The 75 Greatest Horror Movies of All Time

In Wes Craven’s “Scream” — not quite the definitive horror movie but certainly the definitive account of horror fandom — final girl Sidney famously responds to the question of whether she likes scary movies with a resounding no. “What’s the point? They’re all the same,” she says through the phone to the movie’s slasher. “Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can’t act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door.”

Her complaint acts as a clever joke about the stale state of the mainstream slasher genre that Craven was riffing on (and unintentionally revived) through his tongue-in-cheek meta spin. But it’s also a nod toward the less-than-flattering viewpoint that gatekeepers and non-horror aficionados have toward the genre, as a playground for cheap and easy B-movies and formulaic jump scares.

Anyone who dives into the history of horror will know that that’s certainly not the case. Rooted in silent cinema classics like “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” and “The Phantom Carriage,” the horror genre encompasses campy creature features, exploitative shock fests, cerebral psychological terror, vomit-inducing flesh-and-spine-bursting Cronenberg creations, mournful ghost stories, modern “elevated horror,” and a dozen other microcategories beyond films about a stalker with a knife and a grudge. And that’s not to discount the slasher films that offer something rivetingly new and original.

What makes a horror film a part of the genre thus has relatively little to do with its actual content and everything to do with what it provokes within its audience. Making a truly scary movie — one that burrows into your mind and delivers a sense of unease that can’t be forgotten — is a task that requires much more skill behind the camera than it is often given credit for, and the best horror movies have a craft to them that stands up to any auteur project or Oscar Best Picture winner. It’s no surprise that the genre has such a passionate, devoted following of film geeks that regularly turn out for new releases — when a horror movie is great, there’s no experience quite like it.

In building IndieWire’s new list of the greatest horror movies ever made, we opted to omit some films that straddle the nebulous line between the horror and thriller genres (so you won’t find “The Silence of the Lambs” here, to get a particularly major example out of the way), at least for now. We paid attention to films that paved the way for the genre and for filmmaking as a whole, as well as to modern classics that bring something new and brilliant to the canon today. What every film on this list has in common is that their horrors are more than just boogeymen and spirits projected upon a silver screen, but a conduit into which deeper real-life fears are made manifest. From social discontent to primal fear of the unknown, horror is a genre that reflects on humanity’s most potent paranoia, and the eternal darkness that rests within us. Read on for our list of the 75 greatest horror movies ever made.

With editorial contributions from Christian Blauvelt, Alison Foreman, Sarah Shachat, Ryan Lattanzio, Christian Zilko, Marcus Jones, Mark Peikert, Jim Hemphill, Marya Gates, Tambay Obenson, and Noel Murray.

75. “Hereditary” (dir. Ari Aster, 2018)

Ah, yes, it’s the anaphylactic skull “thwack” heard ‘round the world!

Like a car wrapped around a telephone poll, “Hereditary” was so widely celebrated upon its release that the film’s sterling reputation has since become something of a cliché. For studio A24 and scads of so-called “elevated horror” fans — born out of the genre renaissance this film helped create — there’s Before Ari Aster and After Ari Aster. The filmmaker’s algebraic feature debut in 2018 was indeed a key turning point in horror’s reputation across Hollywood. It’s also an exquisite, stand-alone display of artistry that deserves to be assessed outside the history it inherited… pun intended.

The unflappable Toni Collette deserved an Oscar for her “Hereditary” performance as Annie Graham, a miniatures artist grappling with complicated grief brought on by the death of her difficult mother, Ellen (Kathleen Chalfant). Her children, the oddball Charlie (Milly Shapiro) and her older brother Peter (Alex Wolff), have lived in the shadow of Annie and Ellen’s maternalistic trauma bond for as long as they can remember. With dad Steve (Gabriel Byrne) doing his best in the background, the family’s visible tension serves as an ideal starting block for Aster’s ultimately blistering take on supernatural possession.

Pulling inspiration from horror classics like “Rosemary’s Baby” and domestic dramas like “Scenes From a Marriage,” “Hereditary” is so exquisite and exacting in its consideration of film history that its references are almost imperceptible. As Annie starts to unravel, spurred on by the slippery Joan (Anne Dowd) and a not-so-helpful support group, her emotion looms larger than almost any of Aster’s nightmarish vignettes. Peter isn’t far behind, experiencing an agonizing psychological torment that’s on par with the physical atrocities’ characteristic of torture porn. Toss in some genuinely astounding jump-scares…and a brilliantly detailed text that makes every viewing feel new…and it’s no wonder “Hereditary” sent so many heads spinning. (Close your eyes and listen carefully. Can you still hear Annie screaming?) —AF 

74. “Scream” (dir. Wes Craven, 1996)

It’s an incredible achievement that a film this meta, this referential could also succeed so completely as a terrifying horror film in its own right. Yes, director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson depict a world here in which characters find themselves in a horror movie even as they’re endlessly discussing other horror movies and horror movie tropes, but by the ‘90s and the videostore era, it was not uncommon to find more than a few movie freaks who knew more about movies than real life. Some of them even became filmmakers themselves. Craven, almost 30 years older than Williamson, was able to bring some old-school storytelling brio to this slasher movie of slasher movies even as it cobbled together parts from other films, especially the opening scene that recasts “When a Stranger Calls” with poor, doomed Drew Barrymore. “Scream” wouldn’t succeed if it was only a movie about movies, though. Its fundamental conceit that the moronic high school jerks everyone spent their teen years with (at least a few of them, come on) might actually be outright murderous feels like… not a vast leap. —CB

73. “A Tale of Two Sisters” (dir. Kim Jee-woon, 2003)

Inspired by an oft-filmed Joseon dynasty-era folktale, South Korean director Kim Jee-woon’s “A Tale of Two Sisters” offers a darkly absurdist take on psychological horror. Largely unfolding in a secluded gothic country estate, the film follows Su-mi (Im Soo-jung) home after being released from a mental institution. There she reunites with her younger sister Su-yeon (Moon Geun-young) and the two butt heads with their icy stepmom Heo Eun-joo (Yum Jung-ah). Soon disturbing events, including the sight of her mother’s ghost, begin to shake Su-mi to her core. A heavy sense of dread cloaks the whole film in darkness, its restrained narration lulling the viewers into a state like sleep, which is then disrupted by carefully crafted jump scares and quick-cut editing. As the plot becomes more and more convoluted, the film reveals itself to be one best felt in all its eerie glory, rather than fully understood. —MG

72. “The Birds” (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)

There’s this thrill that happens in a great horror film whenever the audience feels like they, themselves, might be in danger from the terrors they’re witnessing onscreen, and few understand how to implicate a viewer better than Alfred Hitchcock. So it’s no coincidence that there’s an electric moment in the middle of “The Birds” when, sheltering in a restaurant after the first wave of avian aggression on Bodega Bay, a distraught character looks directly into the camera and says “I think you’re the cause of all this. I think you’re evil!” They don’t just mean Tippi Hedren. But it’s hard not to enjoy how Hitchcock takes such a simple premise — the birds, they are attacking people — and builds sonic and visual cathedrals of tension. Whether it’s what might be lurking up in an attic, or whether it’s what’s hiding in plain side beside a school yard, we know there’s unexplainable danger lurking ahead of our characters but not exactly when it will strike. We’re the cause of all this, but Hitchcock succeeds in making the execution(s) surprising. —SS

71. “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1992)

As played by Gary Oldman, the title vampire in Francis Ford Coppola’s luscious and pulsating “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” has a spirit as restless as the film’s director. Here, Coppola traverses the Ottoman Empire of the 15th century to London and Transylvania in an over-the-top, hyper-stylized Gothic that relies almost exclusively on practical effects and painterly set design to tell the most extravagant Stoker adaptation ever made.

American actor Keanu Reeves’ British accent as Jonathan Harker — a solicitor sucked into Count Dracula’s world — was criticized at the time but only now adds to the mannered air of Coppola’s whole creation. Winona Ryder’s performance as Harker’s fiancée Mina is as memorably arch as well, though Oldman’s incarnation of Dracula (in humanlike and other animal forms) is up there with Max Schreck as Count Orlok in 1922’s “Nosferatu.” Coppola’s “Dracula” isn’t jump-out-of-your-seat scary — but it pummels you with a relentless, hurtling terror, carried by Wojciech Kilar’s operatic score, that never lets up. An iconic scene where Mina’s friend Lucy (Sadie Frost) is attacked and bitten by Dracula — who travels to London in the form of an escaped wolf — is pure dialed-to-11 insanity, setting a pace that doesn’t flag for the rest of the film. —RL

70. “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” (dir. David Lynch, 1992)

It’s hard to overstate the shock that audiences (and his own collaborators!) must have felt when David Lynch unveiled his vision for the post-ABC era of “Twin Peaks.” Sure, the original run of the series changed TV history in ways too numerous to count, from its serialized plot and embrace of surrealism to the very notion that a celebrated filmmaker could bend the confines of primetime television to fit his own ideas. But at the end of the day, it was still a network show that had to work within certain rules. Overarching themes of rape, incest, addiction, and abuse could be eluded to, but not even David Lynch could truly skirt FCC regulations.

But from the opening frames of his prequel film “Fire Walk with Me,” Lynch made it clear that this was not your grandmother’s “Twin Peaks.” The soap opera-inspired intro with Angelo Badalamenti’s hauntingly nostalgic theme song was scrapped in favor of harsh blue opening title cards and new Badalamenti music that felt utterly devoid of warmth. The film that followed that was even harsher, as Lynch’s unflinching portrait of the sexual violence that Laura Palmer endured during her final hours on earth brought everything that the ABC series implied into unambiguously graphic detail. The film exposed the true extent of Lynch’s ambitions for the franchise as an exploration of why evil manages to thrive in our most idyllic spaces — setting the stage for the triumph that would eventually follow in “Twin Peaks: The Return.” —CZ

69. “In the Mouth of Madness” (dir. John Carpenter, 1994)

“When people begin to lose their ability to know the difference between fantasy and reality the old ones can begin their journey back,” novelist Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow) tells insurance investigator John Trent (Sam Neill) in John Carpenter’s “In The Mouth of Madness.” On one hand, this is a straightforward account of the film’s plot in which Cane’s novels are a gateway for ancient creatures to take over the planet. On the other hand, the line also describes the descent into a delirium akin to madness that many frenzied fans find themselves in after they become obsessed with works of fiction. Screenwriter Michael De Luca’s sharply satirical script mines the world of H.P. Lovecraft, monsters and all, to examine this troubling phenomenon. Neill’s committed and totally unhinged performance perfectly matches Carpenter’s freak, establishing both as masters of the genre. The film ends on a meta moment in a movie theater as Neill’s disturbing laughter dissipates into a disquieting silence, leaving the audience to contemplate their own relationship with reality. —MG

68. “Jaws” (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1975)

Is “Jaws” really a horror movie? Or is it an adventure film? The movie itself makes a powerful case for it being the former. After all, it ends up centering on a PTSD-suffering World War II veteran so desperately wracked with survivor’s guilt that he literally is hoping to be eaten by a shark, meeting the same fate of his long-dead crewmates of the U.S.S. Indianapolis. And it’s about the two unwitting companions trapped on a boat with him: What’s scarier than being trapped in a confined place with a deranged person? Poor Brody and Hooper thought they were living out one drama — the quest to kill a killer shark — and they all, shark included, got pulled into Quint’s drama instead. His trauma suddenly dictates their own fates.

