The 25 Best Horror Movies Ever

One of the more popular genres within film is horror. But what are the best horror movies of all time? When many people think about spooky films, there are probably a few that come to mind like Nightmare on Elm Street, Alien, The Shining, Halloween, and many other films featuring iconic monsters that haunt your dreams--sometime literally. The horror genre is so vast that there are thousands available movies to watch. But what scary flicks should you check out? Over the course of 130 years, these movies have been making viewers' skin crawl, yet people want to see more. Looking through all the horror movies throughout the history of film, we've found the 25 best horror movies ever, chosen by the staff here at GameSpot.

Every country and every culture makes these types of movies, which tends to create different kinds of horror stories, so the genre is incredibly versatile. Each writer, director, actor, et al brings something different to the table when it comes to horror. Since thousands of horror movies have been made, what are the best horror movies? Are they a slasher film where someone takes down a group of victims, one by one? Are they movies featuring atrocious monsters, aliens, or ghosts? Or are they movies that are grounded in reality?

All of these questions were taken into consideration when we thought about the best horror movies of all time. The staff at GameSpot came together to pick some of the spookiest films that stuck with them that they consider the best of all time. Whether you're in for something atmospheric or a goofy slasher film, there's something here for you. So let's check out the 25 best horror movies ever, in the order they were released.

And if you're looking to check these movies out for yourself, don't worry, we'll let you know where to watch each of these movies.

A woman in town for an interview is staying at an Airbnb. Upon arriving, she realizes it has been double-booked and someone is already staying there. She decides to stay there anyway and discovers there is a lot more to this house than the bizarre house guest.

Barbarian isn't the movie the trailers promoted it as. It's not so much about a woman being trapped in a house with a strange man. Instead, the story is about the house itself. Just when you think you have the movie and its plot figured out, the rug is pulled from your feet, and Barbarian becomes something completely different and seriously horrifying. It's shocking in a way that can't be described unless you've seen the film.

Where to watch: Prime Video

After getting married to an upper-class family, a bride learns she has to take part in a sinister game of hide-and-seek.

Ready Or Not takes the concept from 1932's The Most Dangerous Game and gives it a modern twist as a dark comedy. While the stakes are real, the mild comedy comes from some of the incompetence of the in-laws. It takes something old and makes it new and fresh again. Samara Weaving plays the bride Grace and while she is the modern-day embodiment of the Final Girl, played to perfection. Ready Or Not subverts expectations at every turn.

Where to rent or buy: Prime Video

Aliens have taken over Earth and hunt with super sensitive hearing, so in order to stay alive, a family must remain quiet.

The premise of this film is fantastic. It allows the audience to bask in the film's atmosphere. Because there is so little dialogue, the film relies on the performances of its stars. Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, and Noah Jupe bring excellence to their prospective roles. Using mostly just facial expressions and body language, they are able to tell their haunting story. The monsters that have invaded Earth have a unique and intriguing design and the horror really comes from the fact that they're everywhere and ready to pounce and devour at the slightest of sounds.

Where to watch: Paramount+

Following the death of a mentally ill mother, Hereditary follows a daughter and her two children as they deal with the trauma of this incident. They learn about their heritage and mental illness, before encountering the supernatural.

Hereditary was Ari Aster's first feature-length film, with Midsommar releasing one year later. He is one of the few directors that changed the course of modern horror, focusing more on atmosphere and a slow build to a terrifying climax. It's a mixture of subgenres, taking elements of gothic, body, psychological, and folklore horror to create something that feels familiar and new at the same time.

Where to watch: Kanopy

A Black man and his white girlfriend head to her parent's house for the weekend. However, there is passive-aggressive racial tension between the man and his girlfriend's parents. Worse, there is a deeper mystery with this family, which results in the man attempting to escape the home.

Director and writer Jordan Peele always understood and loved horror, which can be seen in his work on the sketch comedy series Key and Peele. Get Out was his first foray into feature-length horror and he nailed what makes the genre so riveting. His debut was astonishing, delivering something new and frightening to the audience. A lot of the credit should also go to lead actor Daniel Kaluuya, who conveyed so much emotion and so many moments of masking his fear.

Where to watch: Peacock

The film follows a group of passengers on a train from Seoul to Busan in Korean. While traveling, there is a zombie outbreak, and the passengers try their best to survive during their journey.

