Pulse Reviews and Analysis
The 100 Best Horror Movies of All Time
Curated by Kory White · Fractional CRO, CRO SyndicateDirect Answer
The best horror movie of all time is Hereditary (2018), Ari Aster's grief-soaked descent into a family curse that rewired what modern horror could do — and it anchors this ranked list of the 100 greatest horror films of the modern era (1980 to the present). This is a list with a personality: it leans hard into A24's arthouse dread, the gloriously practical-effects-driven 80s cult classics, and the slow-burn folk horror wave that runs from *The Witch* to *Midsommar* to *Kill List*.
If you came for jump scares alone, look elsewhere; if you want atmosphere, dread, real craft, and films that crawl under your skin and stay there, this is your map.
Right behind Hereditary sits The Guest (2014), Adam Wingard's synth-drenched genre-bender with Dan Stevens as the most charming menace in modern cinema, and Wingard's earlier You're Next (2011) holds the No. 10 slot as the smartest home-invasion movie of the decade. Around them you'll find The Thing (1982), The Evil Dead (1981), The Witch (2015), Get Out (2017), It Follows (2014), and dozens more.
This is a 2027 viewer's definitive starting point — for newcomers building a watchlist and for veterans arguing the ranking. Every pre-1980 title is deliberately excluded; this is the modern horror canon only.
How We Ranked the Top 100
We graded every eligible film (1980 or later) against six weighted criteria, blending critical consensus with the kind of staying power only horror fans can measure.
- Lasting dread and rewatchability (25%) — does it still get under your skin on a fifth viewing?
- Craft: direction, sound, practical and visual effects (20%) — the 80s entries in particular live or die on practical work.
- Originality and influence (20%) — did it move the genre forward or spawn imitators?
- Critical consensus (15%) — aggregated from Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, and IMDb.
- Audience and cinephile love (10%) — Letterboxd ratings, logs, and lists.
- Cultural footprint (10%) — coverage and canonization by outlets like Fangoria and the BFI.
Studio pedigree informed but never decided placement. A24 earns an outsized share of the top tier on craft alone; Blumhouse Productions dominates the smart-budget supernatural wave (*Get Out*, *Sinister*, *The Babadook* distribution); New Line Cinema built the slasher canon (*A Nightmare on Elm Street*); and Universal Pictures carried the prestige creature and remake work.
Source aggregation drew on Rotten Tomatoes, Letterboxd, IMDb, Metacritic, and Fangoria archives.
1. Hereditary (2018) 🏆 BEST OVERALL
Ari Aster's feature debut is the high-water mark of modern horror — a 2018 family tragedy that mutates into something cosmic and unbearable. Toni Collette gives one of the genre's greatest performances as a mother unraveling after her own mother's death, and the film's grief logic makes every supernatural turn feel earned rather than cheap.
The dinner-table scream, the treehouse, the final attic ascent: each is a permanent fixture of the canon. A24 released nothing scarier, and neither has anyone else.
2. The Guest (2014)
Adam Wingard's synth-soaked thriller stars Dan Stevens as "David," a soldier who shows up at a grieving family's door claiming to be their dead son's war buddy — and you spend the whole movie unsure whether to trust the most charming man alive. It's a 2014 genre cocktail of slasher, action, and 80s Carpenter homage, scored like a *Drive* sequel and edited like a switchblade.
Stevens is a revelation, and the climactic haunted-house-maze finale is pure delight.
3. The Thing (1982)
John Carpenter's Antarctic paranoia masterpiece is the gold standard for practical-effects body horror — Rob Bottin's creature work has never been topped. A 1982 flop that became a cult god, it weaponizes distrust: any one of these men could already be the thing. The blood-test scene is the most unbearable suspense set-piece in horror, and the ending remains a perfect, frozen question mark.
4. The Witch (2015)
Robert Eggers' 2015 New England folk nightmare announced A24 as a horror powerhouse and launched the modern folk-horror revival. Shot in candlelight and natural gloom, with dialogue pulled from period records, it follows a banished Puritan family being picked apart by something in the woods.
Anya Taylor-Joy's Thomasin and the goat Black Phillip became instant icons. "Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?" still chills.
5. Midsommar (2019)
Ari Aster's daylight folk-horror breakup epic is the rare horror film that's almost unbearably bright. A 2019 Swedish commune turns a grieving American (Florence Pugh) into the May Queen, and the cult's flower-draped serenity curdles into ritual horror. It's funny, gorgeous, devastating, and the final smile is a masterpiece of catharsis-as-nightmare.
