The 100 Greatest Horror Movies of All Time, Ranked


The horror genre is arguably the hardest to get right. Even tougher than attempting to garner laughs in comedy films, horror filmmakers not only have to perfect the art of pacing and building tension, but they often need to locate something that sets them apart. This could be a variety of things — knowing their audience about the myriad subgenres within horror and really specializing in one; reflecting the neuroses and fears at the heart of the human subject through allegory; or, perhaps most crucially, having their finger on the pulse of contemporary sociopolitical issues and commentary, whether timeless or topical. This latter classification is often what makes scary movies truly important.







Whether they're seeing slasher, supernatural, psychological, or body horror films, horror audiences are extremely well-informed and often overly critical of genre clichés. Alongside this, culture, morality, politics, and special effects technology are all changing constantly. As such, horror continuously has to reinvent itself, both for its audience and to keep up with the times. Some films have navigated this constant fluctuation extremely well and have become not just scary but utterly important in the process. Whether for their allegorical messages and theories, for their cultural impact, or just for being damn terrifying and visually stunning, these are not just the best horror movies ever made, but the most important, too.





100 Begotten


begotten-poster.jpg
Release Date
June 5, 1991
Director
E. Elias Merhige
Cast
Brian Salzberg , Donna Dempsey , Stephen Charles Barry , James Gandia , Garfield White , Arthur Streeter , Daniel Harkins , Michael Phillips , Adolfo Vargas , Erik Slavin , Terry Andersen
Runtime
72 Minutes
Writers
E. Elias Merhige


The uncompromising arthouse film Begotten presents an abstract narrative grounded in cosmology and mythology about the creation of the world, but it hardly matters if you're cognizant of that. The main thing here is the visual style of mysterious director E. Elias Merhige (who would go on to make the brilliant Shadow of the Vampire but hasn't made a feature film in 20 years). He creates terrifying imagery that seems to exist beyond reality, beyond the kinds of things we're able to see (or ever should see); even without a concrete narrative, it will haunt you for the rest of your life.








99 Creep




Creep and its subsequent projects are a brilliant example of how effective minimalism can be if you have the right combination of artists. Like a horror version of My Dinner with Andre, Patrick Brice and Mark Duplass are perfectly in sync for this two-person slow-burn, having developed it together and reworked it during the intimate production. It's a found footage film about a videographer hired to record footage for a dying man's unborn child, but the arrangement between strangers becomes increasingly tense with mind games, fake-outs, and genuine threats. The tension builds to an unbearable climax in this masterpiece (and leads to an excellent sequel).








98 Fiend Without a Face


Fiend Without a Face
Release Date
June 3, 1958
Director
Cast
Marshall Thompson


Fiend Without a Face is notorious for being one of the first horror films to focus on actual gore, which would of course become synonymous (almost to a fault) with the genre. That's because the monsters of the film were human organs, invisible brains to be specific, and when they were killed, boy did they splat. The film follows the catastrophic results of atomic radiation (the standard for '50s horror), which leads to the physical (but invisible) materialization of human thought in the form of disgusting flying brains with attached spinal columns and freaky eyeballs. It all leads to an ahead-of-its-time 'protect the castle' ending when the brains attack a military base.






A Random Horror Delight


A strange anomaly in the history of horror cinema, Fiend Without a Face is the kind of film you couldn't really plan; the story behind it could make a great film in itself. There was L. Ron Hubbard's literary agent behind the scenes; a bunch of expatriate Americans from Canada and the UK; a stuffy director who didn't realize he was making a monster movie and went AWOL for periods of time; a pair of weird Austrian special effects artists with only a handful of films; and a marketing ploy that presented a caged, live brainstem monster outside movie theaters. Read up on this film for sure, but watch it regardless.





97 A Tale of Two Sisters


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Release Date
June 13, 2003
Cast
Kap-su Kim , Jung-ah Yum , Su-jeong Lim , Geun-Young Moon , Woo Ki-Hong , Dae-yeon Lee
Runtime
115 Minutes





Based on a classic Joseon-era folk story, A Tale of Two Sisters is one of the great genre films that kicked off a new generation of Korean cinema in the 21st century. An enigmatic, complicated psychological thriller with increasingly creepy imagery, the film follows a girl's return to her sister and parents after time spent at a mental institution, and the disturbing, ghostly events which follow.





96 All the Colors of the Dark




One of the more bonkers giallo films of the '70s (and that's saying something), filmmaker Sergio Martino unleashes his abstract style in the most unbridled way in All the Colors of the Dark. The film is a hallucinogenic trip, appropriate for a story about a woman who is losing her grip on reality after a car accident, and who believes she is being stalked and pursued. The plot winds through slasher and occult territory, but the main appeal is the tortured, desperate performance from the great Edwige Fenech, who is simply unforgettable here.