Train to Busan is the reinvention of the zombie movie for the 2010s. The Korean film takes the idea of fast-moving zombies--popularized by the 2002 film 28 Days Later--and places it in a contained atmosphere, giving the audience two types of horror wrapped into one. It's intensely paced and anxiety-inducing. It is the best modern-day zombie movie. What really separates this film from others is the empathy you have for the main character, who will do anything it takes to save his daughter.

Where to watch: Peacock

A young woman has sex with a man she goes on a date with, but she quickly learns it was a ruse in order to pass a curse on to her. A supernatural force that looks human slowly follows her, and she learns that if it gets to her, she dies. The only way to get away from the curse is to pass it on to someone else. Even if she does pass it on, if the newly-cursed person dies, the force refocuses back on her.

It Follows is the perfect way to scare people into abstinence. Jokes aside, this is an edge-of-your-seat scare. The cursed can't fight back. There's no convoluted backstory to the monster. It just exists, and you can't destroy it. It's a film that will have you looking at every frame to see if the monster is hiding in plain sight in the background. The viewer is sucked into this atmospheric horror, and they can't turn away.

Where to watch: Paramount+, Netflix

A journalist finds and watches a VHS tape. She receives a phone call, which tells her she has seven days left to live. Before her days are up, she tries to uncover why the tape exists and who made it.

The Ring is a remake of the Japanese film Ringu, which came out four years prior. The Ring was the start of a run of Asian horror films being remade for American audiences, which also included Ju-On: The Grudge, The Eye, One Missed Call, and others. The Ring was the first to grip audiences, offering something different than what was currently being put into theaters in the states: the second wave of slasher films. While The Ring was a remake, it opened new avenues in the genre for western audiences, letting them know that some of the best horror comes from across the Pacific Ocean.

Where to watch: Paramount+

A man awakes from a coma 28 days after he's admitted to the hospital. He finds that a virus has infected all of London, turning people into swift zombie-like creatures. He finds himself trying to find other survivors and attempting to escape the city.

28 Days Later was the first movie to popularize fast-moving zombies. While the creatures technically aren't zombies in the film, they're much like the creatures we've seen in previous films. Director Danny Boyle has put out some outstanding films in his career, but, to date, 28 Days Later is the only monster horror movie he's done, and he really adds layers of loneliness, depression, and struggle to the film, making a connection with the audience. Cillian Murphy's portrayal of Jim is exceptionally memorable, as we can all relate to the feeling of isolation and confusion.

Where to watch: Currently unavailable

A mysterious masked murderer goes on a killing spree in a small California town. The targets are students at Woodsboro High School. A group of friends, a local reporter, and a deputy put their heads together to try and figure out who this murderer is and why they're committing these crimes.

Scream is just as much a self-satire of its genre as it is a horror movie. The movie is a trailblazing meta masterpiece, building off the director's earlier ideas seen in Wes Craven's New Nightmare, and features characters who speak of horror movie tropes like a survival guide. While the late director Wes Craven was an icon in horror for many reasons, this would be one of his most important legacies.

Where to watch: Max

Clarice Starling is an FBI agent on the hunt for a serial killer. However, in order to understand the mind of a serial killer, she has to talk to one: the cannibal Hannibal Lecter.

At first, The Silence of the Lambs feels like a detective story. There's a mystery to be solved. However, as the film progresses, the audience witnesses the unique relationship between Starling and Lecter. The film features brilliant performances from Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, who have what seems to be a working relationship in order to capture the killer Buffalo Bill. What sets The Silence of the Lambs apart from other horror films is that it's so grounded and feels like a story that could happen. Audiences and critics love the movie, and though the horror genre is routinely snubbed at award ceremonies, it landed five Oscars during the 1992 Academy Awards.

Where to watch: MGM+, AMC+

A dead man escapes the underworld and comes back to life. He reunites with his sister-in-law/lover. However, he's not a fully-formed human. The woman kills people for him, to revitalize his body. The demonic beings the man escaped from head to our world and try to recapture him.

Hellraiser is one of Clive Barker's best creations. It features a complex and terrifying world with characters you want to know more about, but at the same time, you're too frightened to learn more. Pinhead and the other Cenobites are some of the most iconic characters in all of horror, and the movie doesn't entirely focus on them. This is a very layered and complex film, all while keeping the main story pretty straightforward.