A24 at its most ambitious.
6. Get Out (2017)
Jordan Peele's 2017 debut is a perfect machine — a social thriller about a Black man meeting his white girlfriend's family that builds to one of horror's all-time reveals. The Sunken Place is now permanent cultural shorthand, and the film won Peele a screenplay Oscar. Backed by Blumhouse Productions, it proved smart, pointed horror could be a phenomenon.
7. The Evil Dead (1981)
Sam Raimi's 1981 cabin-in-the-woods berserker is low-budget filmmaking as pure adrenaline — a relentless, gooey, camera-flying assault that made a star of Bruce Campbell and a legend of its director. Few debuts are this feral. The Necronomicon, the demonic tree, the basement: it built an entire mythology out of sheer kinetic nerve.
8. It Follows (2014)
David Robert Mitchell's 2014 suburban nightmare turns a sexually transmitted curse into a slow-walking, ever-present dread that can look like anyone. The synth score by Disasterpeace and the patient wide-frame staging make every background figure a threat. It's the smartest, most formally controlled American horror film of its decade.
9. The Babadook (2014)
Jennifer Kent's 2014 Australian debut is a grief allegory wearing a pop-up-book monster — and it's terrifying on both levels. Essie Davis plays an exhausted widowed mother whose son insists a storybook creature is real, and the film refuses easy comfort. "You can't get rid of the Babadook" became a rallying cry for a reason: it's about the things you carry forever.
10. You're Next (2011)
Adam Wingard's 2011 home-invasion thriller flips the script the moment its final girl turns out to be more dangerous than the animal-masked killers stalking the house. Sharni Vinson's Erin is a survivalist powerhouse, and the film's mean wit and inventive kills make it the most rewatchable siege movie of the modern era.
A genuine crowd-pleaser with teeth.
11. Audition (1999)
Takashi Miike's 1999 slow-burn turns a fake casting call into one of cinema's most excruciating climaxes — "kiri kiri kiri" will haunt you. A landmark of J-horror's late-90s wave.
12. The Descent (2005)
Neil Marshall's 2005 caving nightmare is claustrophobia weaponized, then doubled when the crawlers arrive. An all-women cast and a pitch-black original ending make it a high point of British horror.
13. Evil Dead II (1987)
Sam Raimi's 1987 half-remake, half-sequel cranks the original into Looney Tunes splatstick — Bruce Campbell's Ash fights his own hand and births a horror-comedy template still copied today.
14. Let the Right One In (2008)
Tomas Alfredson's 2008 Swedish vampire romance is a tender, snow-bound coming-of-age story with a current of real menace running under it — the pool finale is unforgettable.
15. Train to Busan (2016)
Yeon Sang-ho's 2016 zombie-on-a-train thriller is K-horror at its most propulsive and emotionally brutal, building to a finale that earns every tear.
16. The Lighthouse (2019)
Robert Eggers' 2019 black-and-white descent into madness pits Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson against the sea, the booze, and each other — an A24 fever dream of seabird curses and mermaid madness.
17. 28 Days Later (2002)
Danny Boyle's 2002 rage-virus thriller redefined the modern zombie as a sprinting blur and opened with one of the great post-apocalyptic images: an empty London at dawn.
18. Hellraiser (1987)
Clive Barker's 1987 puzzle-box descent into the Cenobites' realm of pleasure and pain gave horror its most baroque mythology and Pinhead, its most quotable demon.
19. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Wes Craven's 1984 dream-slasher built New Line Cinema ("the house that Freddy built") and gave us a killer who hunts you when you're at your most defenseless: asleep.
20. Scream (1996)
Wes Craven's 1996 meta-slasher resurrected the whole genre by making its teens horror-literate — the rules speech and the opening Drew Barrymore sequence are landmarks of self-aware terror.
21. The Fly (1986)
David Cronenberg's 1986 body-horror tragedy turns Jeff Goldblum's teleportation experiment into a heartbreaking decay — Oscar-winning makeup, real pathos.
22. Re-Animator (1985)
Stuart Gordon's 1985 Lovecraft splatter-comedy is gleefully tasteless, anchored by Jeffrey Combs' unhinged Herbert West and a glowing-green reanimation serum.
23. The Conjuring (2013)
James Wan's 2013 old-school haunted-house picture relaunched studio horror as a franchise machine through clean craft and patient, perfectly-timed scares.