The best horror films understand the power of the things you don’t see. Sometimes that’s out of necessity, when your mechanical shark doesn’t work. That’s how you get the horrifying, unforgettable opening scene with poor “summer girl” Chrissy being dragged beneath the surface by a Charcharodon charcharias. And sometimes it’s because what you, the audience, can imagine is literally more powerful than what a filmmaker could ever visualize: Quint’s iconic monologue about the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis is more powerful than if it had been staged in its entirety, so unforgettable it actually makes “Jaws” a World War II movie, even if it’s about the war still being waged in one very disturbed veteran’s mind three decades after the cannons went silent. The guilt and regret Quint carries with him is as powerful as that carried by any horror film character ever. If that isn’t scary, what is? Well, maybe the dereliction of duty of Amity’s local government! Its recreational-industrial complex would sacrifice tourists and residents on the altar of those sweet summer dollars. —CB

67. “Dawn of the Dead” (dir. George Romero, 1978)

“This was an important place in their lives” goes the famous line in George Romero’s sequel to “Night of the Living Dead.” The character who says that is referring to a shopping mall, specifically the Monroeville Mall located outside of Romero’s native Pittsburgh. That consumerism could still have pull, even for the undead, is pretty hilarious in its own right. And one could argue that that mall, with its light-up fountains, animatronics, canned music, and glorious ‘70s chain stores, is simply one of the greatest settings for any horror movie. But it serves a more important role than simply to illuminate that we’ll shop till even after we drop. Our quartet of heroes, escaped from Philadelphia in a helicopter they land at the mall, hole up there, because it’s the zombie apocalypse. And they have the time of their lives! They take money from the bank (not that they need to pay anyone), try on clothes and watches, grab bags full of candy, go ice skating, try out sports equipment, eat rich foods, and play arcade games. You can have the greatest fun when most of the rest of humanity is dead! In an extremely zero-sum economy, that might be the end state. —CB

66. “Suspiria” (dir. Dario Argento, 1977)

The giallo twisted into the shape of a pitch-black fairy tale, “Suspiria” brought Italian master Dario Argento international fame even as he left his signature genre behind. Not that he left the lessons he learned from his proto-typical slashers like “Deep Red” in the dust: Between its neon-hued light, buckets of blood, and nerve-wracking tension, the tale of a little girl lost at a ballet academy that doubles as a coven for witches utilizes every trick in Argento’s arsenal to fantastical and nightmarish extremes. Its surreal, wobbly plot feels appropriate for the psychedelic visual experience that Argento takes the audience and Susie (Jessica Harper) through in the dollhouse-like Tanz Akademie, all soundtracked to the unforgettable progressive rock score by Goblin. It adds up to a film that’s nastily violent yet stunning in its beauty — while there’s a scarce amount of actual ballet, the elegance of the dance is present all the same. —WC 

65. “The Babadook” (dir. Jennifer Kent, 2014)

The ghoulish home invader in “The Babadook” is conjured out of a children’s pop-up book and fittingly appears only a handful of times in the 2014 film. A thoughtful meditation on the persistence of grief, Jennifer Kent’s tour de force character study is a dark fairytale that’s ultimately all about its flawed human star. Essie Davis dazzles as the quietly rage-filled Amelia Vanek, a widow struggling to raise her ill-behaved 7-year-old, Samuel (Noah Wiseman) in Adelaide, Australia. Still grieving the death of her husband (Ben Winspear), who died in a car crash the same day her son was born, Amelia spends much of the movie untangling her well-intentioned stoicism from the reality of her tragic circumstance.

Plenty of horror movies are made better with a rewatch, but not since “The Sixth Sense” has an ending so beautifully reframed every heartbreaking beat to come before it. Kent’s script is straightforward but elegant, expanding on her short film “Monster” from 2005 to create a more complete picture of unresolved trauma. Against a backdrop of muted domestic malaise and sinister forces that are mostly unseen, Davis and kid star Wiseman (acting way beyond his years) expertly navigate Amelia and Samuel’s very personal hell — a painful prison that’s not self-made but fortified by its captives’ denial. There’s a world in which “The Babadook” works as a tense family drama. Instead, Kent valiantly wields the weapons of genre to make a compelling case for monster movies as portraiture of the highest art. —AF

64. “Shaun of the Dead” (dir. Edgar Wright, 2004)

Horror and comedy often feel like opposing sides of the same coin, thanks to their shared focus on eliciting visceral, often unexplainable primal emotions from us. It’s not easy to academically explain what makes something funny or scary, but we can always recognize when someone does it well. Plenty of auteurs have successfully made the jump from comedy to horror (or vice versa), but combining the two genres into one film is often a difficult task. Lean too far towards comedy and you’re left with a parody, but get too scary and any laughter that emerges from the audience will be more nervous than genuine.

That tension only makes “Shaun of the Dead” more impressive. Edgar Wright’s triumphant debut feature is the kind of comedy that only an obsessive horror fan could have made, paying tribute to the zombie giants like George Romero who came before him while inserting his distinct style of visual humor in droves. The film blends comedy and horror so well because it never seeks to mock what happens in zombie apocalypse. Instead, it takes its undead invasion seriously, while keeping in mind that normal people who lived normal lives before a horror movie starts will likely try to continue doing so even as monsters surround them. The result is a romantic comedy that merely happens during a zombie invasion — and a pitch-perfect directorial debut that correctly predicted the cinematic treats that Wright would go on to deliver over the next two decades. —CZ

63. “Invasion of the Body-Snatchers” (dir. Phillip Kaufman, 1978)

Philip Kaufman transplanted the Cold War-era aesthetic of Don Siegel’s 1956 B-horror movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” to a more visceral and real, New Hollywood-era San Francisco for the 1978 remake. Kaufman’s version, again about an alien race that leaves its dying planet to take the form of seed-podded humans on Earth, more closely works from Jack Finney’s 1955 novel.

All special effects — including the gross bodily transformations that occur as cocooned pod people emerge as affectless versions of their former selves — were created in camera. That practicality is appropriate for a movie that works just as well as a human drama (strange moods are written off as marital discord rather than as something possibly planet-engulfing) as it does high-minded science fiction. Donald Sutherland brings his ‘70s sangfroid to the role of a scientist trying to alert the government to a possible alien takeover — leading to the famous final scene in which nobody is the same person they began the movie as. —RL

62. “The Phantom Carriage” (dir. Victor Sjöström, 1921)

A major influence on the work of Ingmar Bergman, director Victor Sjöström’s “The Phantom Carriage,” adapted from Selma Lagerlöf’s 1912 novel “Körkarlen,” is a ghostly morality tale about the destructive force of selfishness and the redeeming power of compassion. The film stars Sjöström as a dispirited drunkard named David Holm who is forced to reflect on his past mistakes by the driver of Death’s carriage, who is chosen each year at the strike of midnight on New Year’s Eve. A cinematic poet, Sjöström’s unparalleled use of double exposure and dazzling color tinting creates an evocative atmosphere, while his innovative narrative structure, which employs flashbacks within flashbacks, disorients viewers, placing them directly into Holm’s disturbed psyche. Decades later, Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” would craft a similar portrait of the ravages of alcoholism on the family unit, going so far as to lift visual cues directly from Sjöström’s groundbreaking film. —MG

61. “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night” (dir. Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014)

Dubbed the, “first Iranian vampire Western,” Ana Lily Amirpour’s directorial debut “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” is a stridently feminist, sublimely beguiling, decidedly punk rock entry into the vampire canon. The small San Joaquin Valley town of Taft, California stands in for the Iranian ghost-town Bad City, which Amirpour filmed in stark black and white. Sheila Vand stars as the titular Girl, a black-hued chador-clad, skateboard-riding vampire who roams the streets at night looking for bad men to quench her thirst for blood. Her path crosses with a good young man named Arash (Arash Marandi) after she kills the drug dealer of his heroin-addicted father. As the two are mystically drawn to each other, the Girl must suppress her desire for his blood, while Arash must ignore the feelings of unease that arise after he suspects she may be responsible for a series of deaths in the neighborhood. —MG

60. “An American Werewolf in London” (dir. John Landis, 1981)

Backpacking through Europe takes a furry turn in John Landis’ howlingly good “An American Werewolf in London.” This genre-bending gem proves that lycanthropy is no walk in the park – or on the moors, for that matter. David Naughton stars as Jack, an American tourist who learns the hard way to beware of moonlit strolls in rural England. After a vicious wolf attack leaves his best friend dead and him scarred, Jack wakes up in London with a new appreciation for rare steak and an undead buddy (Griffin Dunne) who’s literally falling to pieces. Landis deftly balances horror and humor, serving up genuinely scary moments alongside wickedly funny dark comedy. The legendary transformation scene, featuring Oscar-winning effects by Rick Baker, still stands as the gold standard for practical werewolf metamorphosis. You’ll feel every cracking bone and sprouting hair follicle. As Jack grapples with his impending full-moon freakout, he finds solace (and romance) with a plucky nurse played by Jenny Agutter. Their tender moments make the inevitable tragic turn all the more gut-wrenching. The film builds to a chaotic crescendo in Piccadilly Circus that’ll have you cheering and wincing in equal measure. With its fish-out-of-water humor, quotable one-liners (“A naked American man stole my balloons!”), and pitch-perfect soundtrack (who knew Creedence Clearwater Revival could be so ominous?), “An American Werewolf in London” is a horror-comedy that actually excels at both. It’s a different kind of European vacation. —TO

59. “Onibaba” (dir. Kaneto Shindō, 1964)

This is not your run-of-the-mill ghost story – Kaneto Shindo’s “Onibaba” dishes out primal terror against the swaying susuki grass of 14th-century Japan. This delirium of a film proves that sometimes, the most terrifying monsters are the ones we become to survive. In war-torn feudal Japan, a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law eke out a grim existence by murdering lost samurai and selling their gear. Their uneasy alliance is threatened when a neighbor returns from war, leading to forbidden passions and jealousies. Add a mysterious samurai mask that may or may not be cursed, and you’ve got a recipe for psychological horror that’ll haunt your dreams. Shindo’s black-and-white cinematography transforms the vast grasslands into a claustrophobic maze, with characters appearing and disappearing like specters. The iconic hole where they dump their victims becomes a gaping maw to the underworld, hungry for fresh souls. The film’s eerie atmosphere is punctuated by bursts of violence and a hypnotic drum-heavy score that’ll have your heart pounding in sync. As our anti-heroines descend further into madness and desperation, “Onibaba” strips away the veneer of civilization to reveal the savage beast lurking within us all. Part historical drama, part Buddhist morality tale, and all nerve-shredding tension, “Onibaba” is a masterclass in less-is-more horror. You’ll probably feel the need to ponder the lengths you’d go to survive in a mad, mad world. —TO

58. “The Devil’s Backbone” (dir. Guillermo Del Toro, 2001)

A pivotal piece of Guillermo del Toro’s filmography, “The Devil’s Backbone” is one of the director’s most inspired fusions of genre thrills and thematic depth. Set during the Spanish Civil War, the movie is about an orphaned boy named Carlos (Fernando Tielve), who endures the bullying of his classmates, the petty power-plays of the orphanage’s deceitful handyman Jacinto (Eduardo Noriega), and the eerie presence of a vengeful ghost named Santi (Junio Valverde). The film features hidden gold, an unexploded bomb, and stealthy freedom fighters, all located in and around a haunted institution. It’s a story about people caught in various kinds of limbo — between life and death, between wealth and poverty, and between opposing political factions — and how they’re perpetually, anxiously on the verge of tipping from one side to the other. —NM

57. “The Cremator” (dir. Juraj Herz, 1969)