Where to watch: Prime Video, AMC+, Shudder

Following the events of the first film where a serial killer armed with a drill killed a group of teens, the sequel follows a group of young women heading to a vacation home for band practice. However, there's a rockabilly serial killer/possible supernatural being going after everyone at the house using a guitar with a drill at the end with bloody results.

Slumber Party Massacre II comes off as a typical, run-of-the-mill slasher film. However, it's a parody of what slashers had become at the time. The antagonist is over-the-top and comical, the movie focuses on a group of women with the men as the eye candy, and it features a story that's incredibly convoluted to the point where it lets the audience know the movie is ridiculous. What's more, Slumber Party Massacre II is almost a musical, with numerous music breaks--including one from the killer. It's a warped mirror to what the genre had become by the late '80s, much like Return of the Living Dead did with the zombie genre and Scream did with modern slashers. Slumber Party Massacre II just had better music.

Where to watch: Prime Video, Shudder, Screambox

A scientist performing a teleportation experiment accidentally turns himself into a human/fly hybrid.

The Fly is a remake of the 1958 movie of the same name. However, what sets this film apart from the original is director David Cronenberg. Known for his work in the body-horror subgenre of film, Cronenberg brought his style of filmmaking to a much broader audience--yes, more broad than Scanners or Videodrome. Combined with the leads of the film, Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, Cronenberg's work had a lot more eyes on it. The film takes the original and adds modern horror to it, along with many hard-to-watch scenes due to the graphic imagery.

Where to buy/rent: Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, Apple TV+

In what's seemingly a friendly neighborhood, a group of teenagers find themselves having nightmares that all feature the same terrifying man with a bladed-glove named Freddy Krueger. When they die in their dreams, they die in real life.

Speaking of director Wes Craven, A Nightmare on Elm Street created one of the most terrifying monsters in the history of horror: Freddy Krueger. The film introduced a killer who you can't run for because he's in your dreams. Robert Englund's portrayal of the character is iconic, and Freddy became--and still is--a major part of pop culture.

Where to buy or rent: Amazon Video, Apple TV+, Microsoft Store

An alien that can shape-shift into any person it comes in contact with hunts a research team in Antarctica.

Director John Carpenter and actor Kurt Russell working together on a movie is a recipe for success. Carpenter brings out this gruff attitude in Russell that resonated with the audience. Russell plays a researcher who is tough, yet terrified, of the events unfolding around him. But what makes this film work so well is that the film begs the audience to ask, "Who can you trust?" If the alien can shapeshift into anyone or anything it wants, then who is the alien? There's this wonderful element of paranoia that is the backbone to this entire film.

Where to watch: Peacock

A family moves into a home, and they quickly learn that the house is haunted.

The film's premise is incredibly simplistic, but what makes it a great horror film is a bit more complex. There's a fantastic family dynamic between the Freeling family, featuring the actors JoBeth Williams, Heather O'Rourke, Craig T. Nelson, Dominique Dunne, and Oliver Robins. They feel like your average suburban family, who are about to experience something horrible. There's a gradual build to a brilliant climax, and the film features some iconic horror moments, like a memorable clown in Carol Anne's room.

Where to buy/rent: Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, Apple TV+

A group of friends travel to a remote cabin and find a mysterious book that unleashes demons that can possess the living. This is the plot for both Evil Dead and its sequel, Evil Dead 2. However, tonally, they are two completely different movies.

The original Evil Dead is bizarre and feels new for the time. It features haunting moments and memorable scenes that will stick with the viewer for years. It's a horror film from Sam Raimi that takes itself very seriously. Six years later, Raimi decided to reshoot the entire movie as a comedy, and many scenes were shot-for-shot the same. With just a few changes in scenes and character, Evil Dead 2 made a good horror movie into a cult classic.

Where to watch: AMC+ (Evil Dead), Indieflix (Evil Dead 2)

Bringing his wife and son for the trip, a man takes a job watching over a hotel during the winter. In a busy plot, emblematic of original author Stephen King's keen ability to spin several plates at once, the father slowly slips into madness while his psychic son sees ghosts roaming the halls of the massive--and empty--Overlook Hotel.

