The Scariest Horror Movies of All Time

Before Cillian Murphy's Jim woke up in a London hospital to find the world outside raging, zombie movies pretty much moved at a leisurely pace. But director Danny Boyle changed all that with 28 Days Later, a turbocharged biter blitz about a group of survivors who fight off super-fast, super-violent infected beings on their way to sanctuary. It’s enough to get the pulse pounding, for sure, especially when it’s all tuned to John Murphy’s supreme original score.

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For those times when you want all of the fright but none of the carnage, check into the Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital, an abandoned asylum located just outside Seoul, Korea. Reportedly one of the country's most haunted locales, Gonjiam is the stuff of lore — and exactly what lures a group of YouTubers to its grounds for a live broadcast. Mixing elements of fiction and non, director Jung Bum-shik unleashes a hair-raising encounter that rises to the top of extreme haunted housing.

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Enough time has passed that horror enthusiasts can size up David Robert Mitchell's 2014 hit free of blinders. The verdict? Still holds up. The story belongs to Jay, played masterfully by new-age scream queen Maika Monroe, and unfolds after a sexual encounter unleashes some sort of entity hell-bent on killing her. It's a fresh and fun premise, but it's the atmospheric limbo swirling with paranoia in which Mitchell imprisons his final girl that really makes It Follows one of the best scary movies ever.

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Ellie Foumbi's debut has been called a psychological drama, a revenge thriller, a suspenseful character study, and so much more. Inability to confine it to a single genre adds to its allure, so we'll go ahead and add intense slow-burner. The story, which morphs into an entirely new experience by its end, unfurls around Marie, an African refugee and chef whose world gets turned upside down when she comes face to face with the warlord who murdered her family.

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Skinamarink has been at the forefront of the horror-genre conversation since its February 2023 release. And for good reason. This tiny indie isn't your typical horror film — there's no formula, no real setup, or cast even — just two faceless children locked in a house where strange things go bump in the night. Still, Kyle Edward Ball’s experiential project is nightmare fuel that will burrow its way into your brain and never leave. Like the bad dream you had as a kid and remember today.

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Mumblegore fans, here's a shoestring-budget psychological gem that's right up your alley. It comes from a directing team who call themselves Perry Home Video and stars co-director Steph Holmbo who borrowed from her own experiences to craft the screenplay and tells the story of a woman who's terrorized by horrifying phenomena after leaving her abusive boyfriend. Deeply unnerving, this one is a sensory assault that will seep into your nightmares.

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Show of hands if you've seen this little Aussie treat from the A24 folks. About a group of teens who conjure the dead through an ancient relic, it stars relative newcomer Sophie Wilde, who's brilliant as Mia, a woman who recently lost her mother and believes this new embalmed-hand party trick is her ticket to seeing her again. With genius effects and an intensity that takes hold like a death grip, Talk to Me is one of the best modern entries into the supernatural subgenre.

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So, this is found-footage fare, but fear not, director Stephen Cognetti manages to infuse fresh terror into well-trodden shaky-cam territory. In fact, his stellar Hell House franchise has been quietly enduring since 2015, building a cult following and furthering the mythology of his Abaddon-verse. The Carmichael Manor is actually a spin-off of the original trilogy, and it heads to upstate New York with some internet sleuths to poke around an old mansion with a grisly past. Fair warning: There are clowns. The most terrifying clowns you will ever not laugh at.

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A visceral tale about regret, curses, and demons, Argentine director Démian Rugna’s When Evil Lurks will genuinely terrify you but also get you thinking. When brothers Jimi and Pedro enlist a neighbor to help them rid their town of a man who is possessed — the evil turning his body into a swollen, festering mess of goo and puss — they end up just making things worse. A lot worse. Beware: Twists, turns, and graphic gore lurk around every corner here.

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She’s autonomous. She’s lethal. She’s got a killer wardrobe. Her name is M3gan, and she’s the closest thing to a best friend and confidant a little girl can have. So goes the case of Cady, an orphaned eight-year-old who’s put in the care of her Aunt Gemma (Allison Williams), a robotics whiz on the verge of a major invention. Not ready for children and feeling the squeeze at work, Gemma pairs M3gan with Cady, unaware of the deadly consequences that come with trusting artificial intelligence.