Rudolf Hrušínský gives a performance that rivals Anthony Perkins in “Psycho” in director Juraj Herz’s darkly comic, deeply unsettling “The Cremator.” An expressionistic character study based on a Ladislav Fuks novel, the film is set in 1930s Czechoslovakia, and scrutinizes the kind of man ideally suited to Europe’s coming wave of cruel authoritarianism. Hrušínský plays Karel Kopfrkingl, an outwardly fastidious and principled cremator whose work has tainted his perspective on human bodies and humanity itself. Obsessed with Buddhism and Nazism, Karel spends a lot of his time thinking about his fellow countrymen’s various flaws while ignoring or dismissing his own — which convinces him that most folks would be better off incinerated. As Karel gradually turns theory into reality, Herz and Hrušínský incisively illustrate how a fanatical dictatorial mindset can infect people, becoming their entire personality and occupation. —NM

56. “Santa Sangre” (dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1989)

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, to Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “Santa Sangre” – a psychedelic circus of the psyche and a surrealist horror masterpiece that proves the family that slays together, stays together… in the most twisted way possible of course. Our ringmaster of madness is Fenix, a mime we first meet perched naked atop a tree in a mental asylum (as one does). Through a series of hallucinatory flashbacks, we witness his circus upbringing, complete with an alcoholic knife-thrower father and a religious zealot mother who worships an armless saint. When Mom loses her own arms in a grisly acid attack, young Fenix becomes her literal hands – setting the stage for an Oedipal nightmare. Jodorowsky throws everything but the kitchen sink (and maybe that too) into his fever dream of a film. Elephant funerals, tattooed women, synchronized swimming in blood, and a man wrestling a giant prop vagina are just appetizers in this visual feast. The director’s background in mime and comics bleeds into every frame, creating a heightened reality where the grotesque and the beautiful dance a savage tango. As adult Fenix, freed from the asylum, goes on a murderous rampage at his mother’s behest, “Santa Sangre” becomes a meditation on trauma, control, and the thin line between reality and delusion. It’s a psycho-sexual Pinocchio story where our puppet longs to be a real boy, but Mommy’s got the strings. Controversial, visually stunning, and utterly unforgettable, “Santa Sangre” will leave you questioning your sanity, your relationships, and possibly your career choice if you happen to be in the circus arts. —TO

55. “Carnival of Souls” (dir. Herk Harvey, 1962)

Producer Val Lewton’s films set a template for low-budget horror filmmaking, but they were still studio films. “Carnival of Souls” was a true indie, made for $33,000 by Lawrence, Kansas-based industrial filmmaker Herk Harvey and shot largely in Salt Lake City. After being the sole survivor of a car wreck, Candace Hilligoss’s Mary moves to a new town, rents a one-room apartment, deals with a creepy, leering neighbor, and takes a job as a church organist. Then the visions start. She begins seeing an undead man lurking around her. Even creepier than the neighbor who keeps wanting to encroach on her space and ask her out on a date. Then there are strange moments when all the sound around her seems to vanish, and it’s like no one can see her. She’s invisible? At least to the male gaze, thankfully, but being invisible is scary in all other aspects. Then there’s the abandoned carnival pavilion on the salt flats at the edge of town that has an unusual pull on her. A score of all organ music adds to the unforgettable effect as “Carnival of Souls” heads toward an inescapable twist of an ending. —CB 

54. “The Seventh Victim” (dir. Mark Robson, 1943)

One of the things that made Val Lewton’s movies so distinctive was their evocative locations, always replicated on soundstages with the tiniest budgets but massive, enveloping mood: New Mexico in “The Leopard Man,” a Caribbean island in “I Walked with a Zombie,” a Greek island in “Isle of the Dead.” But in “Cat People” and “The Seventh Victim,” he brought every bit as exotic a sensibility to depicting New York City. “The Seventh Victim,” in fact, has the single creepiest depiction of the New York City subway ever, a testament to Lewton, and director Mark Robson, and their capacity to make even the ordinary otherworldly.

Loosely connected to “Cat People,” at least in the reappearance of that film’s predatory psychiatrist character (Tom Conway) in, oddly enough, now a quasi-heroic capacity, “The Seventh Victim” follows Kim Hunter as a girl searching New York City for her missing sister (Jean Brooks), whose descent into a Satanic cult is made evident by her horrendously creepy hairstyle. Death is omnipresent in horror, but the most profound horror movies suggest that a life poorly lived is even worse than death. And that’s the message of “The Seventh Victim”: The pursuit of happiness can be desperately difficult — and, for some, an unattainable goal altogether. —CB

53. “Häxan” (dir. Benjamin Christensen, 1922)

If you’ve ever wanted to see a witch kiss Satan on the ass, we’ve got a film for you! The most expensive Scandinavian production at the time, Benjamin Christensen’s silent film “Häxan” is one for the sickos. This strident essay film proposes that witch-hunts were linked to misunderstandings of mental and/or neurological disorders. Christensen achieves this by combining documentary-style recreations of medieval torture techniques as presented in the “Malleus Maleficarum,” a 15th-century German guide for inquisitors, with singularly weird narrative vignettes that explore the historical roots and superstitions surrounding witchcraft. Oscillating between cheeky humor, abject horror, unbridled compassion, and obsessive fascination, “Häxan” defies categorization. Heavily censored upon release due to its anti-clericalism and graphic depictions of torture, nudity, and sexual perversion, the film was re-released in 1968 with English-language narration by William S. Burroughs. Thankfully, the Swedish Film Institute has since restored the film, preserving Christensen’s original, uncompromising vision. —MG

52. “Kwaidan” (dir. Masaki Kobayashi, 1964)

There’s nothing quite like the creeping dread of a ghost story well told. Enter Masaki Kobayashi’s anthology horror film “Kwaidan,” which hauntingly brings to life four Japanese folk tales, adapted by Yoko Mizuki from story collections by Lafcadio Hearn. Despite its vibrant color palette, striking cinematography by Yoshio Miyajima, and painterly sets, each segment is somehow more unsettling than the next. In “The Black Hair,” a selfish swordsman leaves his wife to seek wealth, but discovers that regret can have deadly consequences. “The Woman of the Snow” follows a young woodcutter who survives an encounter with a yuki-onna spirit, later learning the hard way that promises should be kept. A blind biwa player is tricked into playing for an undead audience in “Hoichi the Earless.” The film ends in a meta fashion with “In a Cup of Tea,” in which a folktale’s author suffers the same fate as his character. —MG

51. “The Exorcist” (dir. William Friedkin, 1973)

It can be hard, 50 years later, to watch “The Exorcist” today and remember that there was a time when William Friedkin’s most famous film would be greeted with vomit and fainting by a disturbed filmgoing public. That’s not a slight against the movie, in any way: it’s just an inevitability of the barriers that this story of demonic possession helped break that Friedkin’s influential take feels a bit tame in hindsight. Nowadays, the strength of “The Exorcist” is in its subtlety rather than its shock, the patience with which Friedkin and screenwriter William Peter Blatty handle the material, building up the tension and horror while allowing actors Ellen Burstyn and Jason Miller space to flesh out their indelible portrayals of an atheist mother fighting for her daughter and a young sensitive priest grappling with his faith.  

The two-hour runtime and slow boil storytelling make the full unveiling of Linda Blair’s possessed, demonic Regan all the more devastating, providing a horror monster whose salvation is all too easy to root for. So much of “The Exorcist,” from its lilting theme to Max von Sydow’s scene-stealing third-act appearance, has embedded itself into popular culture, but nobody (including the people behind its various sequels) has fully replicated what makes this story of faith in the modern world so moving. —WC 

50. “Candyman” (dir. Bernard Rose, 1992)

Ever since Nia DaCosta’s divisive “Candyman” sequel from 2021, horror fans have been grappling with the legacy of Bernard Rose’s 1982 classic of the same name. Starring Virginia Madsen as a graduate student studying urban legend, this emotionally fraught ghost story uses the Cabrini-Green housing projects of Chicago to examine Black marginalization, the cycle of violence, and racial identity as portrayed through the lens of the white savior complex. There’s bittersweet irony in realizing that Rose himself is white and that the story his film is based upon comes from a Clive Barker anthology; the English author is white too and the source material does not explicitly discuss race.

When assessing what this film does well and how that was achieved, it’s worth considering authentic authorship. Nevertheless, the tour de force performance of Tony Todd as the titular Candyman demands our remembering. The actor came up with the villain’s incredible backstory as a victim of slavery and that thorny concept is what continues to intrigue audiences to this day. Riffing on modern folklore, the ethereal film from 1992 proffers that if anyone says the name “Candyman” five times in front of a mirror, the slasher villain will appear behind them ready to kill. Armed with a hook for a hand and perpetually surrounded by a swarm of bees, the dark legend comes face-to-face with final girl Helen (Madsen) early in the movie. That’s scary enough on its own, but the reign of terror that follows is almost unbearable when read as well-deserved vengeance for the failings of a racist society — never finished casting Black people as villains. —AF

49. “Carrie” (dir. Brian De Palma, 1976)

Brian De Palma’s “Carrie” takes high school drama to supernatural heights, proving that pig’s blood is definitely not the accessory you want for prom night. Sissy Spacek shines as Carrie White, a shy outcast with a Bible-thumping madre from hell (Piper Laurie, chewing scenery like mad). When Carrie’s first period arrives in the school showers, her classmates react with all the empathy of a piranha feeding frenzy. Big mistake. Turns out, puberty unleashes Carrie’s latent telekinetic powers. And hell hath no fury like a telekinetic teenager scorned! De Palma ratchets up the tension, intercutting Carrie’s tentative steps toward normalcy with her tormentors’ cruel prank preparations. John Travolta oozes sleaze as the boyfriend roped into the plot, while Amy Irving’s Sue Snell wrestles with her conscience. The infamous prom scene is a masterclass in sustained dread, culminating in a psychedelic unleashing of Carrie’s rage. Cue flying cutlery, electrocutions, and a gym transformed into a fiery hellscape. The final jump scare will have you side-eyeing every peaceful garden for weeks. “Carrie” isn’t just a horror classic – it’s a searing indictment of bullying, religious fanaticism, and the perils of repression. It’ll make you grateful you survived high school and maybe, just maybe, have you reaching for your old yearbook to pen a few belated apologies. —TO

48. “The Fly” (dir. David Cronenberg, 1986)

Pour one out for the sweet, volatile, acid-vomiting Brundlefly — a singular icon of body horror artistry born from one of the subgenre’s most tragic efforts.

In 1986’s “The Fly,” Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis discover an explosive chemistry as Seth and Veronica. He’s a cutting-edge scientist using his teleportation prototypes to score chicks. She’s an ethically dubious journalist who keeps reporting on Seth’s work even after they start dating. What could go wrong? Typically, a whole lot less than what does when the researcher runs a dangerous test on himself and accidentally splices his genes with the DNA of a common housefly.

Stathis (John Getz), Veronica’s awful editor/even worse ex-boyfriend, buzzes in the periphery as the tortured couple decides what to do about Seth’s rapidly worsening condition. No one escapes the horror show that results from the accident unscathed, but it’s hard to say which victim of this brutal script suffers the most. Here, co-writers Cronenberg and Charles Edward Pogue are technically retelling Kurt Neumann’s 1958 film, which in turn adapts author George Langelaan’s short story of the same name. But Cronenberg’s signature style and Goldblum’s unforgettable visual transformation combine to create an indelible nightmare that belongs in a class of its own — one that ebbs and flows in tone to tremendous if not always intentional, effect.

