The 55 Best Classic Horror Films of All Time
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Everyone just wants to scream. And these days, there's plenty to get people shrieking. But the horror genre, which has experienced a remarkable renaissance in the last decade, thanks to the work of buzzy auteurs like Jordan Peele and M. Night Shyamalan, is full of super realistic CGI and blood and guts splattered in every color of the rainbow on screen. And while that's all well and creepy, contemporary horror films with their gimmickry and gore are often no match for the classics.
There’s something startlingly horrific about black and white terrors from some of history’s most inventive and cunning filmmakers. So if you’re in the mood to have the living hell scared out of you, these classic films—from psycho killers to supernatural hauntings and the everlasting terror of the undead—are just as heart-stopping as anything that would hit streamers today. Here are our 50 favorite horror films of all time.
I Know What You Did Last Summer
I Know What You Did Last Summer follows a group of teenagers who commit a fatal hit and run. A year after the crime, they receive an anonymous letter from someone who, yeah, knows what they did. Antics ensue.
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Candyman
Candyman follows Helen Lyle, a young graduate student studying the Cabrini Green housing projects in Chicago. While researching the building’s history, she discovers a sinister folktale about a hook-handed killer called Candyman. She dismisses the story as an urban legend—but after seeing a man who matches his description, Helen fears Candyman may actually be real.
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The Silence of the Lambs
In The Silence of the Lambs, Jodie Foster stars as Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee tasked with tracking down a serial killer. In order to do so, she enlists the help of Hannibal Lecter, a psychiatrist imprisoned for murder and cannibalism. Can help her get into the mind of a killer—or is she merely bait in a twisted game?
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The Amytville Horror
Before Insidious and The Conjuring, there was The Amityville Horror. The horrifying classic follows a family who is haunted by a malevolent spirit after moving to New York. Their new home is beautiful. The only issue? Its previous owners were brutally murdered inside of it. Naturally, their arrival leads to some supernatural issues, so the family calls an exorcist for backup.
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Dead Ringers
Dead Ringers is a psychological thriller, following twin gynecologists Beverly and Elliot. When he’s not hard at work, Elliot spends his spare time wooing his patients, then passing them off to his brother when he’s done. The women never notice a difference, but their scheme falls apart when they meet Claire. Beverly quickly falls for her, but their twisted relationship sends him into a chilling spiral.
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Suspiria
Suspiria, which tells the story of an aspiring ballerina who Alice-in-Wonderlands her way into a coven (!), won't shock you with big, unforgettable moments. No. It'll slowly burrow under your skin, until all you hear is Goblin's twinkling, eerie, score—a full week later. The remake is very much worth a watch, too.
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Sleepaway Camp
Watch until the end. That's all I'll say.
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The Tell-Tale Heart
The Tell-Tale Heart was scary when Edgar Allen Poe published it in January 1843. It was scary when Laurence Payne starred in its 1960 adaptation, listed here. And yes, any consumption of the tale is still damn scary today.
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Daughters of Darkness
For some men, deep, creative emasculation is just about the most horrifying thing they could ever face. Add vampires to the mix and you have Daughters of Darkness.
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Day of the Dead
Don't worry. George Romero's Night of the Living Dead is elsewhere on this list. Are you really going to tell us that any Romero zombie flick doesn't deserve a spot in the horror-movie canon? That's right. We had to lead off with Day of the Dead, which sees Romero level up all of his tricks: makeup, costumes, the groaaaans.
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Frankenstein
Dr. Frankenstein's monster, assembled together from the parts of dead bodies, is one of the most famous monsters ever created. Author Mary Shelley came up with the idea of a reanimated corpse when she was just 18 years old, and he was made even more iconic as part of Universal Pictures' monster pantheon.
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Halloween (1978)
Murderer Michael Myers escapes on Halloween night and returns to his hometown, stalking his next victims and wreaking havoc on local teenagers.
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The Thing
An alien that can copy and take the form of the humans it encounters is thawed out of an icy prison by scientists at an arctic research stadium. Wow, what a plot. Starring Kurt Russell and directed by John Carpenter, the small crew has no idea what they've accidentally unleashed.
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The Blob (1958)
The blob is a gelatinous mass that eats its victims alive, growing in size with each new meal. It's a campy classic starring Steve McQueen—and one of the most ridiculous monsters ever brought to the big screen.
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House on Haunted Hill (1959)
Vincent Price had such a gift for suspenseful storytelling that his voice was used in Michael Jackson's "Thriller." And roles in films like House on Haunted Hill, partly inspired by "The Haunting of Hill House," first cemented the stage and television actor as a master.