24. Sinister (2012)
Scott Derrickson's 2012 found-footage-within-a-film about a true-crime writer (Ethan Hawke) and the Super 8 reels in his attic was measured the "scariest movie ever" by one science study — the lawnmower reel earns it.
25. The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Dan O'Bannon's 1985 punk-rock zombie comedy gave the world "BRAAAINS," the Tarman, and a graveyard romp that's still the funniest of all undead movies.
26. The Lost Boys (1987) 💎 BEST VALUE
Joel Schumacher's 1987 MTV-era vampire flick is the ultimate hidden gem of this list — a sun-soaked, sax-scored, perfectly-cast teen-vamp hangout that's pure rewatchable bliss and somehow still underrated as horror. The best hidden gem here: cool, funny, and bloody in equal measure.
27. It Comes at Night (2017)
Trey Edward Shults' 2017 A24 post-apocalyptic dread piece is less about the plague outside than the paranoia inside — a masterclass in withholding that frustrated audiences and rewards patience.
28. Possession (1981)
Andrzej Żuławski's 1981 divorce-from-hell freakout features Isabelle Adjani's subway breakdown — one of the most committed, deranged performances ever filmed.
29. Near Dark (1987)
Kathryn Bigelow's 1987 vampire western trades capes for pickup trucks and gives Bill Paxton a barroom rampage for the ages — sun-scorched, romantic, mean.
30. Ringu (1998)
Hideo Nakata's 1998 cursed-videotape phenomenon launched the global J-horror wave and gave us Sadako crawling out of the screen — still the template for dread done quiet.
31. The Ritual (2017)
David Bruckner's 2017 Netflix folk-horror hike turns a grief trip through the Swedish wilderness into a worship-or-die nightmare, with one of the best creature designs in years.
32. Saint Maud (2019)
Rose Glass' 2019 A24 debut follows a hospice nurse's religious obsession to a final image that detonates everything before it — Morfydd Clark is mesmerizing.
33. Kill List (2011)
Ben Wheatley's 2011 hitman drama mutates into folk-horror nightmare so gradually you don't notice the floor dropping out — the ending is a gut-punch you won't shake.
34. Under the Skin (2013)
Jonathan Glazer's 2013 alien-predator art film puts Scarlett Johansson behind the wheel in Glasgow, luring men into a black void — hypnotic, alien, unforgettable.
35. Green Room (2015)
Jeremy Saulnier's 2015 A24-backed siege thriller traps a punk band in a neo-Nazi bar with Patrick Stewart as the chillingly calm boss — lean, brutal, exact.
36. X (2022)
Ti West's 2022 A24 70s-set slasher about a porn shoot at a remote Texas farmhouse is a loving, vicious throwback with Mia Goth in dual roles.
37. Pearl (2022)
Ti West's 2022 Technicolor A24 prequel is a twisted Wizard-of-Oz origin story carried entirely by Mia Goth's astonishing, monologue-driven performance.
38. Talk to Me (2023)
The Philippou brothers' 2023 A24 debut turns an embalmed séance hand into the scariest party game imaginable — viral, vicious, and emotionally raw.
39. Martyrs (2008)
Pascal Laugier's 2008 New French Extremity landmark is one of the most punishing and philosophically ambitious horror films ever made — not for the faint.
40. REC (2007)
Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza's 2007 Spanish found-footage classic locks a TV crew in a quarantined apartment building — the night-vision penthouse finale is relentless.
41. A Tale of Two Sisters (2003)
Kim Jee-woon's 2003 gorgeous, grief-twisted Korean ghost story unfolds like a puzzle box of trauma — a high point of early-2000s Asian horror.
42. Inside (2007)
Bustillo and Maury's 2007 French home-invasion bloodbath pits a pregnant widow against a woman who wants what's inside her — savage and precisely staged.
43. The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015)
Oz Perkins' 2015 glacial boarding-school chiller braids two timelines and a devotee's loneliness into an icy, mournful possession story.
44. Fright Night (1985)
Tom Holland's 1985 "the vampire next door" comedy-horror is an effects showcase with real heart — Roddy McDowall's washed-up TV vampire hunter steals it.
45. Day of the Dead (1985)
George A. Romero's 1985 bunker-bound third zombie film features Tom Savini's finest gore and Bub, the most sympathetic undead character in the genre.
46. Apostle (2018)
Gareth Evans' 2018 Netflix island-cult epic sends Dan Stevens to rescue his sister from a blood-fed god — folk horror that erupts into operatic violence.
