The 25 Best Horror Movies, Ranked

Halloween means Halloween movies — and for some, Halloween movies astir decidedly means fearfulness movies.

To assistance you marque the astir of the autumn season, we’ve enactment unneurotic a countdown of the 25 champion fearfulness movies of each time, from “Psycho” to “A Quiet Place.” The database is based on horror rankings from the movie-review aggregate tract Metacritic.

Movies are ordered from bully to fantabulous — determination are nary atrocious fearfulness movies connected this list. Most ties were breached by looking astatine the full fig of reviews that went into each film’s Metacritic score.

Overall, lone movies with astatine slightest 15 Metacritic-tracked reviews are included successful this countdown. We further narrowed the database to fearfulness movies that tin beryllium streamed connected subscription services, specified as Amazon Prime Video and Paramount+, oregon connected free, ad-supported services, specified as Pluto TV and Tubi. (CBS Essentials, Paramount+ and Pluto are each subsidiaries of ViacomCBS.) 

Read connected to spot which films made the last chopped — and to find retired wherever to watercourse each of them close now.

(Note: Metacritic scores and streaming availability are existent arsenic of publication; if a movie is disposable to watercourse connected aggregate platforms, we’ve listed up to 2 options.)

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25. “A Quiet Place” (Metacritic score: 82)

Making bully connected its title, this 2018 movie from writer-director-star John Krasinski (“The Office”) seldom registered supra a susurration en way to becoming a box-office smash. Emily Blunt, Krasinski’s real-life wife, co-stars. Krasinski and Blunt play a joined mates who indispensable support things hush-hush, lest their household becomes targeted by mysterious, sound-sensitive creatures.

In the Seattle Times, professional Moira Macdonald praised “A Quiet Place” arsenic “taut and often rather terrifying.”

Watch “A Quiet Place” connected Paramount+ (subscription required)

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24.”Under the Shadow” (Metacritic score: 83; 25 reviews)

“Under the Shadow” is simply a 2016 Persian-language movie acceptable successful wartorn Iran successful the 1980s. The intelligence chiller from writer-director Babak Anvari concerns a parent (played by Narges Rashidi), her girl (played by Avin Manshadi) — and the doll the parent says volition support them from a malevolent force.

“The movie is archetypal fascinating, past terrifying,” Noel Murray wrote for the Los Angeles Times.

Watch “Under the Shadow” connected Netflix (subscription required)

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23. “Drag Me to Hell” (2009) (Metacritic score: 83; 32 reviews)

Released successful 2009, successful the aftermath of the fiscal collapse, Sam Raimi’s “Drag Me to Hell” tells the communicative of a indebtedness serviceman (played by Alison Lohman) who is cursed aft she denies a owe extension.

Salon’s Stephanie Zacharek recovered the movie scary amusive — the effect of “an particularly joyous benignant of filmmaking.”

Watch “Drag Me to Hell” connected Showtime (subscription required)

(CBS Essentials and Showtime are some subsidiaries of ViacomCBS.)

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22. “Saint Maud” (Metacritic score: 83; 35 reviews)

Released successful 2021, “Saint Maud” is the newest movie successful this countdown. Morfydd Clark stars arsenic a hospice caregiver who’s retired to prevention a soul.

According to the Atlantic’s David Sims, writer-director Rose Clark “keep[s] the spectator guessing until the precise past minute.”

Watch “Saint Maud” connected Hulu (subscription required)

Watch “Saint Maud” connected Paramount+ (subscription required)

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21. “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” (Metacritic score: 83; 39 reviews)

Johnny Depp earned a Best Actor Oscar information arsenic the vengeful barber astatine the bloody bosom of this 2007 adaptation of the same-titled Broadway musical.

TV Guide Magazine’s Maitland McDonagh praised manager Tim Burton for transforming the Stephen Sondheim root worldly into “a cheerfully gothic morality tale.”

“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” is the archetypal — but not past — philharmonic successful this countdown.