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M
A terrifying early horror classic, M follows a serial killer who roams the streets of Germany and preys on young children. Scary! With the cops on his trail, the killer works himself into a petrified frenzy.
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Bunny Lake Is Missing
Bunny Lake Is Missing is the absolutely terrifying story of a woman who, when she goes to her daughter's school, can't find her young one anywhere. Even worse, none of the teachers even remember seeing her. As she scours the surroundings, the town starts to question her sanity.
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The Mummy
It's 1932 and, I think we can all agree, the stakes were quite a bit lower for what would shock audiences. Here, one guy dresses up like an Egyptian mummy, hypnotizes with his spinning eyes, and all hell breaks loose.
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Vampyr
Vampyr is a Danish telling of vampire folklore, made in 1932 when sound films were still relatively new. The work also employed spooky shadows and visual effects.
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Poltergeist
Kids make everything scary, which is something Steven Spielberg knew when he wrote the screenplay for Poltergeist. A haunted house is one thing but when kids start communicating with the spirits, it's all over for the audience's nerves.
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The Phantom Carriage
A silent film classic, The Phantom Carriage retells the myth of the grim reaper. In this Swedish horror creation, the last person to die when the clock strikes midnight on New Year's must become Death himself.
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Jaws
Shark Week meets the Hollywood blockbuster in Jaws, the original scourge of the deep that sends the beach crowd running and the brave hunters in need of a bigger boat.
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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre established the modern, gory slasher genre thanks to the titular killer, his chainsaw, and his mask made from human flesh. Even worse is that the group of terrorized friends stays at a farmhouse—a treasure trove of dangerous machines and tools.
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Wait Until Dark
In this 1964 thriller, which manages to take place entirely within the confines of her small apartment, Audrey Hepburn stars as a blind woman who becomes the victim of a home invasion.
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Dracula (1931)
Bela Lugosi became one of the most famous horror actors of the '30s and '40s after his role in Dracula, defining the modern version of the dashing, hypnotizing vampire who preys on his victims so that he can suck out their blood.
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Seance on a Wet Afternoon
Trying to think of ways to improve her business as a medium, a housewife sends her timid husband to kidnap a little girl so that she can use her "psychic powers" to aid the police in finding her.
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Cat People (1942)
No, this isn't Paul Schrader's freaky '90s remake, this is the 1942 Cat People, a classic thriller by Jacques Tourneur about a woman who believes that she has a curse that turns her into a jaguar.
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The Lodger
When a series of murders occurs in London, frightened citizens start pointing their fingers at a reclusive, secretive new tenant who pays in advance and is prone to suspicious behavior.
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Curse of the Demon
There are secrets living in Stonehenge—a prehistoric rock sculpture with unknown origins—and Professor John Holden decides to investigate its ties to the supernatural. When he meets satanic cult leader Dr. Julian Karswell, his faith in science is shaken.
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Kwaidan
Kwaidan, a Japanese horror anthology film whose title translates to "ghost story" in English, features four stories of supernatural folklore and terror in feudal Japan.
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Hour of the Wolf
Ingmar Bergman's remote Swedish hour film follows an artistic couple's island retreat and the demons that visit them at night. The ghoulish entities make their way into his art, and his wife worries after reading his troubled diary.
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What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Legends Bette Davis and Joan Crawford star together in this disturbing drama about two sisters who ruined each other's lives. Injured in a car crash by her sister and now wheelchair-bound, the former child actress decides to seek revenge.
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Repulsion
Put off by the advances of almost every man she encounters, a young manicurist, played by Catherine Deneuve, is slowly driven to madness as she fearfully locks herself in her apartment.
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Peeping Tom
A photographer and film studio employee who takes seductive photos of women decides to make a documentary on the feeling of fear by filming his victims' deaths as he murders them.
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Nosferatu (1922)
100 years since the silent horror film's debut, the legend of Nosferatu, the Transylvanian vampire, has lived on through countless Dracula adaptations, teen fantasy romance novels like Twilight, and even B-List Spider-Man villains like Morbius.
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Diabolique
Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, the French master of suspense, Diabolique's spooky boarding school- and murder-mystery helped inspire Hitchcock's Psycho. (The two directors were quite fond of each other's work and even competed for the rights to Diabolique's screenplay.)
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The Omen (1976)
Creepy kid? Check. Demonic intervention? You bet. The Omen is the original "my toddler may be the Antichrist" film, acting as a sort of spiritual successor to Rosemary's Baby.
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Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
A remake of the 1956 classic, the second Invasion of the Body Snatchers built upon the idea of humanity being replaced by mindless clones by adding star performances from Donald Sutherland and Jeff Goldblum.