While King may not have liked the adaptation of his novel of the same name, it is widely agreed upon that Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is a masterpiece. Kubrick brought life to the Overlook Hotel with his mesmerizing shots of following Danny on his Big Wheel in the halls, the blood flowing from the doors of an elevator, and sweeping overhead shots of the family driving through the mountains or the hedge maze long before drones made these easy. However, Shelley Duvall and Jack Nicholson's performances are what elevate this movie to another level, playing a wife and husband who could not have foreseen how awful their stay at the Overlook would be.

Where to watch: Max

A commercial spacecraft investigates a transmission from space, and they pick up a murderous alien by accident.

Science-fiction and horror are two genres that combine perfectly. Alien is a film that arguably does that better than anything else. It's about confinement, isolation, and fear of the unknown--and space is filled with the unknown. Sigourney Weaver's performance as Ripley is one of the driving forces of this film, which serves as the introduction to the Xenomorph, one of the most iconic beings in all of horror.

Where to watch: Hulu

Michael Myers escapes a mental institution years after murdering his sister, and goes on a rampage terrorizing a small town in Illinois, killing everyone he comes across.

Many look to Halloween as the blueprint for the slasher horror subgenre. While it certainly wasn't the first film of its kind--other notables include The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and, arguably, Psycho--it is likely the most often-cited example of what really kicked off the slasher craze. It also helped establish the rules of slashers, including the idea that having sex means you are probably not going to make it out alive.. That idea was reiterated in Friday the 13th, which made the connection between sex, drugs, and alcohol leading to death far more apparent.

Additionally, Jamie Lee Curtis has a stellar performance as Laurie Strode, which still serves as an iconic early example of the final girl trope in horror. Over 40 years later, Curtis was still playing the role, showing Laurie's unwillingness to die at the hands of her murderous stalker.

Where to watch: FuboTV, AMC+, Shudder, Indieflix, Cultpix

Tourist destination Amity Island, made up of beautiful beaches, finds itself at a crossroads after a shark attacks and kills numerous people. A local fisherman offers to hunt and kill the shark terrorizing the community after asking for a large bounty.

When you first think of the movie Jaws, you think of the music of John Williams. He's the composer who breathed life into the orchestral sounds that every person can hum, even if they're never seen the movie. Additionally, this was directed by Steven Spielberg, who may not be primarily known as a horror movie director, but he certainly grasps what people are afraid of, just lurking beneath the surface. Jaws is a great example of how to deliver a horror movie to a mass audience that stands the test of time. It's not just the shark that makes this movie great. It's the direction, the music, the acting, the setting, and more.

Where to watch: Netflix

This movie follows a group of friends heading to one of their grandfather's graves in rural Texas. They come across what seems to be an abandoned house and find a group of psychopaths called the Sawyer family living there and eating people--one of those family members is a chainsaw-wielding maniac lovingly named Leatherface. Why Leatherface? Because he stretches the skin of his victim's faces over his own, wearing them like masks.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre is terrifying, gruesome, and contains numerous moments of imagery burned into the brain of anyone who's seen it. The movie is also one of the first examples of the "final girl" trope in horror movies, with Sally Hardesty being one of the most memorable early examples of a horror final girl.

Where to watch: Peacock, Screambox, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV, Plex, Freevee

whereabouts of a missing girl. The locals are a pagan group and claim she never existed. From there, the officer slowly discovers what's happening in this community.

While many people may connect The Wicker Man with the faulty Nicolas Cage remake, the original is truly a brilliant psychological horror film. It's the blueprint for modern films like Midsommar. The Wicker Man is a slow burn and originally plays out like a normal detective story, before things take a turn for the worse as we learn more about the community. There are memorable moments and imagery in the film--including lots of bizarre masks. It's a deeply haunting movie and a staple of UK horror filmmaking.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime

A group of survivors attempt to escape slow-moving undead humans that have the ability to turn the living into the walking dead.

The concept of modern zombie films starts with Night of the Living Dead, with the movie being inspired by its Haitian/Vodou roots, like the movie White Zombie. George A. Romero's film takes that base and makes it a biological disease rather than a concept based on control and magic, and Romero's undead become the standard for future movies, TV, video games, and more in that subgenre of horror. What makes this film even more important is that it can be viewed through the lens of the Civil rights movement, marginalized communities, and racism, even if that wasn't Romero's original intention.

Where to watch:Max, Peacock, AMC+, Starz, FuboTV, The Criterion Channel, MGM+, Shudder, Fandor, The Roku Channel, Tubi, Crackle, Pluto TV, Plex