Watch “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” connected Paramount+ (subscription required)

Watch “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” connected Pluto TV (free, with ads)

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20. “The Witch” (2016) (Metacritic score: 83; 46 reviews)

Anya Taylor-Joy (“The Queen’s Gambit”) stars arsenic a teen accused of being a witch successful this 2016 movie acceptable successful Puritan New England of the 1600s.

In Time Out, professional David Ehrlich wrote that “The Witch” is “one of the astir genuinely unnerving fearfulness films successful caller memory…“

Watch “The Witch” (2016) connected Showtime (subscription required)

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19. “The Lighthouse” (Metacritic score: 83; 51 reviews)

This black-and-white, 2019 introduction is the 2nd movie connected this database from filmmaker Robert Eggers, who besides wrote and directed “The Witch.”

The intelligence fearfulness communicative stars Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe arsenic 19th-century lightkeepers who conflict with the isolation of their post.

“‘The Lighthouse‘ stands arsenic a monument to 2 titanic performances,” Tara Brady praised in the Irish Times.

Watch “The Lighthouse” connected Amazon Prime Video (subscription required)

Watch “The Lighthouse” connected Tubi (free, with ads)

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18. “Dracula: Pages From a Virgin’s Diary” (Metacritic score: 84)

If the fearfulness genre teaches you anything, it’s to expect the unexpected. Enter “Dracula: Pages From a Virgin’s Diary,” the second musical successful this countdown of fearfulness classics.

This 2003, black-and-white Canadian accumulation looks and plays similar a soundless movie (but with a score, natch). And that’s not the fractional of it: The Guy Maddin movie recasts Bram Stoker’s vampire communicative arsenic a ballet.

“…I hasten to adhd that this is the astir inventive vampire representation of the past 80 years,” John Powers wrote for the L.A. Weekly.

Watch “Dracula: Pages From a Virgin’s Diary connected Shudder” (subscription required)

Watch “Dracula: Pages From a Virgin’s Diary” connected Shudder connected Encore+ YouTube channel (free)

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17. “The Host” (2007) (Metacritic score: 85)

This movie is the 2007 introduction from Bong Joon Ho, the Oscar-winning filmmaker of “Parasite.” In “The Host,” the Han River successful Seoul, South Korea, is contaminated. Monster enactment ensues.

Entertainment Weekly’s Lisa Schwarzbaum called the movie “wildly entertaining.”

Viewer beware: Do not confuse this movie with the 2013 Hollywood sci-fi film, besides titled “The Host.”

Watch “The Host” (2007) connected Amazon Prime Video (subscription required)

Watch “The Host” (2007) connected Hulu (subscription required)

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16. “The Babadook” (Metacritic score: 86)

“The Babadook” is simply a 2014 Australian fearfulness movie that finds a widowed parent (played by Essie Davis) and her young lad (played by Noah Wiseman) terrorized by a quality from a pop-up children’s book.

The Portland Oregonian’s Marc Mohan called the movie a “near-masterpiece of unease.”

Watch “The Babadook” connected AMC+ (subscription required)

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13 (TIE). “Eraserhead” (Metacritic score: 87; 15 reviews)

This 1977 cult movie marks the diagnostic debut of writer-director David Lynch (“Twin Peaks”). The avant-garde communicative concerns a antheral (played by Jack Nance) and his space-alien-esque baby.

TV Guide Magazine called “Eraserhead” a “creepily sensuous movie that suggests that the acheronian and troubling things we similar to repress inhabit dresser drawers, unrecorded down the radiator oregon prevarication nether the bed.”

Watch “Eraserhead” connected HBO Max (subscription required)

Watch “Eraserhead” connected Criterion Channel (subscription required)

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13 (TIE). “The Invisible Man” (1933) (Metacritic score: 87; 15 reviews)

This 1933 film, the archetypal big-screen instrumentality connected H.G. Wells’ classical tale, is the archetypal of 3 titles connected this database that belongs to what is present known arsenic the Universal Classic Monsters franchise.

Claude Rains stars successful “The Invisible Man” arsenic a idiosyncratic who gains the powerfulness of invisibility, but loses his mind.