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Carrie
The best adaptation of a Steven King novel to the big screen, Carrie lived every teenage girl’s fantasy of scaring her bullies half-to-death and having enough psychic powers to win fights against her mom. She just maybe took it all a little too far.
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The Exorcist
The Exorcist is synonymous with the whole demon subgenre of horror—and for good reason. Based on the true story of a demonic possession (aren’t they all!), William Friedkin’s 1973 film of a little girl and her exorcism is one few can top to this day.
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A Nightmare on Elm Street
The original film in the classic slasher franchise is just as chilling today as it was in 1984, with few villains as iconic and culturally significant as Freddy Krueger. In his formal introduction, the serial killer with the melted face and knives as fingers returns to Elm Street in the dreams of the children of those who killed him years ago. Although he only stalks the youngsters as they sleep, what happens there can have fatal consequences in reality.
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Rosemary's Baby
Roman Polanski’s 1968 film is a dark, demon-filled fixture of the horror canon. It follows a couple who, upon moving into a haunted Manhattan apartment building, conceive and give birth to the spawn of Satan.
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The Birds
Birds are terrifying even when they aren’t the villains in a horror film, so you can imagine how scary this 1963 classic is from Alfred Hitchcock. It follows Melanie Daniels, a socialite, as she accompanies a lawyer to a town where the birds feast on human flesh.
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The Shining
Stanley Kubrick’s take on Stephen King’s novel (yep, you got that right) is a cult favorite for fans of the genre. The psychological horror follows Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson, as he descends into homicidal madness at the Overlook Hotel.
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Eraserhead
For his debut feature, David Lynch dove deep into a surrealist style that would soon become his calling card. Jack Nance plays a man living in a desolate industrial wasteland who is just like any other guy: he has a thing for his attractive neighbor but finds out her deformed baby is somehow his child. To make matters worse, he's also haunted by a woman living in his radiator and must maintain a semblance of sanity in a malevolent nightmare world.
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The Innocents
Based on Henry James's classic novella The Turn of the Screw, The Innocents stars Deborah Kerr as an impressionable young governess who takes a position raising two young children in the English countryside. As she learns to handle the troublemaking kids' quirkiness, she also begins to suspect they are under the control of the former governess and her lover, who both died before her arrival.
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The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
New horror movies are always trying to push the line of acceptability, often to off-putting results. The oldest examples of the genre, however, are actually some of the most mesmerizing, particularly this 1920 German expressionist gem about a murderous hypnotist, which essentially invented the serial-killer movie.
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Freaks
Director Tod Browning dared to imagine a revenge fantasy from the perspective of a group of circus "freaks"—and contemporary critics hated him for it, as the film got horrible reviews upon its release (and was censored heavily from its original version). Years later, however, it has gained a critical appreciation for its unsettling and unflinching plot.
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Carnival of Souls
After surviving a car accident, a disoriented woman wanders into an abandoned carnival pavilion, drawn in by its eerie music. There, she discovers a ghastly group of beings, seemingly lost and bewildered, led by a pale-faced man who haunts the heroine's waking dreams.
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The Night of the Hunter
Robert Mitchum plays a corrupt preacher who has "HATE" and "LOVE" tattooed on his hands (never a good sign). He charms his way into marrying a woman in order to steal a hidden stash of money, and her children have to stop him in this tense and taut thriller.
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Eyes Without a Face
In the very literally titled French art-horror classic, a famous and unhinged surgeon kidnaps beautiful women and tries to transplant their faces onto his daughter who is, yes, missing a face. Inspiring everything from Face/Off to the Billy Idol song, its visuals remain some of the most disturbing ever put to film.
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The Haunting
Based on Shirley Jackson's brilliant novel The Haunting of Hill House, this film finds a small group of guests participating in a paranormal study of a supposedly haunted mansion. There are horrifying bumps in the night, but it may not just be ghosts who are the cause of the guests' frights—but the spirit of the house itself.
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Psycho
All of Hitchcock’s movies are worth watching, and nearly all of them fit squarely into the thriller category. While they’re generally light on horrific elements, he took a hard turn with Psycho, which scared the living hell out of everyone who watched it in 1960. Today, though, it’s relatively low-key. The most terrifying part is Anthony Perkins’s superb, understated performance as a troubled man with serious mommy issues.
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Night of the Living Dead
George Romero essentially created the modern zombie film as we know it with this iconic horror film. Shot on a shoestring budget (making it one of the greatest indie films ever made), the slow-moving undead who roam around suburban Pittsburgh searching for fresh human meat remain some of the most terrifying monsters in cinema history. Come for the terror, stay for the surprising social commentary that brilliantly taps into American racial and cultural tensions.
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