Chris Walas and Stephan Dupuis won the Academy Award for Best Makeup because of this chunky experiment in evolutionary regression. Their cleverly detailed work, which almost always looks really, really wet, echoes the slippery existential logic we watch Seth experience as he medically declines. A smart script gives the actors a lot to work with (the “insect politics” scene is outright painful to witness), but both Goldblum and Davis bring such panache to their performances that they elevate an otherwise muddled plot.

Seth’s frantic fidgetiness establishes a creature feature centerpiece scary enough that the character could have gone on a finale rampage through the city that actually worked. But Veronica’s generous grief for this strange man — who, let’s be honest,  she doesn’t know that well and was weird to begin with — makes the intimacy of the ending a much stronger choice. Oh, we barely knew ye, Brundlefly. At least the sequel saved your baby. —AF

47. “Let the Right One In” (dir. Tomas Alfredson, 2008)

Set in the cold, bleak Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg in 1982, Tomas Alfredson’s “Let The Right One In” brought a fresh Scandinavian spin to the well-worn canon of vampire cinema. Adapted from his own 2004 novel by author John Ajvide Lindqvist, the film blends coming-of-age, romance, and horror tropes into a uniquely Nordic nightmare. Hoyte van Hoytema’s murky cinematography casts a frightful spell over the proceedings as we meet Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), a bullied pre-teen who spends his nights plotting violent revenge. When a strange girl named Eli (Lina Leandersson) moves in next door, the two bond over their loneliness, exchanging messages through their shared wall. Slowly, Oskar learns that Eli is not a girl, but rather a vampire with a thirst for human blood. Hedebrant’s towhead blonde hair contrasts with Leandersson’s dark, almost black hair, as if the two represent light and darkness, but Alfredson’s bloody, darkly romantic conclusion subverts any such symbolism. —MG

46. “Night of the Demon” (dir. Jacques Tourneur, 1957)

Jacques Tourneur had moved on from horror to other genres (notably film noir, directing one of its masterpieces, “Out of the Past”) by the time he made “Night of the Demon” in England. The time away hadn’t dulled his reflexes for creating fear out of the unknown. Starring Dana Andrews as a psychologist investigating a possible satanic cult, “Night of the Demon” is a ticking-clock thriller with a supernatural bent: a piece of parchment confers a death sentence on those who are handed it, and Andrew’s psychiatrist is powerless to convince anyone otherwise — including, by the end, himself. Tourneur’s evocative use of shadows is still at play here, and even the controversial reveal of the titular demon near the start of the movie does nothing to diminish the film’s impact. —MP

45. “Brain Dead” (dir. Peter Jackson, 1992)

A word of warning: do not eat before watching this film. You’ll thank me later. The third film in acclaimed New Zealand director Peter Jackson’s “Splatter Phase,” coming after “Bad Taste” and “Meet the Feebles,” the zombie film “Braindead,” released in the U.S. under the title “Dead Alive,” takes the Freudian idea that we all just want to go back into our mother’s wombs to disgusting and viscerally extreme heights. When a disease-ridden Sumatran rat-monkey is shipped from Skull Island to the Wellington Zoo, the lives of nebbish Lionel Cosgrove (Timothy Balme) and his domineering mother Vera (Elizabeth Moody) become horrifically, and irrevocably, altered. Following her son on a date to the zoo, Vera is bitten by the creature, and cannibalism, necrophilia, and other gross-out acts of gore ensue. Allegedly the filmmakers used nearly 80 gallons of fake blood during the film’s astonishingly grisly lawnmower-versus-zombie horde climax. —MG

44. “Cure” (dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997)

When people talk about the mid-‘90s as the heyday streak of the great serial killer movies, from “Seven” to “The Silence of the Lambs,” they often leave out Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Cure.” The Japanese filmmaker’s dread-oozing noir, about a seemingly psychic and amnesiac serial killer who leaves no trace of his crimes other than the dazed victims he’s compelled to commit them, is itself inspired by Fincher’s “Seven.”

The great Koji Yakusho stars as a Tokyo police detective on the trail of a spree of gruesome killings, where the dead are left with an X carved into their chests, and the perpetrators, never far from the crime scene, have no memory of what they just did. What elevates “Cure” above serial killer pulp is its venture into Takabe’s (Yakusho) psyche — he’s got a schizophrenic wife at home and, meanwhile, the murder case at hand is weighing heavily on his mental health.

Cinematographer Tokushô Kikumura’s often mystical imagery subtly weaves the supernatural into Kurosawa’s screenplay until it takes over the narrative entirely. “Cure” emerges a hallucinatory fever dream that worms its way into your soul, leaving the fate of its characters (and its world) uncertain and unhappy. The movie is as addictive and hypnotic as the crimes at its center. —RL

43. “Arrebato” (dir. Ivan Zulueta, 1979)

The same post-Franco Spanish underground arts scene that produced Pedro Almodovar also nurtured Ivan Zulueta, a visual artist whose only feature film was this unique creep-out, about a man addicted to heroin and cinema. Eusebio Poncela plays the man, José, a struggling horror movie director who develops a fresh obsession when he meets Pedro (Will More), an artist whose work relies heavily on time-lapse photography and bewitching abstractions. “Arrebato” translates to English as “Rapture,” which describes the feeling Pedro seems to have achieved through making films — and that José keeps chasing in vain. José is slowly seduced by his new friend’s images, and by the thought that a camera could both stimulate and capture a moment of uncommon ecstasy. There are no scares per se in this film, just a mesmerizing depiction of an artist tormented by needs he seems incapable of meeting. —NM

42. “Rosemary’s Baby” (dir. Roman Polanski, 1968)

Unlike “The Exorcist” or “Poltergeist,” Roman Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby” wasn’t plagued by misfortune and spine-chilling coincidences and injuries while in production on location in New York City or back at Paramount Studios. In fact, this adaptation of Ira Levin’s 1967 novel about a Vidal Sassoon-styled housewife (Mia Farrow) whose husband (John Cassavetes) and neighbors turn out to be emissaries of Satan couldn’t have gone better. Unless you count Frank Sinatra serving Farrow divorce papers on set.

That’s odd, seeing as how every handheld frame of “Rosemary’s Baby” — as shot with bold, docudrama realism by cinematographer William A. Fraker — seems to be summoning the spawn of Satan, right down to its evil-incanting score by Christopher Komeda. There’s always a Mandela Effect to this movie as you try to remember, years later, how much you saw of Rosemary’s baby or its real father — but Farrow screaming, in the movie’s all-timer of a last scene, “What have you done to its eyes?” is enough to convince you that you actually did see them. This is not just one of the best horror films of all time — it’s one of the greatest movies ever made, period. —RL

41. “The Innocents” (dir. Jack Clayton, 1961)

Jack Clayton’s morbid fairy tale “The Innocents” is the best and most loyal adaptation of Henry James’ chilling novella “The Turn of the Screw,” which became a seminal text of literary theory in the 20th century. Co-written by Truman Capote and led by the great actress Deborah Kerr as a governess driven to paranoia by the distressed children she’s caring for, this version is still as open-ended to cerebral and Freudian interpretations as the text.

The pioneering craft of “The Innocents” makes this an especially classic Gothic tale, from Daphne Oram’s synthesizer score to Freddie Francis’ deep-focus, black-and-white cinematography, where ghosts are driven into and out of the frame through restrained, natural light and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cutting. Many have argued, even dating back to the book, that the supernatural activity haunting the governess and her charges stems from her own sexual repression. The perverse “Innocents” leaves that door open while preserving the ambiguity of James’ story, which has haunted literature lecture halls for more than a century. —RL

40. “Nosferatu” (dir. F.W. Murnau, 1922)

Patton Oswalt maybe has the definitive take on “Nosferatu” (or at least why you shouldn’t show it to five and six year olds) and we can only agree with him — if you want disturbing images, that’s what F.W. Murnau has for you in this 1922 film that lightly adapts the “Dracula” story and kicks off cinema’s affair with vampires in the bargain. The camera’s pretty static, the characters’ are pretty goofy-looking to the contemporary eye, the story unfolds at the clip-clop pace of carriage horses who do not actually want to go through the pass into Transylvania. And none of that matters. “Nosferatu” drains the courage right out of you with dynamic framing choices, with Max Schreck’s otherworldly physicality as the evil Count Orlov, with bravura editing that makes telepathy seem possible just by cutting between two characters at two different windows, and with whatever the opposite of those Mizayaki pauses where we look at little incidental details of the world. Murnau’s little incidental details are death clocks, and Venus Fly traps, and mice scurrying out of a coffin, and misty castle walls where you’ll tumble to your death. By the standard of the 1920s or the 2020s, “Nosferatu” is exactly what it claims to be: a symphony of horror. — SS

39. “Hour of the Wolf” (dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1968)

If you expand the definition of horror enough you could include any number of Ingmar Bergman movies as horror films. Especially if you think of horror as being about lives poorly lived, about guilt, and regrets, and horrible choices. “Hour of the Wolf” is an outright horror movie, but it begins as any number of his portraits of dysfunctional families… just pushed a little bit more in a horrific, genre-friendly direction. Max von Sydow plays Johan and Liv Ullmann is Alma, and they’re a couple living on the island of Faro in the Baltic Sea for the summer — he’s an artist, and he insists on not wanting to see any other human except Alma during that time. Of course, he doesn’t get his wish.

There’s a castle on the island populated by an appalling family more suited to Fellini than Bergman (whose character actor Erland Josephson has never been more unsettling, even walking on the walls in one gravity-defying effect), and they appeal very much to Johan’s worst self. As his mental state continues to decline, he confesses to Alma that he murdered a young boy, something shown in a terrifying scene shot with the film stock overexposed by cinematographer Sven Nykvist. The effects throughout the film are stark and stylish, but “Hour of the Wolf” is slightly emptyheaded — even literally at one moment, as one of the scariest makeup effects in the movie is when one character removes her face to reveal the hollowness within. —CB

38. “Psycho” (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

For 100 minutes of its 109-minute runtime, “Psycho” by Alfred Hitchcock is a flawless masterpiece. Forgive the torturous, unneeded exposition scene that closes the film and only serves to suck the mystique out of Anthony Perkins’ central performance, and “Psycho” still stands tall as one of the Master of Suspense’s greatest and most influential works, a film so electrifying that it inspired numerous copycats and helped change the way that audiences watch Hollywood films. Hitchcock pulls off a masterful rug pull, immersing his audience in the impulsive embezzlement scheme of Janet Leigh’s skittish Marion Crane before taking her off the board entirely with the immortal shower attack scene. It’s a gambit that fully pays off because the filmmaking is so absurdly strong — from John L. Russell’s moody black-and-white cinematography to George Tomasini’s slick editing to Bernard Herrmann’s atmospheric score, this is commercial American cinema at the height of its powers. 

And Perkins, in the central role of troubled momma’s boy Norman Bates, gives a performance both terrifying and uncomfortably real, a portrait of human insanity all too raw just for the movies. The exact nature of Norman’s mental troubles only receives more and more scrutiny as the years go by, as film stereotypes of trans and queer people have come into broader conversation. Still, Perkins’ sensitive performance adds real grace to the character, and the strain of gender ambiguity buried in the film feels like a starting point for horror’s inextricable relationship with queerness today. —WC 

37. “Freaks” (dir. Tod Browning, 1932)

Greeted with scorn as an exploitative piece of trash by critics and audiences upon its 1932 release, Tod Browning’s “Freaks” has since been reclaimed as a work of shocking empathy. Set in the dazzling, vicious world of a roaming carnival, the pre-Code film renders its sideshow-attraction protagonists — dwarves and bearded ladies and siamese twins and the physically deformed — not as the monsters of the night but as the dignified heroes working to create a place for themselves in a world where they experience only rejection. The real monsters are the most beautiful of the carnival performers, Olga Baclanova’s trapeze artist Cleopatra and Henry Victor’s brawny strongman Hercules, who conspire to split up a little person couple Hans and Frieda (siblings Harry and Daisy Earles, giving deeply moving performances) and steal Hans’ wealth.  