“The strangest quality yet created by the screen…,” Variety declared upon the film’s archetypal release.

Watch “The Invisible Man” (1933) connected Shudder (subscription required)

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13 (TIE). “The Wicker Man” (1974) (Metacritic score: 87; 15 reviews)

Not to beryllium confused with the critically mocked Nicolas Cage remake, the archetypal “Wicker Man” was praised by Variety for a screenplay “which, for sheer imaginativeness and near-terror, has seldom been [equaled].”

Edward Woodward (“The Equalizer”) stars successful the 1974 movie arsenic a constabulary sergeant whose hunt for a missing miss takes him to a Scottish island, wherever the goings-on are, successful a word, strange.

Watch “The Wicker Man” (1974) connected Amazon Prime Video (subscription required)

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11 (TIE). “Jaws” (Metacritic score: 87; 21 reviews)

Steven Spielberg turbo-charged his directing career, helped make the modern movie blockbuster — and enactment a scare successful beachgoers with his blood-soaked 1975 adaptation of the same-titled caller astir a slayer shark. Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw prima successful the Oscar-winning film.

“This is simply a suspense classical that leaves teeth-marks,” the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw wrote in praise of “Jaws.”

Watch “Jaws” connected Amazon Prime Video (subscription required)

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11 (TIE). “Halloween” (1978) (Metacritic score: 87  21 reviews)

The knife-wielding, mask-wearing fearfulness villain Michael Myers debuted successful filmmaker John Carpenter’s archetypal “Halloween.” The influential slasher movie stars Jamie Lee Curtis arsenic the terrorized Laurie Strode, a quality Curtis would reprise for respective sequels and remakes.

According to critics, the archetypal “Halloween” is the champion “Halloween.” Film Threat’s David Grove called the 1978 merchandise “[a]rguably, the top fearfulness movie of the past 30 years.”

Watch “Halloween” (1978) connected Shudder (subscription required)

Watch “Halloween” (1978) connected Redbox (free, with ads)

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10. “Hereditary” (Metacritic score: 87; 45 reviews)

This 2018 movie is the newest merchandise successful our countdown’s Top 10. “Hereditary” features Milly Shapiro arsenic agirl whose household is menaced by the demon-summoning handiwork of a precocious matriarch.

The Verge’s Tasha Robinson hailed the film as “a hellhole of an aggravated ride, made for a assemblage that enjoys heart-clutching adrenaline spikes.”

Watch “Hereditary” connected Showtime (subscription required)

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9. “The Innocents” (Metacritic score: 88)

This introduction stars six-time Oscar nominee Deborah Kerr, features a screenplay co-written by Truman Capote (“In Cold Blood”) and shares DNA with Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw.” But here’s what fearfulness fans truly request to know: Per the Los Angeles Times’ Susan King, “The Innocents” is “[o]ne of the scariest films ever made.”

The 1961 movie casts Kerr arsenic a governess who comes to judge the location she works successful is haunted — and the children successful her care, possessed.

Watch “The Innocents” connected Criterion Channel (subscription required)

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8. “Night of the Living Dead” (1968) (Metacritic score: 89)

George A. Romero deployed a reported $114,000 budget, a no-name formed and Pittsburgh-area locations to make a groundbreaking, 1968 zombie communicative that New Yorker professional Pauline Kael hailed arsenic “one of the astir gruesomely terrifying movies ever made.”

An autarkic accumulation that fell into the nationalist domain, “Night of the Living Dead” is disposable to watercourse connected astir each level retired there, including subscription services specified as HBO Max and Shudder. Below, we person spotlighted 2 of the free, ad-supported services wherever you tin ticker the fearfulness classical close now.

Watch “Night of the Living Dead” connected Pluto TV (free, with ads)

Watch “Night of the Living Dead” connected Tubi (free, with ads)

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7. “The Birds” (Metacritic score: 90)

A clump of birds are retired to get a socialite (played by Tippi Hedren) and astir each different nonmigratory successful Bodega Bay successful this perennially fashionable 1963 film, the archetypal of 2 Alfred Hitchcock entries successful our countdown.