47. His House (2020)
Remi Weekes' 2020 Netflix debut traps a Sudanese refugee couple in a haunted council house, fusing immigration trauma with a genuinely frightening apeth — one of the decade's best.
48. Hush (2016)
Mike Flanagan's 2016 Netflix home-invasion thriller centers a deaf writer (Kate Siegel) against a masked killer — lean, smart, and unbearably tense.
49. Gerald's Game (2017)
Mike Flanagan's 2017 Netflix Stephen King adaptation strands a handcuffed woman after her husband drops dead — the degloving scene is infamous for a reason.
50. Men (2022)
Alex Garland's 2022 A24 folk-horror provocation sends a widow to an English village where every man wears Rory Kinnear's face — divisive, nightmarish, unforgettable in its final act.
51. Lamb (2021)
Valdimar Jóhannsson's 2021 A24 Icelandic fable about a couple raising a half-lamb child is patient folk-horror parenthood that earns its strange, sad finale.
52. Cam (2018)
Daniel Goldhaber's 2018 Netflix techno-thriller about a camgirl replaced by her own doppelgänger is one of the sharpest digital-identity horrors yet.
53. Creep (2014)
Patrick Brice's 2014 Netflix found-footage two-hander with Mark Duplass as an unforgettably unnerving stranger turns awkward discomfort into real menace.
54. 1922 (2017)
Zak Hilditch's 2017 Netflix Stephen King adaptation follows a farmer's guilt-rotted descent after murder, with Thomas Jane mumbling his way to ruin amid the rats.
55. In the Tall Grass (2019)
Vincenzo Natali's 2019 Netflix King-and-Hill adaptation traps its characters in a time-looping field of grass with a sinister rock at the center.
56. The Lure (2015)
Agnieszka Smoczyńska's 2015 Polish mermaid horror-musical is gory, glittery, and unlike anything else — man-eating sirens in a Warsaw nightclub.
57. Society (1989)
Brian Yuzna's 1989 class-war body horror builds to "the Shunting," a melting-flesh orgy finale that remains one of the most grotesque effects sequences ever.
58. Prince of Darkness (1987)
John Carpenter's 1987 quantum-theology chiller traps grad students in a church with a swirling green cylinder of liquid evil — dread-soaked and underrated.
59. They Live (1988)
John Carpenter's 1988 alien-satire cult classic gives Roddy Piper sunglasses that reveal the rulers among us — "I have come here to chew bubblegum" and a legendary alley brawl.
60. Tenebre (1982)
Dario Argento's 1982 sun-bright giallo about a novelist stalked by a copycat killer is a stylish, blood-spattered whodunit with a jaw-dropping crane shot.
61. Phenomena (1985)
Dario Argento's 1985 delirium pairs a young Jennifer Connelly who controls insects with a razor-wielding chimp — gloriously deranged Italian horror.
62. The Beyond (1981)
Lucio Fulci's 1981 gateway-to-hell gorefest values atmosphere and dream logic over plot — a Louisiana hotel sitting atop one of the seven doors to the dead.
63. Night of the Creeps (1986)
Fred Dekker's 1986 alien-slug zombie comedy is an affectionate genre mashup with Tom Atkins growling "Thrill me" through a campus invasion.
64. Basket Case (1982)
Frank Henenlotter's 1982 grimy Times Square cult oddity about a man and his deformed surgically-separated twin in a wicker basket is sleaze cinema at its most lovable.
65. Maniac (1980)
William Lustig's 1980 scuzzy first-person slasher with Tom Savini's notorious head-explosion effect is a grimy, queasy classic of the early splatter era.
66. Pieces (1982)
Juan Piquer Simón's 1982 chainsaw-slasher delirium ("You don't have to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre!") is so gleefully incoherent it loops back to brilliant.
67. Climax (2018)
Gaspar Noé's 2018 A24-released dance-troupe descent into an LSD-spiked hell is a single-night spiral of strobing, upside-down chaos.
68. Enemy (2013)
Denis Villeneuve's 2013 doppelgänger nightmare starring Jake Gyllenhaal twice builds to one of cinema's most discussed final-shot scares — and that giant spider.
69. A Ghost Story (2017)
David Lowery's 2017 A24 meditation puts Casey Affleck under a bedsheet to haunt his old house across centuries — a quiet, aching elegy more than a fright.
70. The Monster (2016)
Bryan Bertino's 2016 mother-daughter creature feature traps the pair on a dark roadside, using a literal monster as a blunt-force metaphor for addiction.