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Okay, Mr. Rugna, what are you trying to do to us? Another stellar chiller from the Argentine auteur, Terrified concerns the residents of a neighborhood in Buenos Aires who are being tormented by an evil presence that lurks in their closets, under their beds, and even in their water. But this is no Grimm bedtime tale. It's a paranormal riddle punctuated with some of the most jarring imagery and effects that it's just plain easy to see where the film gets its name.

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The journey to motherhood can be stressful. In the case of the scream queen at the center of Michelle Garza Cervera’s bone-chilling debut, that’s an understatement. A first-time mother, Valeria’s pregnancy is riddled with black widows, hallucinations, and phantasms. But this is no typical ghost story. Rather, it’s a multilayered horror tale whose purpose goes beyond just delivering a good scare, offering a stellar twist on the Mexican folktale La Huesera. And once it breaks inside your psyche, it’s not going to leave.

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Sometimes you just want good, old-fashioned horror with a bloated budget blown on buckets of gore. That’s exactly what you get with Warner Bros.’ Evil Dead Rising. The fifth installment of the series, this one follows the reunion between two estranged sisters—one unattached, the other raising three kids in a cramped apartment—and the demons who make themselves at home. There’s no cabin, and no Ash. But there are demonic forces and a visceral buffet of blood and guts that would make Sam Raimi proud.

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You’ve heard it before: What you see online is not truth. Social media is a digital jungle, where likes and shares are the bait, and misinformation and lies are the traps, and it requires one to proceed with caution. In this getaway horror flick about a woman who goes missing during her solo vacay in Thailand, we get a firsthand look at the dangers of living life online. Though far-fetched and unlikely at times, Influencer makes a solid point: The selfie you take today could be the life you lose tomorrow.

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This Hebrew horror romance about two women whose meet-cute leads to a relationship rocked by rituals and black magic is a Shudder Original—which is just code for “really good stuff.” After Leah suffers a horrifying seizure, the two head to Leah’s childhood home in London; it’s here where things get weird. Not only does Leah’s mother reveal herself to be an overbearing, spell-chanting parental unit, but her uncle keeps pushing dybbuks. As charming as it is scary, Attachment has a way of sticking with you.

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A remake of his 2014 cult horror, Last Shift, Anthony DiBlasi’s Malum is a gruesome mix of demonic imagery and supernatural horror. Working with a crippling screenplay, DiBlasi introduces a little more backstory here, pumps up the volume of his cast, and widens the scope of his lens—this time we get to leave the station if only for a little while. Split’s Jessica Sula takes the lead as the rookie officer whose late-night shift turns into a bloodbath. And, yes, it’s another panic attack of a movie, but totally worth it.

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From Nikyatu Jusu, a Sierra Leonean American filmmaker with much festival clout, comes a domestic thriller about a Senegalese babysitter (Anna Diop) who takes a job caring for the daughter of a white Upper East Side family. She hopes the gig will be the bridge she needs to bring her son to America. However, the further she becomes entwined with this family, the more her own maternal sacrifice haunts her. A welcome addition to the Blumhouse catalog, this is psychological horror at its finest.

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Jenna Ortega and Melissa Berrera head to NYC in the latest installment of the Ghostface saga. As sisters Tara and Sam, the two leave Woodsboro for a fresh start but, of course, soon find they’re the targets of a psycho in a costume wielding a very sharp knife. Writer Kevin Williamson works with a team to pen a script worthy of this enduring franchise, while veterans like Courteney Cox, Hayden Panettiere, and Skeet Ulrich reprise their roles for old time’s sake. Totally worth the sleepless night that might follow.

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Escaping to a lakeside cabin to ride out quarantine during a pandemic might sound like a bright idea. That is, until you learn there’s a hooded madman, or several, in the woods and no one can hear you scream. If anything, this home-invasion horror flick from masterful writer Kevin Williamson, of Scream fame, and his writing partner, Katelyn Crabb, will induce those shivers you want from a horror flick. But under its slash-happy varnish, there’s a serious message to spread: Politics can make people sick.

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One of the most disturbing films on record comes from Beth de Araújo, a Chinese American filmmaker whose debut feature film was inspired by the “Central Park Karen.” Intrigued by commonplace racism, Araújo recruited a cast of “nice white women” to explore just how deep that well of fear and ignorance goes. And trust us, it’s deep. And it’s dark. A rattling nightmare that will make you feel like a fly on the wall of the scummiest far-right girls’ night out, this one is a brutal watch with a booming message.

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