“Clamps itself to your recollection and doesn’t fto go,” Empire’s Angie Errigo wrote of “The Birds.”

Watch “The Birds” connected Showtime (subscription required)

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6. “Frankenstein” (1931) (Metacritic score: 91)

Though released astir 90 years ago, this 1931 Universal Classic Monsters introduction continues to chill — and to beryllium praised by critics much than immoderate consequent Frankenstein movie.

Boris Karloff stars arsenic the monstrous and misunderstood instauration of the corpse-stealing Henry Frankenstein (played by Colin Clive).

“Beautiful photography, a heartbreaking story, and iconic moments from opening to end,” Empire’s Kim Newman wrote of 1931’s “Frankenstein.” “Absolutely unmissable.”

Watch “Frankenstein” (1931) connected Vix (free, with ads)

(Note: Vix is simply a Spanish-language streaming service, but “Frankenstein” is presented successful its original, English-language form.)

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5. “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1956) (Metacritic score: 92)

The paranoia runs precocious successful this sci-fi/horror classical directed by Don Siegel (“Dirty Harry”) and starring Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter and Carolyn Jones (“The Addams Family”).

The archetypal of respective big-screen adaptations of the caller “The Body Snatchers,” the 1956 movie is the champion of the lot, per the captious consensus.

“Incredibly chilling, this Don Siegel movie inactive delivers a almighty punch,” the Chicago Tribune’s David McDonnell wrote of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

Watch “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” connected Paramount+ (subscription required)

Watch “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” connected Pluto TV (free, with ads)

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4. “The Bride of Frankenstein (Metacritic score: 95)

This is the 3rd and highest-ranked Universal Classic Monsters movie successful this countdown — each directed by James Whale.

A 1935 sequel to Whale’s “Frankenstein,” “Bride of Frankenstein” stars Elsa Lanchester arsenic the made-to-order mate of Boris Karloff’s monster. Lanchester besides plays writer Mary Shelley successful the film’s stage-setting prologue.

“‘Bride’ is simply a chaotic ride, adjacent today,” Phelim O’Neill praised in the Guardian. “It flits betwixt the classical and the gutter, the campy and the superior successful a mode that’s hard to pin down.”

Watch “The Bride of Frankenstein” connected Shudder (subscription required)

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3. “Rosemary’s Baby” (Metacritic score: 96; 15 reviews)

In this 1968 Roman Polanski film, Mia Farrow stars arsenic a pistillate who’s impregnated with Satan’s spawn aft she and her histrion hubby (played by John Cassavetes) determination into an imposing Manhattan flat building. Ruth Gordon won an Oscar for her relation arsenic a neighbour who’s a batch much than conscionable nosy.

“The hostility created is practically unbearable,” the New York Daily News’ Kathleen Carroll wrote of “Rosemary’s Baby.”

Watch “Rosemary’s Baby” connected Starz (subscription required)

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2. “Don’t Look Now” (Metacritic score: 96; 25 reviews)

“Don’t Look Now” is simply a 1973 movie starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie arsenic a joined mates who question to Venice, Italy, for the husband’s enactment — and for a alteration of scenery pursuing their young daughter’s death. But the 2 find they can’t flight their grief — oregon their fates.

“A haunting, beauteous labyrinth that gets wrong your bones and stays there,” Edward Guthmann wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Watch “Don’t Look Now” connected Pluto TV (free, with ads)

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1. “Psycho” (1960) (Metacritic score: 97)

The top fearfulness movie of each time? According to critics, the reply is “Psycho.”

“‘Psycho‘ should beryllium seen astatine slightest 3 times by immoderate discerning film-goer,” the Village Voice’s Andrew Sarris wrote, “the archetypal clip for the sheer panic of the experience…”

The 1960 Alfred Hitchcock movie stars Anthony Perkins arsenic a motel proprietor by the sanction of Norman Bates — a antheral who can’t beryllium trusted to behave erstwhile the ablution h2o is running.

Watch “Psycho” connected Showtime (subscription required)

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