71. Tusk (2014)
Kevin Smith's 2014 body-horror oddity about a podcaster surgically transformed into a walrus is grotesque, tonally wild, and impossible to forget.
72. Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)
Halina Reijn's 2022 A24 Gen-Z whodunit traps influencers in a storm-bound mansion playing a murder game that turns real — sharp, funny, mean.
73. Hagazussa (2017)
Lukas Feigelfeld's 2017 Alpine folk-horror descent into a 15th-century goatherd's isolation and madness is glacial, gorgeous, and deeply disturbing.
74. November (2017)
Rainer Sarnet's 2017 Estonian black-and-white folk fable about peasants, plague, and soul-stealing devils is a strange, beautiful nightmare unlike any other.
75. You Won't Be Alone (2022)
Goran Stolevski's 2022 Macedonian shape-shifting witch tale is a lyrical, body-hopping folk-horror poem about what it means to be human.
76. A Field in England (2013)
Ben Wheatley's 2013 black-and-white Civil War psychedelic folk-horror trip — mushrooms, alchemy, and a man dragged screaming on a rope — is pure delirium.
77. The Hallow (2015)
Corin Hardy's 2015 Irish folk-horror creature feature pits a young family against the fae of the forest in a dripping, fungal woodland siege.
78. Gretel & Hansel (2020)
Oz Perkins' 2020 witchy fairy-tale reimagining is all triangular sets, sickly amber light, and folk-horror menace — style over scares, but what style.
79. The Wretched (2019)
The Pierce brothers' 2019 lakeside creature movie about a skin-wearing witch next door is a sturdy, atmospheric throwback that quietly topped the box office.
80. Antlers (2021)
Scott Cooper's 2021 Wendigo creature horror, produced by Guillermo del Toro, wraps Appalachian decay and child abuse around an ancient, antlered hunger.
81. No One Gets Out Alive (2021)
Santiago Menghini's 2021 Netflix immigrant boarding-house horror traps an undocumented woman in a house with something ancient in the basement.
82. The Perfection (2018)
Richard Shepard's 2018 Netflix cello-prodigy thriller twists and re-twists through revenge and body horror — gleefully unpredictable.
83. There's Someone Inside Your House (2021)
Patrick Brice's 2021 Netflix slasher about a masked killer who exposes victims' secrets is a slick, modern teen-stalker entry.
84. Fear Street Part One: 1994 (2021)
Leigh Janiak's 2021 Netflix R.L. Stine adaptation opens a slasher trilogy with a neon mall massacre and a Shadyside curse — fun and bloody.
85. Fear Street Part Two: 1978 (2021)
Leigh Janiak's 2021 Netflix summer-camp middle chapter is the trilogy's strongest — a loving, vicious Friday-the-13th homage.
86. Fear Street Part Three: 1666 (2021)
Leigh Janiak's 2021 Netflix folk-horror finale travels back to the colonial root of the curse before a satisfying mall-set climax.
87. The Relic (1997)
Peter Hyams' 1997 Chicago-museum creature feature unleashes a DNA-spliced beast through a gala opening — a slick, underrated monster movie with a great gross-out finale.
88. Ju-On: The Grudge (2002)
Takashi Shimizu's 2002 non-linear J-horror about a house's contagious curse gave the world Kayako's death-rattle crawl and a global remake franchise.
89. Dark Water (2002)
Hideo Nakata's 2002 rain-soaked ghost story about a mother, a daughter, and a leaking apartment is melancholy J-horror at its most emotionally devastating.
90. Pulse (2001)
Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 2001 techno-ghost story about loneliness spreading through the early internet is prescient, dread-soaked, and quietly apocalyptic.
91. The Loved Ones (2009)
Sean Byrne's 2009 Australian prom-night torture comedy is a deranged crowd-pleaser — pink dresses, power drills, and a star-making villain turn.
92. The Wailing (2016)
Na Hong-jin's 2016 sprawling Korean possession epic blends police procedural, plague mystery, and shamanic dread into a two-and-a-half-hour spiral of doubt.
93. Goodnight Mommy (2014)
Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala's 2014 Austrian chiller about twin boys who suspect their bandaged mother isn't who she claims builds to a wrenching reveal.
94. The Innkeepers (2011)
Ti West's 2011 patient haunted-hotel hangout follows two clerks on a dying inn's final weekend — slow-burn charm that pays off in genuine fright.
95. The House of the Devil (2009)
Ti West's 2009 perfect 80s pastiche about a babysitter and a satanic cult is a masterclass in dread-building tension before the blood arrives.