The version of “Freaks” that exists today is a bastardized, barely-hour long cut after MGM forced edits onto Browning’s project due to concerns about its content, though it still contains some genuine scares as the freaks turn on their abusers. And yet, “Freaks” is possibly the most uplifting of any film on this list, and a story that resonates with many horror geeks looking for community themselves: As the heroes chant during the most iconic scene, loving the film makes you “one of us, one of us.” —WC 

36. “Nosferatu the Vampyre” (dir. Werner Herzog, 1979)

Made in homage to and borrowing its title from F. W. Murnau’s iconic silent film “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror,” Werner Herzog’s “Nosferatu the Vampyre” is a slightly more faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula,” though no less weird than its namesake. Filmed on location in Germany, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, and even in Guanajuato, Mexico for its opening sequence, Herzog’s film is a breathtaking production, drenched in dread. Donning pounds of makeup to resemble Max Schreck in Murnau’s 1922 film, Klaus Kinski’s sympathetic take on Count Dracula emphasizes the vampire’s tragic loneliness, while Isabelle Adjani adds complex layers of eroticism to her Lucy Harker. The film’s abject seriousness and grim atmosphere led critic Roger Ebert, in his Great Movies Collection, to write, “Here is a film that does honor to the seriousness of vampires. No, I don’t believe in them. But if they were real, here is how they must look.” —MG

35. “The Others” (dir. Alejandro Amenábar, 2001)

“The Others” is a great slow-burn. Living on the Channel Islands just after World War II, very much a place between places, Nicole Kidman and her two children (James Bentley and Alakina Mann) are the uneasy masters of a cavernous gothic home, with shifty servants, an absent father/husband sent away during The War, and the unnerving sense that they are not alone in the house. Director Alejandro Amenábar doesn’t unfold anything here that seasoned horror fans won’t be able to guess, but he unspools the film’s dread with relish — and a kind of patience that seems to harken back to films from the post-War era instead of more jagged cutting. “The Others” is all about enjoying an atmosphere of horror, where danger lurks (in the sunlight!) behind curtains and on the other side of a locked door. Your mileage may vary in how quickly that atmosphere wears out its welcome, but it seems possible one could spend an eternity watching Kidman try to hold herself together and being thrilled when, at long last, she can’t. —SS

34. “The Beyond” (dir. Lucio Fulci, 1981)

From its sepia-toned prologue to its ashen climax, “The Beyond” is a thrillingly disgusting delight. A Southern Gothic tale of hell on earth delivered by an Italian filmmaker — Lucio Fulci, who made the project the second part of his informal “Gates of Hell” trilogy — the bizarre zombie story offers a disorienting, disjointed ride through a New Orleans transformed into a demonic wasteland after the young lead ingenue accidentally opens a portal to hell within the cursed hotel she inherited. Much of the plot is too frenetic to parse, the dubbing is painfully bad, and the acting feels amateurish at the best of times. All of those flaws hardly matter when the visual storytelling on display is so strong: From melting flesh to swarms of spiders to the pale white eyes of the possessed, Fulci delivers nonstop fright after fright. This is B-movie horror at its most sublime. —WC 

33. “Hellraiser” (dir. Clive Barker, 1987)

“No tears please, that’s a waste of good suffering,” purrs Cenobite leader Pinhead (Doug Bradley) to the distraught Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Laurence) as she pleads for her life. This is the kind of wry humor that writer-director Clive Barker employs throughout “Hellraiser,” his goopy, erotic directorial debut, which spawned nine sequels and a reboot. Based on his own novella “The Hellbound Heart,” Barker’s film explores the twin flames of pleasure and pain, and what happens when the two become indistinguishable. Summoned by a mysterious puzzle box, the sadomasochistic Cenobites, extra-dimensional beings who call themselves “explorers in the further regions of experience,” promise the greatest carnal pleasure — but at a deadly price. Kristy finds herself fighting for her life when her hedonistic Uncle Frank (Sean Chapman) tries to cheat them by rebuilding his body, enlisting Kristy’s stepmom, and his obsessive ex-lover, Julia (Clare Higgins) to lure men home so he can strip them of their life and flesh. —MG

32. “Under the Skin” (dir. Jonathan Glazer, 2013)

With his icy, detached gaze and uncanny ability to depict human beings as if they’re unfamiliar animals in a nature documentary, Jonathan Glazer could make anything seem terrifying. That ethos helps turn “Under the Skin” into one of the most brilliant films of the 21st century. Scarlett Johansson stars as a nameless alien who takes human form with the intention of walking the earth, luring men into sexual traps, and grotesquely disposing of her conquests. But while that simple premise could easily devolve into a campy mess in less capable hands, Glazer’s hidden camera approach to filmmaking turns it into a hauntingly voyeuristic study of what it means to be human. The film only becomes more isolating to watch as it progresses, serving as a chilling reminder of how much we rely on our own interlocking system of unspoken rules and social cues to separate ourselves from the animals — and how foreign and violent our lives look when an artist has the vision and skills to strip all of that away. —CZ

31. “Cat People” (dir. Jacques Turner, 1942)

If your girlfriend has a sculpture in her apartment depicting a medieval king holding an impaled cat aloft on his sword, run! Kent Smith’s Manhattanite, Oliver, doesn’t quite know what hit him when he meets Irena (Simone Simon), a Serbian immigrant with a real thing for panthers. Turns out, she’s under a curse that results in her turning into a sleek black jungle cat whenever she experiences any particularly intense emotions. Which makes sex and a relationship with Oliver somewhat difficult.

Rooted in very relatable things — “just who is this person I’m dating anyway?” — “Cat People,” producer Val Lewton’s first triumph with Jacques Tourneur, finds incredible ways of conveying eeriness on a shoestring budget. It’s a studio film with the scrappiness we’d later call an indie ethos. A scene where Irena menaces Alice (Jane Randolph), because Irena thinks she’s making a play for Oliver, and Alice jumps into a swimming pool rightly thinking that someone is lurking just out of sight, has been referenced and stolen from many other times, including in “Let the Right One In.” Turns out, Irena was right to be jealous. Tired of all of Irena’s Balkans drama, Oliver bonds with Alice in a dialogue scene that’s basically about the inalienable American right to be shallow. Throw in a predatory psychiatrist (Tom Conway) with his own designs on Irena, and you have an all-time classic. —CB

30. “Audition” (dir. Takashi Miike, 1999)

Takashi Miike puts the slow and the burn in slow burn with his 1999 bait-and-switch horror meltdown “Audition.” Like a lobster in a slowly boiling pot, you’re lured falsely into the premise that “Audition” is about a 40-something widower, businessman Shigeharu (Ryo Ishibashi), who hires a film producer to “cast” his next wife as a kind of one-sided speed dating. Alas, Asami (Eihi Shiina), the woman he falls for, turns out to be an obsessive nightmare no application process could’ve vetted.

She lives in a hell hole of an apartment, by the phone (and a sack containing god knows what) all day waiting for his call. But as Asami wasn’t loved enough as a child, she’s prepared to make all men pay for her abuse and neglect in adulthood — culminating in a horrifying sequence of onscreen torture nothing that happens in the first two acts of “Audition” could’ve primed you for.

“Audition” is the ultimate horror movie about how women are objectified in Japanese — or any — society, and the retribution that such unchecked misogyny could inspire if gone out of control. Any genre filmmaker in “Audition’s” wake is chasing the high that Miike established here — one impossible because of spoiler culture and the internet, but wow, am I jealous of anyone who saw this movie cold. —RL

29. “Near Dark” (dir. Kathryn Bigelow, 1987)

Kathryn Bigelow made her solo feature directorial debut with this one-of-a-kind nightmare, a lyrical and bloody powerhouse of a movie that reinvents vampire mythology by fusing it with the traditions of the Western. Bigelow’s talent for visceral action is already operating at peak power here with one dazzling set piece after another, the best of which is an impeccably calibrated massacre in a dive bar that veers from dark comedy to terror and back again without missing a beat. Utilizing several players from the supporting cast of James Cameron’s “Aliens” (Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein), Bigelow and co-writer Eric Red create the most compelling and frightening family of killers since Tobe Hooper’s “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” but add a young romance to the center of the film that gives it a poetry Hooper never dreamed of. A hypnotic score by Tangerine Dream adds to the sensual, enchanting tone — a tone made all the more effective when juxtaposed with the abundant gore that flows through the film. —JH

28. “The Wicker Man” (dir. Robin Hardy, 1973)

The definitive folk horror film, Robin Hardy’s “The Wicker Man” sets its queasy story of a Christian police officer’s investigation into an island cult almost entirely in shining daylight. Conventional horror wisdom would suggest that might dilute the terror, but in “The Wicker Man” it has the opposite effect: The sunny pastoral Scottish island that Hardy and cinematographer Harry Waxman invite the audience to makes the lingering threat lurking underneath all the more terrifying. Much like “Midsommar” (a film this rather obviously inspired) it’s a movie that replicates its cult’s actions onto the viewer, lulling you into a false sense of security before brutally pulling the rug out with its legendarily fiery ending. From its soundtrack of traditional folk scores courtesy of Paul Giovanni and Christopher Lee’s career-best performance as the charismatic but deadly lord of the island, “The Wicker Man” is horror at its most intelligent. Just forget about Nicolas Cage and all those bees. —WC 

27. “Ganja & Hess” (dir. William Gunn, 1973)

A masterpiece left unappreciated for far too long, “Ganja & Hess” premiered at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival to critical approval, only to belly flop in its United States premiere, leading to a series of butchered recuts that director William Gunn disavowed. Its restored version, assembled in 2018 by Kino Lorber, has resulted in greater appreciation for the ahead-of-its-time genre fusion, which mixes horror with blaxploitation tropes and uses its central romance as a window into greater concerns about Black identity. Duane Jones (iconic as Ben in “Night of the Living Dead”) is riveting as anthropologist Hess, who is turned into a vampire after a stab wound from an ancient African dagger, while Marlene Clark is enthralling as Ganja, Hess’ eventual vampiric lover. Their love story is sexy and bloody, but mournful too, as Gunn eschews conventional plotlines in favor of a slow-burning character study that sits uncomfortably with his character’s religious struggles and identity crises, presented with hazy, evocative experimental visuals. Spike Lee would later remake the film as “Da Sweet Blood of Jesus,” but the original still more than holds up today as its own twisted romance. —WC 

26. “Bride of Frankenstein” (dir. James Whale, 1935)

The Universal Monster Movies dug their claws into Hollywood as early as 1913, but it wasn’t until 1935’s “Bride of Frankenstein” that the studio gave audiences a villain truly capable of stealing hearts. The legendary Elsa Lanchester doubles here, appearing first in the film as “Frankenstein” author Mary Shelley. Her charming take on the literary icon introduces director James Whale’s sequel to his film from 1931 in a clever prologue that established and elevated franchising in horror movies. When Lanchester finally returns as the electric Monster’s Bride near the movie’s end, the hyped-up performance is a revelation you’ll only wish lasted longer.

Luckily, there’s plenty outside the Bride’s exquisite hissing to recommend this magical black-and-white fairytale. For his second at-bat as Frankenstein’s creation, Boris Karloff delivers a moving embodiment of misunderstanding opposite Colin Clive, returning as the conflicted Doctor. Having escaped the villagers’ wrath at the end of the original, both monsters continue their quests to uncover what makes us human from different angles in an all-around better film as historically significant as it is lasting in quality.