95 Insidious


Insidious
Release Date
September 13, 2010
Runtime
102


Insidious combines three of the leading names in modern horror — director James Wan (The Conjuring), producer Jason Blum (of Blumhouse), and writer Leigh Whannell (Saw and director of The Invisible Man). Their combined knowledge of horror works together brilliantly here in what a scientific study has deemed 'the scariest movie of all time.' Whether that's applicable or not, Insidious is undoubtedly a brilliantly crafted scare-machine about parents trying to recuse their child from demonic possession.





94 The Host


The Host
Release Date
July 27, 2006
Cast
Song Kang-ho , Byun Hee-bong , Park Hae-il , Bae Doona , Go Ah-sung
Runtime
119 Minutes



The Host immediately became beloved internationally despite being a somewhat niche South Korean creature feature, but it's obvious to see why. It's just such a wholesome, fun, entertaining movie. It feels exactly like a slightly modernized (and visually improved) throwback to the classic monster movies of the 1950s, like Them! and Attack of the Crab Monsters. The film (from Bong Joon-ho, future Oscar winner for Parasite) follows a man and his family after his daughter is snatched by a river-dwelling monster, which still serves as a great allegory for pollution, disease, and environmental disaster.





93 Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein


abbott-and-costello-meet-frankenstein-1948-poster-lon-chaney-bela-lucosi-glenn-strange.jpg
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
Release Date
June 15, 1948
Director
Charles Barton
Runtime
83 Minutes
Writers
Frederic I. Rinaldo , John Grant , Robert Lees





While it may seem goofy to feature a buddy-duo comedy in a list of the best horror films, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were actually responsible for continuing the Universal monster legacy years after it had slowed down. Multiple films find them 'meeting' the Wolf Man, Dracula, the Mummy, and the Invisible Man. The best of all of them, though, is Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, not only because it actually includes a good narrative and some real scares, but because of its great performances. Bela Lugosi reprises his role as Dracula, Lon Chaney Jr. does the same for the Wolf Man, and Glenn Strange plays Frankenstein's monster (with Vincent Price voicing the Invisible Man for a bit). It's just a pure delight to see these icons having fun in their classic monster personas.





92 Island of Lost Souls





Long before the legendary failure of Richard Stanley's attempt at The Island of Doctor Moreau with Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer (and even before the oddly fine 1977 adaptation with Burt Lancaster), there was the 1932 masterpiece, Island of Lost Souls. A pre-code early talkie, the film was able to get away with a surprising amount of sexuality and horror, featuring a man trapped on the mad doctor's island, surrounded by his mutant experiments, lusted after by 'Lota, The Panther Woman.' The atmosphere is perfect throughout, Charles Laughton's portrayal of Moreau is astounding, the makeup is terrifying, and the screams are unforgettable.





91 Thirst


thirst-poster.jpg
Release Date
April 30, 2009
Cast
Song Kang-ho , Kim Ok-bin , Kim Hae-sook , Shin Ha-kyun
Runtime
134 Minutes





Park Chan-wook's excellent filmography includes some extremely disturbing moments and a lot of graphic violence, but Thirst is technically his only horror film. A vampire romance with an apocalyptic streak, Thirst is a bizarre epic obsessed with the notion of desire and its intersection with destruction. The film has a wonderful gimmick — a Catholic priest accidentally becomes a vampire after an experimental medical procedure. Is he liberated from the cloth? Can a vampire be a man of God? Will his desire for his friend's wife save him or destroy him? Directed with pure style, the underrated film is a beautiful oddity.





90 Curse of the Demon







Curse of the Demon (known as Night of the Demon in the UK, a title used in many other instances) feels like a rare instance of prestige horror in a time when the genre was relegated to low budgets and B-movies. Featuring a great performance from mainstream matinée idol Dana Andrews and a supporting cast of excellent British actors, Curse of the Demon was a horror film for sophisticates from the great auteur, Jacques Tourneur. The film was like a horror twist on The Third Man — an American arrives across the pond to discover that the man who requested him is dead. In this case, however, the culprit isn't Orson Welles, but rather a demonic entitiy.





89 Dracula: Prince of Darkness







It's a shame to limit this list to one Hammer horror film, as the British studio deserves to be recognized as more than just a modernized, Technicolor reboot of Universal's classic monsters. Hammer became the predecessor of modern monster movies, with their focus on shock, sex, and sequels. And with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, their films rivaled the old Universal ones in many ways. Perhaps the best of them all is the extremely unique Dracula: Prince of Darkness, especially in a double feature with its prequel, Horror of Dracula.



A Unique Dracula Movie with Great Visuals


Christopher Lee excels as a silent and nightmarish Dracula in these films, and Peter Cushing is the greatest Van Helsing of all time. Horror of Draclua ends with arguably the greatest showdown between the pair, but Dracula: Prince of Darkness introduces such a bigger scope of lore, ideas, and imagination, that it remains one of the best Dracula movies ever made. While it undoubtedly stands out from the typical vampire movie, the eccentricities of this film make it as immortal as Dracula himself.






