead
A nurse, a policeman, a young married couple, a salesman and other survivors of a worldwide plague that is producing aggressive, flesh-eating zombies, take refuge in a mega Midwestern shopping mall.
6’The Babadook' (2014)
Directed by Jennifer Kent
The early 21st century was hardly a hot spot for great horror movies; the genre was generally kept afloat by theSawmovies and other torture-related fare that critics mostly trashed (perhaps with good reason). The dawn of “elevated horror” would change the genre permanently; that’s a term that caught fire sometime in the 2010s thanks to movies likeIt Follows, Hereditary, Get Out,and certainly thanks toJennifer Kent’s critically acclaimedThe Babadook. The supernatural thriller starsEssie DavisandNoah Wiseman(both performances were awards-worthy, though Davis’s received more attention) as a grieving widow and a hyperactive problem child who are stalked by a sinister, shape-shifting presence.
The monster effects here, especially Mister Babadook’s first appearance in seamless stop-motion, are terrifying.The film is a harmonious blend of slow-burn tension, atmosphere, and mercilessly effective jump scares(so, really, everything in a horror filmmaker’s toolbox), but the scariest thing about Jennifer Kent’s masterwork of horror might just be how well the drama works. This movie is scary enough to give you nightmares, maybe even to disrupt your sleeping schedule for an extended period of time, but it’s alsoa tender, insightful story about a family in crisis.
The Babadook
5’The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' (1974)
Directed by Tobe Hooper
Tobe Hooper’s breakthrough feature, a nasty and uncompromising affair, would prove to be one of the most influential films ever, across genres.Marilyn BurnsandGunnar Hansenstar in an early slasher (before the term was popularized) about a tragedy which befell a group of five youths, at the unmerciful hands of the cannibalistic Sawyer family. This turbulent, ingeniously low-fi (and very, swelteringly hot) production is the subject of one of the best, most deliriously entertaining books ever written about making a movie: Hansen’sChain Saw Confidential: How We Made the World’s Most Notorious Horror Movie.
Hooper reportedly hoped for a PG rating here, which is hilarious; the relatively bloodless but thoroughly shocking film was initially slapped with an X before some edits, and banned in many territories. Not everyone was on board withThe Texas Chain Saw Massacrein 1974 (Roger Ebert gave it two stars, still much better thanthe aggressive zero he awarded the remake), but the cinematic dexterity would eventually become impossible for anyone to deny. Hooper and Spielberg would collaborate onPoltergeistnearly a decade later; Spielberg himself was reportedly in awe ofTexas Chain Saw’s famous dolly shot, which makes a simple farmhouse appear several threatening stories tall.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
A group of friends traveling through rural Texas encounter a family of deranged cannibals, including the terrifying Leatherface. As they explore an old homestead, they are systematically hunted down in gruesome ways. The film culminates in a harrowing chase and a desperate escape attempt by the last survivor, Sally, who narrowly evades the murderous Leatherface.
4’The Shining' (1980)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Four years afterBrian De Palmarocked critics, the box office, and even Oscar voters with another perfect horror film,Carrie,Stanley Kubrickloosely adapted the work ofStephen Kingto results that were far more divisive, at least at first. Even though it’s long been revered as a masterpiece, with some even calling it the best horror movie ever made,The Shiningis by definition a cult classic. The box office and many critics were left cold by this admittedly chilly (also, oppressively frightening) thriller of isolation and madness in 1980.Jack Nicholsondelivers what’s likely the most famous performance in one of the lengthiest, most celebrated careers of any actor, playing alcoholic writer Jack Torrance, slowly possessed by supernatural forces at play in the vast Overlook Hotel he’s tasked with maintaining.
Over the years, there’s been much conversation around Kubrick’s abusive on-set treatment of Nicholson’s co-star,the ever-underrated Shelley Duvall.Though it’s certainly worth mentioning Duvall would go on to say she felt no ill will toward the obsessive filmmaker, it’s a disturbing footnote that’s always been attached to one of the defining horror works,a film that’s pervasive throughout pop culture in a way that few films of any genre could ever aspire to be.
The Shining
A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.
3’Psycho' (1960)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Just after making his greatest crowd pleaser, the decidedly not-scaryNorth by Northwest,Alfred Hitchcocktook his biggest gamble ever, adaptingRobert Bloch’s sordid page-turner about a botched crime of desperation, and brutal bloodshed at the Bates Motel. Hitchcock and the studio went to unprecedented lengths to be sure audiences were in their seats from the jump due to the film’s shocking deaths and other twists. With great performances from bothAnthony PerkinsandJanet Leigh, Psycho wasa boundary-pushing assault on the censors.
It’s at least possiblePsycho’s status as a perfect movie could be contested: the penultimate scene of the film over-explains every damn thing we just watched with our own eyes; it’s unnecessary and has always stuck out a bit. Still, nothing could change the fact that this isarguably the best-directed motion picture in all of history.Anentire feature-length documentarywas made about its endlessly dissected shower scene.
A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer’s client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.
2’Halloween' (1978)
Directed by John Carpenter
Due to its subject matter (a man in a mask stalks young women, commits some murder), it must have been tempting for some critics in the late ’70s to dismissJohn Carpenter’s now-revered landmark thriller; in fact, some critics did just that. Among them, the highly influentialPauline Kaeldismissed it as “dumb scariness.” Roger Ebert’s initialHalloweenreview went a long way in boosting the picture’s theatrical run (it slowly became the highest-grossing indpendent film of its day). Ebert gave the film his highest rating and called it “an absolutely merciless thriller, a movie so violent and scary that, yes, I would compare it toPsycho.” Here we are, nearly a half-century later, andHalloweenis aging just as well asPsycho. Maybe better.
Co-starring alongside Carpenter’s direction, a perfect and unusual piano score, andDean Cundey’s gorgeous, unnerving use of widescreen space, veteran actorDonald Pleasenceand first-time film starJamie Lee CurtisactHalloweenwith a great deal of artistry, heightening the emotions of what’s undeniably a straightforward, unfussy affair. There’s no subtext and nothing particularly complex going on here;Halloweenis technical prowess with the sole intention of raising your pulse.It’s hard to say if there ever has been, or will ever be, a filmmaking exercise that’s more purely exhilarating than this.
Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.
1’The Exorcist' (1973)
Directed by William Friedkin
William Friedkin’s blockbuster hit about a possession in Georgetown is only truly perfect in its theatrical cut; the 2000 re-release added content preferred by author and screenwriterWilliam Peter Blattythat frankly, ultimately just proved Friedkin’s filmmaking instincts were unmatched.Ellen Burstyn,Max von Sydow,Linda BlairandJason Millerstar in an epochal cinematic landmark that’sall at once the most successful, controversial, shocking, frightening, and best horror film of all time.Adjusted for inflation, this is one of a handful of the highest-grossing movies ever made, and Warner Bros.' all-time highest earner (its adjusted gross is right about double the haul of Warner’sBarbie).
In a 1973 review that immediately christenedThe Exorcistone of the finest and most shocking films of its kind,Roger Ebertsaid, “if movies are, among other things, opportunities for escapism, thenThe Exorcistis one of the most powerful ever made.” You’ll never see a more affecting film thanThe Exorcist. This isthe most powerful meditation on the struggle between good and evil in cinema.
The Exorcist
When a young girl is possessed by a mysterious entity, her mother seeks the help of two Catholic priests to save her life.