A man of science, Frankenstein teams up with the queer-coded Doctor Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) to make another lab-grown person; only this time, they’re using Pretorius’ research with homunculi (AKA miniature people) to spark life in their creation. The charm of Pretorious’ tiny experiments quickly fades (even if the sequence depicting it is a stand-out, complete with an itty-bitty queen, archbishop, priest, devil, ballerina, and mermaid) — as his ambition pushes Frankenstein to once again challenge God.

Across town, the Monster wants nothing more than a good hang. He’s happy enough smoking and drinking with a blind hermit (O. P. Heggie) who doesn’t know his true form, but when the truth comes out, the Monster is forced to flee, and he demands Frankenstein and Pretorius make him a mate as amends. The result is the best Universal Monster Movie ever made as well as Whale’s definitive masterpiece. It’s also the reason Lanchester would gain recognition throughout Hollywood, appearing in scads of movies across genres (she’s Katie Nanna in Disney’s “Mary Poppins”!) and earning her two Oscar nominations. —AF

25. “Raw” (dir. Julia Ducournau, 2016)

French filmmakers have a special talent for whipping up brutal body horror. Julia Ducournau, who won the Palme d’Or for “Titane” in 2021, made history as the second woman at Cannes to do so. Before that, the writer/director shook audiences with her squeamish feature debut “Raw” in 2016. It’s the less polished of the two films, but an even eerier effort that stars the ferocious Garance Marillier in an all-time genre role.

As Justine — a shy student coming into her own against the backdrop of some very intense freshman hazing at veterinary school — Marillier chews through an exacting script with a portrayal that still feels dreamlike. Claustrophobic spaces and colorful lighting establish the mood for Ducournau’s “Raw” as something akin to an underground Parisian nightclub. That makes the jump-cuts to cow surgeries and foal deliveries even more jarring as the pressure from instructors and the older students mounts. Toss in sexual assault, diaper humiliation, and near-constant verbal attacks between classes…and it’s no wonder Justine is barely hanging on by her animal-grade suture thread.

Her elder sister, Alexia (Ella Rumpf), encourages Justine to lean into the tense environment, but snide swipes between the sisters betray an unspoken distrust. When the vegetarian Justine is forced by Alexia to eat a rabbit kidney during an initiation ceremony, it sets off a blood-thirsty evolution akin to a kind of cinematic mystery meat. “Raw” takes the full feature to figure out and keeps you guessing by changing its flavor profile act by act. What begins as maybe a coming-of-age cannibalism drama takes on striking sexual imagery — and doesn’t stop there.

Although Cronenberg may be the name synonymous with much of the body horror subgenre, Ducournau is a notable titan in a long-held tradition of women making great art specific to this space. “Raw” ravages its stars with exquisite mutilations and spills the guts of its first-time feature director with as much theatrical beauty. This was the film that gave us not one but two of horror’s greatest scream queens, prepared but not yet cooked. —AF

24. “Vampyr” (dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1932)

One of the major players of European cinema during the silent era, Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer brought his poetic sensibilities to sound films with his esoteric gothic horror “Vampyr.” Moved to make a film about vampires by the recent London stage adaptation of “Dracula,” Dreyer and screenwriter Christen Jul read dozens of horror stories. The duo ultimately lifted elements from J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 collection of supranational stories “In a Glass Darkly” to craft their unsettling film about a student of the occult who encounters strange sights in a village outside of Paris. A unique cast of non-professional actors found at train stations and cafes adds to the film’s sense of familiar unease. Wary of having to make a film in multiple languages in order to sell to international distributors, Dreyer opted for minimal dialogue, which enhances the unsettling atmosphere evoked by cinematographer Rudolph Maté’s use of oneiric soft focus. —MG

23. “The Haunting” (dir. Robert Wise, 1963)

Robert Wise’s atmospheric tour-de-force remains a terrifying ghost story, a penetrating psychological thriller, and one of the great haunted house movies of all time. A group of physically gifted strangers convene at Hill House, a gothic mansion that isn’t merely haunted; it’s said to be born evil. No apparitions appear (as opposed to the abysmal 1999 remake), but what Wise achieves with camera angles, lighting, and sound remains a towering accomplishment. Not to mention a cast led by Julie Harris as the high-strung Eleanor and Claire Bloom as the slyly sardonic Theo, who embark on a homoerotic friendship that is as tense to watch at times as the crashing sounds terrorizing the sleeping guests. “Whose hand was I holding?” remains one of the all-time scariest questions ever posed in a movie. —MP

22. “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” (dir. John McNaughton, 1986)

Producer siblings Malik B. Ali and Waleed B. Ali got more than they bargained in 1986 for when they hired independent filmmaker John McNaughton to make a low-budget horror film to capitalize on the then-booming home video market; he directed a scary movie all right, but not the kind of escapist exploitation fare they were expecting. Instead, McNaughton and co-screenwriter Richard Fire gave their financiers and audiences the real deal, an unblinking stare into the heart of indifferent evil that was truly, unforgettably terrifying. So terrifying, in fact, that the movie didn’t find a distributor for years and never had much of a theatrical release — yet once it was discovered by horror enthusiasts and championed by critics like Roger Ebert and Dave Kehr it went from obscurity to cult classic status without taking any of the steps in between. Michael Rooker’s performance in the title role is one of the all-time greats, a chilling, moving, and occasionally darkly funny portrait of a working-class killer with a dark void at his center; the less heralded Tom Towles is equally powerful as Henry’s partner in crime, one of the most morally-adrift characters in the history of cinema. —JH

21. “Tetsuo: The Iron Man” (dir. Shinya Tsukamoto, 1989)

Buckle up for a cyberpunk fever dream! Shinya Tsukamoto’s “Tetsuo: The Iron Man” is a grotesque ballet of man and machine that’ll have you squirming in your seat and questioning your relationship with your toaster. Our hapless salaryman protagonist wakes up to find a metal screw protruding from his cheek. Spoiler alert: it gets worse. Much worse. As his body rebelliously transforms into a walking junkyard, he’s pursued by a metal fetishist with a vendetta and a serious case of rust lust. Shot in glorious black-and-white 16mm, Tetsuo assaults your senses with its frenetic stop-motion, pounding industrial soundtrack, and imagery that would make H.R. Giger blush. Witness power drills erupting from groins, bodies fusing in ways that makes a Transformer look like Polly Pocket, and a finale that redefines “heavy metal.” Tsukamoto’s film is a manic allegory for technology’s invasion of the flesh, urban alienation, and repressed sexuality – all wrapped up in a package that’s equal parts David Cronenberg body horror and Looney Tunes on acid. It’s a movie that drags you kicking and screaming through its 67-minute runtime, leaving you breathless, and confused. Fair warning: “Tetsuo” isn’t for the faint of heart or weak of stomach. But for those brave enough to plug in, it’s an unforgettable ride that’ll have you eyeing your appliances with suspicion for weeks to come. —TO

20. “The Host” (dir. Bong Joon-Ho, 2006)

When a lumbering amphibious beast emerges from Seoul’s Han River, it’s not there for the tourist attractions. Director Bong Joon-ho serves up a delicious cocktail of horror, humor, and biting social satire as a dysfunctional family battles bureaucracy and a slimy, gene-spliced menace. Our unlikely hero? A slow-witted snack bar owner named Park Gang-du, whose young daughter is snatched by the creature. Cue a hilariously inept rescue mission featuring Gang-du’s archery champion sister, his alcoholic brother, and their elderly father. As they dodge quarantine, wrestle with hazmat suits, and arm themselves with whatever’s handy (Molotov cocktails in beer bottles, anyone?), the Parks prove family bonds are stronger than mutant monster hide. Between nerve-wracking chases and gruesome feeding frenzies, Bong skewers everything from American imperialism to environmental negligence. Long before his most traveled work, the equally delightfully wicked “Parasite,” the filmmaker deftly balances laugh-out-loud moments (a memorial service food fight!) with genuine terror (that sewer scene…!) in “The Host.” With practical effects that are top-notch and CGI that still holds up, this creature feature will leave you looking over your shoulder and chuckling nervously. Just remember: stay away from the river, and never trust a mysterious American scientist bearing formaldehyde! —TO

19. “Evil Dead II” (dir. Sam Raimi, 1987)

Few movies have such a singular, specific physicality as Sam Raimi’s comedic follow-up to/remake of his original 1981 splatter film. Rubbery ghouls and zombies, stiff skeletons and demons, and Bruce Campbell playing his Final Guy as a Bugs Bunny impression: You can feel the texture of the creations that Ash encounters, and wince at all of the absurd mutilation and torment he is subjected to. In that respect, “Evil Dead II” has more in common with a Buster Keaton silent slapstick comedy than it does the nasty exploitation film that kicked off Ash’s battles with the Deadites. There’s no encroaching sense of dread or tense build-up here: Raimi lets all hell loose in the first six minutes and keeps the gore, the blood, and the lunacy at the highest frequency for the rest of the runtime, never giving the viewers a break before launching them into the next delightful freakshow. Horror comedies are a dime a dozen, but often stop at winking genre parody over anything inventive. “Evil Dead II” recognizes that comedy and horror are fundamentally the same, a model of storytelling concerned with excess and provoking instinctive primal reactions, and delivers one of cinema’s most visceral thrill rides in the process. —WC 

18. “Halloween” (dir. John Carpenter, 1978)

Some landmark films are imitated so often that it’s easy to forget how transgressive they were at the time of their release. Such is the case with John Carpenter’s original “Halloween,” which effectively created the template for what we’ve come to know as a slasher movie. From its masked killer who served as the perfect embodiment of evil to Jamie Lee Curtis’ genre-defining performance as the ultimate final girl to Carpenter’s haunting synth-filled score, the original film is nothing less than a cultural icon. No film has captured the crispness of fall afternoons and the horrors of Halloween nights more effectively while nailing every necessary part of the filmmaking process. While other franchises might have beaten out “Halloween” in specific categories — “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is the best individual film in the slasher genre, while “Friday the 13th” and “Nightmare on Elm Street” arguably produced better sequels once they were up and running — nothing in the genre can compete with Laurie Strode and Michael Myers in terms of overarching horror perfection. —CZ

17. “I Walked with a Zombie” (dir. Jacques Tourneur, 1943)

What instills more desperation: Knowing that there are supernatural forces that regard us as playthings… or that there may not be supernatural forces at all, and we’re all utterly alone in this universe? The latter possibility is so terrifying that believing in the occult can be comforting by contrast, and in the case of the nurse Betsy (Frances Dee), she turns to Vodou very quickly upon arriving in the fictional Caribbean island of San Sebastian. Especially when there appears to be no cure for the patient in her charge, the wife of a plantation owner, who’s in a trance-like fugue state. Of course, the Vodou practitioners have their own interpretation of what’s happening: This is a zombie, created via a curse.

Producer Val Lewton understood how to create a sense of the eerie better than any horror producer ever, and in the hands of director Jacques Tourneur, an extraordinary mood suffuses “I Walked with a Zombie”: Wind rustling through the reeds, waves crashing on the shore, low drums heard from a distance. Sequences of women walking alone at night are Lewton staples, never more so than here.