88 The Birds


The Brids
Release Date
March 29, 1963
Cast
Rod Taylor , Tippi Hedren , Jessica Tandy , Suzanne Pleshette , Veronica Cartwright
Runtime
1hr 59min
Writers
Daphne Du Maurier , Evan Hunter


The Birds is certainly one of the most important horror movies ever made, and one of the most interesting. Unfortunately, it's just very dated, and there's no way to watch it without feeling a deep chasm between yourself and the characters. Nonetheless, Hitchcock's direction and pacing is absolutely perfect, and he creates a kind of allegorical eeriness that we would come to call 'elevated horror' 50 years later. Ahead of the curve, Hitchcock didn't waste time in the film with exposition and spoon-feeding. Instead, he presents a haunting reality that can't be solved, a Freudian nightmare that subverted depictions of sexuality and relationships of the time.






87 His House




A stunning achievement from a first-time feature film director, His House has become one of the most acclaimed horror films of the century. Despite the simplicity of its haunted house template, the film explores big ideas about immigration, assimilation, appropriation, and the relationship between culture and identity. Remi Weekes' film follows Sudanese refugees attempting to make a home for themselves amid racism, poverty, and xenophobia. Meanwhile, the ghosts of their past become literal in horrifying ways in this oddly beautiful but painful horror masterpiece.








86 Audition


audition-movie-poster.jpg
Release Date
March 3, 2000
Cast
Miyuki Matsuda , Eihi Shiina , Tetsu Sawaki , Jun Kunimura , Ryo Ishibashi
Runtime
115 minutes
Writers
Daisuke Tengan


Audition is one of those movies where even including it in a list like this feels like you've given away too much. It's a shame to even classify this movie, which benefits from audience ignorance. Suffice it to say, it's directed by one of Japan's best and most provocative modern filmmakers, Takashi Miike (Ichi the Killer), and brilliantly twists turn-of-the-century romances like Sleepless in Seattle into an unexpected psychological thriller like you've never seen. Check it out.





85 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)







Invasion of the Body Snatchers has one of the great premises — humans are being replaced by aliens who can mimic them so well that it's hard to tell who's who. We can see that idea in the foundations of other great titles (The Thing, The Stepford Wives, Battlestar Galactica), but Invasion of the Body Snatchers masters it in a way that's allegorically peculiar. It's been done many times, with each film signifying something different depending on the decade it's released.



McCarthy, Conformity, and Pod People


While the 1970s version tackled Watergate and Vietnam, the early '90s version tackled AIDS and the military, and the 2000s version tackled the Iraq War, the original 1956 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers was a brilliant indictment of contemporary issues. The film mainly attacked the Joseph McCarthy witch hunts which blacklisted artists and assumed everyone was a Communist, but says so much else. It's still so perfectly paced and remains disturbing to this day thanks to action maestro Don Siegel's direction and Kevin McCarthy's incredible performance (no relation).






84 Scanners


scanners
Release Date
January 14, 1981
Director
David Cronenberg
Cast
Jennifer O'Neill , Stephen Lack , Patrick McGoohan , Lawrence Dane , Michael Ironside , Robert A. Silverman
Runtime
103
Writers
David Cronenberg


After the deadly STDs of Shivers and the porn star armpit vampire of Rabid, David Cronenberg hit the mainstream with Scanners, the film that's infamous for its exploding heads. The brilliance of Scanners is that it takes Cronenberg's typical fixations (the connection between body and mind, the cold control of corporations and governments, the power of autonomous flesh) and turns it into a slick espionage-style thriller. With relatable characters and a clear path for them, Scanners is simply a (gory) joy to watch, with one hell of an ending.








83 Pontypool




Sometimes a film's basic idea can be so powerful that it overrides any marginal flaws. That's the case with Pontypool, which is a low-budget film that often feels like a play and has a haunting ambiguity that can piss some people off. But the basic premise and how it's carried out (with a wickedly charming performance from Stephen McHattie) make this one of the most timeless and most rewatchable horror films ever made. Forget body fluids — what if language was a virus and contagious?





82 Kwaidan







One of Japan's many great anthology films, Kwaidan is a long-time classic respected by cinephiles far and wide, even those who have no taste for horror. That's because it's directed with such passion and specificity by Masaki Kobayashi, a filmmaker who isn't a genre regular; he's a master craftsman, responsible for the 10-hour epic, The Human Condition. His work here is a testament to the quality of these folktales and how important they are in Japanese culture; they're brought to life in surprising, harrowing, and always artful ways. Watch out for that snow demon...





81 The Tenant







The Tenant remains one of the most underrated films from a brilliant director and terrible person. It's part of probably the best horror trilogy ever made, the Apartment Trilogy, alongside Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby. Like those films, The Tenant follows an outsider moving into a new apartment and becoming increasingly paranoid that things are not as they seem. Except, in this film, Roman Polanski plays the leading role (years after going into exile when his partner Sharon Tate was murdered by Charles Manson's gang). It results in one of the rawest, most personal films ever made by a director, and one of the strangest and most unnerving horror films out there.



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