96. The Vigil (2019)
Keith Thomas' 2019 Hasidic-Jewish horror traps a shomer overnight with a corpse and the demon that feeds on grief — fresh folklore, real scares.
97. Lake Mungo (2008)
Joel Anderson's 2008 Australian faux-documentary about a drowned girl's haunting is one of the saddest, most quietly terrifying ghost films ever made.
98. The Devil's Backbone (2001)
Guillermo del Toro's 2001 Spanish Civil War ghost story set in a boys' orphanage is a gorgeous, mournful gothic that rewards every viewing.
99. Frailty (2001)
Bill Paxton's 2001 directorial debut about a father convinced God wants him to slay demons is a slow, faith-soaked thriller with a wicked twist.
100. The Endless (2017)
Benson and Moorhead's 2017 cosmic-cult mind-bender follows two brothers back to the UFO commune they escaped — Lovecraftian dread on a shoestring, and a perfect closer.
Which One Should You Watch First?
What Makes Great Horror
- Dread beats gore. The best entries here — *Hereditary*, *It Follows*, *The Witch* — build unease that lingers long after the credits, rather than chasing a single shock.
- Craft is everything. From Rob Bottin's practical creatures in *The Thing* to A24's candlelit cinematography, the films that last are the ones made with obsessive care.
- Metaphor gives monsters weight. Grief, addiction, paranoia, and faith power the scariest modern horror; the monster is rarely just a monster.
- A great ending is non-negotiable. *Sinister*, *Kill List*, and *Saint Maud* earn their canon status on final shots that recontextualize everything.
- Restraint creates terror. What you don't see — the thing past the treeline, the figure walking slowly toward you — is almost always scarier than what you do.
Great horror trusts its audience, commits to its nightmare, and refuses the easy way out — which is exactly why this list starts with Hereditary and never lets up.
FAQ
Why is Hereditary ranked number one? It combines a career-best Toni Collette performance, Ari Aster's ruthless control of tone, and a grief story that makes its supernatural horror feel inevitable. The dinner-table scene and the final ascent are modern landmarks, and few films sustain dread this completely from first frame to last.
Why are there no horror movies from before 1980 on this list? By design — this is a ranking of the modern horror era only. Pre-1980 classics like *Psycho*, *Halloween*, and *The Exorcist* are foundational, but this list focuses on the 1980-to-present canon to spotlight A24, 80s cult, and contemporary folk horror.
What is folk horror and why does it appear so often here? Folk horror centers on isolated communities, old rituals, and the menace of nature and belief — think *The Witch*, *Midsommar*, *Kill List*, and *Apostle*. It's the defining horror subgenre of the modern era, and this list leans into it heavily because the films are so consistently great.
Is this list good for someone new to horror? Yes. Start with the top 10 and follow the flowchart by taste. *Get Out*, *The Babadook*, and *Train to Busan* are especially accessible entry points, while the 80s cult and extreme entries reward viewers ready to go deeper.
Which titles can I stream on Netflix right now? The list includes a strong Netflix cluster — *His House*, *The Ritual*, *Apostle*, *Gerald's Game*, *Hush*, *Cam*, *Creep*, and the *Fear Street* trilogy among them. Availability shifts by region, so check the platform before you settle in.
What's the best hidden gem on the list? *The Lost Boys (1987)* gets our 💎 BEST VALUE nod — a stylish, funny, endlessly rewatchable vampire classic that's still underrated as pure horror. *Lake Mungo* and *The Endless* are two more deep cuts worth seeking out.
Bottom Line
The greatest horror movie of the modern era is Hereditary (2018) — no film since has matched its grip. From there the list runs through The Guest, The Thing, The Witch, Midsommar, Get Out, The Evil Dead, It Follows, The Babadook, and You're Next before opening into a hundred-deep canon of A24 arthouse, 80s cult splatter, modern folk horror, and the best of the Netflix wave.
Start at the top, follow your taste, and don't watch *The Thing* alone.
Sources
- Rotten Tomatoes — Best Horror Movies
- Letterboxd — Horror Films
- IMDb — Top Rated Horror
- Metacritic — Best Horror Movies
- Fangoria
- BFI — Horror
*Looking for the best horror movies of all time, the top horror films of the modern era, A24 horror ranked, the best 80s cult horror, folk horror essentials, or the scariest Netflix horror movies? This ranked top 100 — led by Hereditary, The Guest, and You're Next — is your definitive 2027 horror watchlist and review guide.*