This is also a uniquely thoughtful story for 1943, about race, colonialism, and the historical legacy of slavery. “If you say, miss,” a Black carriage driver says to Betsy when she tries to put a positive spin on how slave ships brought his ancestors to this island. Black actors such as Theresa Harris and the calypso singer Sir Lancelot have extraordinarily memorable moments of subversive power. It all adds up to a powerful vision of how, sometimes, when nothing makes sense in this world, only the otherworldly can explain it. —CB

16. “Deep Red” (dir. Dario Argento, 1975)

Two years before his crimson-colored giallo masterwork “Suspira,” Dario Argento directed the British actor David Hemmings (“Blow-up”) as a jazz pianist sucked, as if by a whirlpool, into the murder of a psychic medium. By his side is a journalist (Daria Nicolodi) looking for a scoop. “Deep Red” has all the trademarks of a great Argento movie, from elaborately staged and brutal death scenes to a gloved killer (here wielding a hatchet) and a soundtrack performed and composed by Goblin.

Argento fetishizes and stylizes the minutiae of violent crime with his usual operatic bravado, obsessing over leather gloves, metallic zippers, and knives plunging into flesh. The murderer has a campy sensibility of their own, staging crime scenes with dolls and gramophone lullabies that are both unsubtle clues to the killer’s identity and also a reflection of the director’s own sensibility. “Deep Red” also makes great use of an on-location shoot in Turin, here rendered as a cityscape capable of high-class terror at any turn. —RL

15. “Funny Games” (dir. Michael Haneke, 1997)

Michael Haneke once again whets the audience’s appetite for onscreen carnage with his 1997 home invasion shocker “Funny Games,” where the worst things that happen are what occur offscreen as a bourgeois Austrian family is held hostage by two young men. When people call a movie “Haneke-esque,” they are probably referring to this cruel but dead-serious joke of a movie, where the Austrian filmmaker treats his characters like ants through a magnifying glass.

Here, the Scrober family of four (Georg, his wife Anna, their little son Georgie, and their dog Rolfi) are tormented and terrorized by a pair of psychopaths, but the gore mostly happens off-camera, leaving us only to consider the aftermath; whether it’s said dog, dead, or blood splattered across a TV set. “Funny Games” often sacrifices thrills for a meta interrogation of the consumption of screen violence — with Paul (Arno Frisch) and Peter (Frank Giering) breaking the fourth wall often to remind us where the movie’s head is at. But the oppressive, inescapable nihilism of Haneke’s vision, right down to the death metal soundtrack that bookends the movie, is hard to shake, putting “Funny Games” up there with the most messed-up horror movies of its decade. —RL

14. “Eyes Without a Face” (dir. Georges Franju, 1960)

Of course one of the most chic and beautiful horror films of all time is French. Georges Franjou’s black and white classic boasts more legendary frames than just about any other film ever made, as a mad scientist kidnaps and murders young women to cut off their faces and restore his disfigured daughter, Louise, who drifts through their chilly mansion wearing an eerily wistful (and just plain eerie) white mask. That mask may seem familiar; it inspired the one worn by the Joker’s girlfriend in Tim Burton’s “Batman.” The pace is languid, but the tension builds rapidly, aided by Louise’s increasing desperation and a pack of angry dogs. When violence does come, it’s even more shocking, considering how elegantly restrained the rest of the film is. —MP

13. “Night of the Living Dead” (dir. George Romero, 1968)

Any self-respecting George A. Romero fan will tell you that there are heaps of fun — nay, oodles even! — to be found across the filmmaker’s six-part zombie franchise… which, yes, was technically started via radiation brought to Earth on a contaminated space probe. That said, you can’t enjoy any of Romero’s undead sequels to their fullest extent without first devouring the 1968 black-and-white original that’s history-making in every sense. Starring Judith O’Dea, Duane Jones, and more, “Night of the Living Dead” sees seven strangers take shelter in a Pennsylvania farmhouse as they’re slowly surrounded by reanimated corpses.

A claustrophobic ensemble movie, unafraid indie production, razor-sharp commentary on race, and ground-zero for a creative split over its IP (1985’s “The Return of the Living Dead” isn’t part of Romero’s series, but is still awesome!), “Night of the Living Dead” established the zombie subgenre as we know it. Audiences are still paying to get this sort of thing under their skin well into the 21st century, but no contemporary film has come close to outshining Romero’s glowing sci-fi horror on 35 mm in terms of lasting impact.

As a Black actor playing a hero, Jones was seen as subversive casting at the time and his character’s sobering fate has inspired countless film school essays since. The entire story overflows with counter-cultural subtext and the dialogue feels more alive because its actors were often improvising. Romero didn’t shy away from exploring extreme horror either, creating one of horror’s most enduring child icons in Karen Cooper, played by Kyra Schon. The daughter of co-star Karl Hardman — who played Karen’s dad Harry opposite Marilyn Eastman as her mom Helen — had to eat her onscreen parents for a simple scene that’s phenomenally hard to shake. Parenticide? Cemetery hijinks? Jeez, what can’t George do?!  —AF

12. “Get Out” (dir. Jordan Peele, 2017)

There have been plenty of examples of actors who unexpectedly became acclaimed directors, but very few who had a debut that not only received a Best Picture nomination for inventing (or some would argue re-energizing) an entire genre. Dubbed a social horror, there are plenty of scenes within writer-director Jordan Peele’s first feature that elicit reactions that are a litmus test for the audience’s experience with racism in America. Knowing what it feels like to be Black walking around a predominantly white neighborhood makes the Universal Pictures release’s opening scene starring Lakeith Stanfield all the more tense. A canny sense of certain suburban liberals makes Bradley Whitford saying he would’ve voted for Obama a third time a clear signal that something is wrong.

But in spite of tapping into universal anxieties, Peele still manages to keep many of the elements within the film unpredictable, and in a morbidly delightful fashion that makes for any horror classic. The iconography of everything from the teacup to the Froot Loops, entering the Sunken Place into the lexicon, and a twist that exhibits how trauma can lead to some of the best comedy is why the former sketch comedian has quickly become a must-see director for thrill-seeking fans. —MJ

11. “Alien” (dir. Ridley Scott, 1979)

Considering the seismic impact “Alien” had on not just the horror genre, but also action films, sci-fi movies, and The Intergalactic Church of Sigourney Weaver, it can be easy to overcomplicate what’s essentially a slasher set in space.

Ridley Scott directs the hell out of a slim script from writer Dan O’Bannon about the commercial ship USCSS Nostromo making a doomed voyage in the year 2122. In her first starring role, Weaver plays the instantly iconic Ripley, a smart and deserving hero with a knack for dodging chestbursters and rescuing cats. The character propelled Weaver into James Cameron’s genius sequel from 1986 — the plural “Aliens” — and beyond as the franchise grew into a decade-spanning, cross-media, pop culture obsession.

Maybe it’s a spoiler to say Ripley gets away from her first run-in with a Xenomorph, but the story of how she became the last survivor of the Nostromo surprises even when rewatched. After Ripley and the rest of her crew are raised from hyper-sleep by their ship’s artificial intelligence, they investigate a mysterious alien transmission and unwittingly welcome an invasive species onboard. What starts as a simple enough puzzle-box horror (Google: “How do I get an acidic parasite off of my friend’s face?”) soon blooms into an anti-gravity haunted house prowled by a hulking stalker with razor-sharp teeth and shiny skin as dark as a void.

Cinematographer Derek Vanlint changed the game here with his use of shadows and the incomparable Jerry Goldsmith, whose work also included “Planet of the Apes,” “The Omen,” and “Basic Instinct,” pulled off some of his all-time best music. Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm, Veronica Cartwright, John Hurt, Yaphet Kotto, and Harry Dean Stanton complete the — mostly! — human cast with creature actor Bolaji Badejo playing the alien killer for his sole film credit. (A very tall graphic design student, Badejo was from Lagos, Nigeria and died there in 1970. He was reportedly invited back for the sequels but declined the offer.)

Stacked up against the rest of Scott’s filmography, “Alien” isn’t just the director’s strongest horror effort. It’s his outright best film, even when compared against “Blade Runner,” “Gladiator,” “Thelma & Louise,” and, yes, “Alien: Covenant.” It’s tightly conceived and deliciously produced start to end, as visually arresting with each corner turner as it is earnestly shocking through every story twist. —AF

10. “Videodrome” (dir. David Cronenberg, 1983)

It could be argued that the most rarified status that a filmmaker can reach is having their name turned into an adjective. David Cronenberg has certainly achieved that, as the term “Cronenbergian” can be instantly understood to refer to his distinct blend of stomach-churning body horror and biting social commentary, the latter of which often deals with the ways new technologies conflict with our natural urges.

No film better embodies this than “Videodrome,” his landmark exploration of the scintillating contents of cable television that he predicted would liberate us from the bondage of polite society and direct us towards evils that were more primal in nature. While images like the breathing, bulging TV screen continue to haunt the zeitgeist nearly half a century later, the true horror of “Videodrome” lies in its undeniably correct assessment of the limits of human nature when measured against shiny new objects.

There’s a certain irony to the fact that a film that ties itself so clearly to a specific decade — cable TV can’t even get its head above water these days, let alone take over the world — could be so clairvoyant about the ways that 21st-century technologies would break our brains. But the film continues to ring so true because of how effectively it conveys the idea that permeates all of Cronenberg’s best work: we’re helpless to resist the forces of change, no matter what kind of hell they might bring. Long live the new flesh indeed. —CZ

9. “The Blair Witch Project” (dir. Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, 1999)

There were found footage films before “The Blair Witch Project” — check “Cannibal Holocaust,” or the even earlier non-horror “The Connection.” And yet, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez’s blockbuster independent production is what turned the meta conceit into a true genre, inspiring waves of imitators that borrow its shaky cam, intimate format. Most of those films aren’t great, leading many to dismiss the story of three college kids lost in the woods with nothing but a camcorder and a vague plan to document a local folk legend as boring, “90 minutes of walking in the woods” as naysayers put it. But “The Blair Witch Project” has somehow only aged better in the decades since its release, the more flaccid and dull found footage films exposing what makes this pioneering stab at the format so effective. From the lived-in performances of the three central actors to the low-budget grainy footage, “The Blair Witch Project” feels startlingly real, deriving true terror from its faux-reality premise. It’s horror that feels like it could be happening in your own backyard. —WC 

8. “The Shining” (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1980)

Anyone who knows anything about horror remembers Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” as a child of divorce. The 1980 film adaptation of Stephen King’s well-loved novel about a haunted hotel was infamously despised by the author upon release, despite earning critical praise among horror heads. King took issue with Jack Nicholson’s performance (he said Jack Torrance had “no arc” in the movie) as well as Kubrick’s many modifications to his supernatural universe. You can thank the 2019 sequel “Doctor Sleep,” another King adaptation directed by Mike Flanagan, for mostly fixing that rift. Still, the tortured making of and reception to “The Shining” is a big part of what makes it special.

Kubrick was nothing if not exacting as a filmmaker and his one-and-only genre effort manipulates that reputation to obsession-worthy effect. Everything from The Overlook’s illogical architecture to the backstories of the mysterious unnamed ghosts inhabiting it has been studied across multiple documentaries. Kubrick’s daughter Vivian filmed behind the scenes as well, capturing her father’s excruciating process and the significant toll it took on actors Shelley Duvall and Scatman Crothers. Most intriguing was the obvious kinship Kubrick had with then-kid actor Danny Lloyd, who as Danny Torrance was the beating heart of a nightmares that decades later still feels alive with fresh menace.

Packed with colorful Kubrick images done almost entirely in-camera (that overhead maze shot is one of the movie’s only mattes), “The Shining” might deviate from the original novel, but it’s got tons of terrifying dialogue even King could stand by. (“Here’s to five miserable months on the wagon…” is a great line, no matter how it came about.) You can pick apart this script for years and still have questions. Combine that textual effort with Kubrick’s mesmeric visual mutations and you’ll quickly find yourself lost in what could otherwise be a straightforward misadventure in axe-murdering. If all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, then all answers and no questions would make “The Shining” a bland film. But surrender to the unknowable, treacherous history of The Overlook and you’ll never know boredom again. —AF

7. “Trouble Every Day” (dir. Claire Denis, 2001)

One supposes it’s hard to say that a horror movie where Beatrice Dalle eats a guy’s face, blood splattered on the walls like a Jackson Pollock painting, isn’t particularly gory. But what stays with you the most about Claire Denis’ low murmur of a vampire thriller are the quiet moments: A couple making out in a car, “Denver” glimpsed out an airplane window, a beaker hypnotically spinning in a pharmaceutical lab. Horror movies are very often about characters either driven by insatiable internal impulses or lured by external forces, and in “Trouble Every Day” it appears to be a bit of both, with Vincent Gallo’s doctor compelled to journey with his new wife (Tricia Vessey) to Paris for a far more sinister reason than to enjoy their honeymoon.

Vampirism has very often been symbolic of sex, with vampires being uniquely seductive in the rogues gallery of fictional monsters, but Denis delivers a film of pure sensual immersion here, with Dalle looking out her ramshackle Paris home her caretaker (Alex Descas) keeps her in to tempt passersby. If 20th-century horror was often about discovering the rotten depths underneath a bright and shiny surface, “Trouble Every Day” sets a tone for 21st-century horror to come: The horror isn’t something you need to unearth — it’s all around you, even if we just choose to think it’s only on the margins. —CB

6. “House” (dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1977)

Devout fans of Nobuhiko Obayashi have long lamented the fact that, despite a lengthy dramatic filmmaking career that included some of the best Japanese anti-war movies ever made, the auteur is still best known as the director of a cult horror movie. But you could do much, much, much worse than being remembered for “House.”

A collaboration between Obayashi and his daughter Chigumi, “House” is the most immersive, visually striking, unapologetically individual haunted house movie you’re ever likely to encounter. The film tells the story of seven girls spending the summer in a creepy old house — though Obayashi largely uses the simple premise as a canvas on which to unleash a psychedelic visual feast. Practical effects and a very large set are juxtaposed against deliberately simple animations to create a rabbit hole of dazzling imagery that only gets more charming as it ages.

“House” might not be a particularly scary viewing experience for 21st century audiences, but there’s no denying that it’s one of the most singular works ever released in the horror space. When people praise genre films for offering a haven of creative freedom to auteurs who struggle to find it elsewhere, “House” is exactly what they’re talking about. —CZ

5. “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (dir. Tobe Hopper, 1974)

After curdling on horror’s top shelf for more than a half-century, Tobe Hooper’s “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is a movie you can still smell. Its influence has ripped through slashers for decades with countless competitors mimicking and modifying its most memorable moments. That infamous last shot — of the petrified Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) riding away in a pickup truck as Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) wanders down the road, cursing her escape — is too culturally significant to spoil at this point. But untold terror still awaits anyone who hasn’t experienced the hellish ordeal leading to that image.

An indie triumph made on a shoestring budget, Hooper’s undeniable nightmare offers a masterclass in raw terror presented through a low-fi aesthetic. From the bumpy van ride that delivers the film’s unsuspecting meat-sacks to the visibly rotting farmhouse where they’ll be tortured, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” makes a meal out of disturbing material depicted plainly. The rev of a chainsaw grates on the soul no matter how you hear it, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find any film that makes a meat hook look appealing, but Hooper drives those baseline horrors home with a relentless objectivity and palpable franticness that suggests a victim hiding behind the camera. Although fictional, the result can sometimes play like a documentary about the real murderer who inspired it: notorious corpse snatcher and rural serial killer, Ed Gein.

Hooper’s 1974 classic inspired a franchise with multiple timelines, and the filmmaker himself would return with a lesser horror-comedy sequel in 1986 (which is still worth checking out!) But the TCM legacy never got more frightening than that dinner table scene — a brutal near-death for our final girl that includes the viscerally upsetting Grandpa Sawyer (John Dugan) attempting to prepare dinner for his family of cannibals… but dropping the hammer each time he goes to bash in Sally’s skull. It’s a brutal moment that, in a sea of copycats prone to overthinking, has been preserved like a bare-bones delicacy from another dimension. No wonder Hooper almost titled his film “Head Cheese.”  —AF

4. “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (dir. Robert Wiene, 1920)

It’s hard to limit the influence of “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” strictly to the horror genre, frankly. A frame story, flashbacks, fake-outs, truly staggeringly artistic mise-en-scene, expressive framing, shadows that stand in for unspeakable violence, even color (well, tinting): The film uses techniques that have become essential to popular film storytelling in Hollywood and around the world. While “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” isn’t necessarily the first to experiment with any of these, its compositions are the ones that echo down the ages every time we see a long knife gleam against the darkness, or the confusing terrain of an asylum, or a monstrous and unreal figure stalking the streets at night. Every horror movie, not to mention most thrillers, film noirs, and films with non-linear storytelling, owes something to this 1920 German Expressionist masterpiece directed by Robert Wiene. The story of thwarted lovers, mysterious murders, and the danger of sleepwalkers — when exploited by tyrannical puppet masters, anyway — takes place in an unreal, heightened, totally cinematic space. Crucially, though, it’s one that looks as mad as our own world feels today, which makes the terrors that take place seem eerily plausible. That is the film’s great power, then and now. —SS

3. “Don’t Look Now” (dir. Nicolas Roeg, 1973)

More than the sum of its controversial sex scene’s anachronistically cut parts, “Don’t Look Now” is both a horror picture and a macabre study of the psychology of grief. Donald Sutherland (RIP) and Julie Christie play the Baxters, a married couple on a trip to Venice after the accidental drowning of their small daughter. What they encounter in the dark, snaking, dead-end corridors along the lagoon of the Adriatic Sea is never possibly worse than what they’ve already gone through. What’s the ominous portent of two clairvoyant sisters spelling certain doom when stacked against watching your daughter drown in a puddle as you were unable to save her?

Nicolas Roeg’s bracing and stylized 1973 “Don’t Look Now” remains influential for its docudrama-like approach to supernatural events, grounding the high concept of the Baxters’ breakdown in the visceral and the real. But it’s also just damn scary and creepy, with a famously shocking, seemingly from-nowhere denouement that isn’t in from the blue — or the red, as it were — as much as you think it is. Especially if you restart the movie from the top. —RL

2. “The Thing” (dir. John Carpenter, 1982)

A glittering beacon in John Carpenter’s already luminous filmography, “The Thing” is a damn-near perfect film, harboring countless mysteries to this day. Who was the first human victim at Outpost 31? Who was the last? And what became of those alien invaders?

Written by Bill Lancaster, Carpenter’s sixth feature film adapts author John W. Campbell’s 1938 novella “Who Goes There?” It also remakes 1951’s “The Thing from Another World” directed by Christian Nyby. Comparing those texts to “The Thing” is a fool’s errand, if only because what Carpenter achieves here is so singular and otherworldly it feels far removed from the rest of the sci-fi pantheon. Kurt Russell stars as R.J. MacReady, a helicopter pilot working with a team of American scientists at a research base in Antarctica. When a stray husky is inexplicably pursued by two Norwegians onto the isolated U.S. camp, gunfire rings out and a thick layer of distrust settles over the scene.

A sizable chunk of this mid-budget movie’s resources went to Rob Bottin’s astounding special effects — and with good reason. Carpenter and Bottin worked together on the earlier “The Fog,” and there’s a joyful irony to the artists’ clear faith in each other’s visions for this all-time cinematic ode to suspicion. The cast echoes that slippery sense of teamwork, creating a living-breathing paranoia that ripples through MacReady, station commander M.T. Garry (Donald Moffat), Childs (Keith David), Dr. Blair (A. Wilford Brimley), Dr. Copper (Richard Dysart), Windows (Thomas Waites), Fuchs (Joel Polis), Clark (Richard Masur), Norris (Charles Hallahan), George (Peter Maloney), and Palmer (David Clennon).

Ruthless enough to murder a mutant pack of dogs, but smart enough to keep scads of characters’ deaths offscreen, this 1982 genre treasure grows scarier and scarier as its crew methodically hunts for the alien abomination hiding among them. The audiences’ imagination proves the most lethal weapon in Carpenter’s toolkit, and it’s those unanswered questions that make this sci-fi triumph so unforgettable. Yes, the monstrous depictions are meant to burn in your brain (Botin really earns his flowers), but “The Thing” is a deeply human horror at its heart. Even in the face of certain death, people can’t help but turn on each other. That’s terrifying and timeless. —AF

1. “Possession” (dir. Andrzej Żuławski, 1981)

At its core, the horror genre is about the unknown — the fear of what humans can’t understand, or don’t want to acknowledge about the reality of their world. Far too many horror movies, even great ones, are a bit too forthcoming with the answers to their mysteries — and simultaneously withholding of their venom — to achieve what the genre is truly capable of. And then there’s a film like “Possession,” a movie that is simultaneously elusive and distant yet startlingly raw and intimate, a movie that throws everything and the kitchen sink at its audience while never surrendering itself to easy interpretation. Many movies on this list can be described as nightmarish; “Possession” is one of the few that truly feels like a fever dream. 

The most famous film of director Andrzej Żuławski, “Possession” carries all the traces of the director’s signature extreme, freewheeling style while tightly centering its excesses on the volatile downfall of a marriage. It’s a plotline lifted clearly from Żuławski’s own life and his difficult divorce from actress Malgorzata Braunek, and the genuine hurt he brings translates into one of the most emotionally brutal horror movies ever made. Set in the stark, eerily empty gray cityscape of West Berlin, the separation of Isabelle Adjani’s broken Anna and Sam Neill’s bureaucratic spy Mark is already horrifying even without a supernatural element. Their fights are pitched to the rafters, so emotionally intense that it seems to rip both of them apart at the seams; an early scene where both cut themselves with the same knife hints at the shared madness they’re living in. Anna, a frenetic enigma brilliantly embodied via Adjani’s Cannes prize-winning performance, is particularly unsettled and adrift: the centerpiece sequence where she breaks down and miscarries in an abandoned subway station is one of the most unbearable and sickening moments in the horror canon, with nary a trace of a killer in sight.  

As the film rests with and circles around Mark and Anna’s breakup across its two-hour runtime, the question of what is driving Anna’s madness only grows harder to parse — particularly when the infamous tentacled monster, brought to life vividly by “E.T.” and “Aliens” special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi, makes its first appearance an hour in. The questions pile up from there: Is this creature real or some manifestation of an inner trauma? What to make of the doubles Mark and Anna acquire throughout the film, are they perfected versions of the original or something darker? Even the title is a question, an invitation to consider whether the possession is literal or something more opaque and metaphorical.  

All of this makes “Possession” sound like a difficult film to watch, and it’s not for the faint of heart. But what’s remarkable is that there’s still a mad, lunatic fun to find within it. Żuławski’s masterpiece is, in some respects, the ultimate horror film, mutating from subgenre to subgenre — from psychological torment to splatter body horror to pulpy sci-fi — while fully embodying all of the strengths and possibilities horror is capable of. It’s after watching the film, as the inner dread and black pit of despair lurking in this story of self-annihilation creeps up on you, that its full terror is unlocked. Horror films are often frightening in the moment but slip from the mind quicker than you might hope. “Possession” has a grasp that only grows tighter the longer it sits with you. —WC