The very best horror movies of all time

by dzuvejnica | created - 18 Nov 2013 | updated - 18 Nov 2013 | Public

These are my favourite horror movies of all time. Rated 10/10 and 9/10, all for different reasons. Some are childhood favourites, some very scary and other quite funny, but I recommend all of them as a must see titles. Movies are chronologically ordered.

 Refine See titles to watch instantly, titles you haven't rated, etc
  • Instant Watch Options
  • Genres
  • Movies or TV
  • IMDb Rating
  • In Theaters
  • Release Year
  • Keywords




IMDb user rating (average) to
Number of votes to »




Reset
Release year or range to »




































































































1. Village of the Damned (1960)

Not Rated | 77 min | Horror, Sci-Fi

77 Metascore

In the English village of Midwich, the blonde-haired, glowing-eyed children of uncertain paternity prove to have frightening powers.

Director: Wolf Rilla | Stars: George Sanders, Barbara Shelley, Martin Stephens, Michael Gwynn

Votes: 19,142

2. The Birds (1963)

PG-13 | 119 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery

90 Metascore

A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette

Votes: 204,594 | Gross: $11.40M

3. Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Not Rated | 96 min | Horror, Thriller

89 Metascore

A ragtag group of Pennsylvanians barricade themselves in an old farmhouse to remain safe from a horde of flesh-eating ghouls that are ravaging the Northeast of the United States.

Director: George A. Romero | Stars: Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea, Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman

Votes: 139,188 | Gross: $0.09M

4. Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Approved | 137 min | Drama, Horror

96 Metascore

A young couple trying for a baby moves into an aging, ornate apartment building on Central Park West, where they find themselves surrounded by peculiar neighbors.

Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer

Votes: 235,300

5. The Wicker Man (1973)

R | 88 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller

87 Metascore

A puritan police sergeant arrives in a Scottish island village in search of a missing girl, who the pagan locals claim never existed.

Director: Robin Hardy | Stars: Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Diane Cilento, Britt Ekland

Votes: 92,349 | Gross: $0.06M

6. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

R | 83 min | Horror

90 Metascore

Five friends head out to rural Texas to visit the grave of a grandfather. On the way they stumble across what appears to be a deserted house, only to discover something sinister within. Something armed with a chainsaw.

Director: Tobe Hooper | Stars: Marilyn Burns, Edwin Neal, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain

Votes: 183,740 | Gross: $30.86M

7. Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Unrated | 127 min | Horror, Thriller

71 Metascore

During an escalating zombie epidemic, two Philadelphia SWAT team members, a traffic reporter and his TV executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall.

Director: George A. Romero | Stars: David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger, Gaylen Ross

Votes: 128,644 | Gross: $5.10M

8. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

R | 91 min | Horror

76 Metascore

Teenager Nancy Thompson must uncover the dark truth concealed by her parents after she and her friends become targets of the spirit of a serial killer with a bladed glove in their dreams, in which if they die, it kills them in real life.

Director: Wes Craven | Stars: Heather Langenkamp, Johnny Depp, Robert Englund, John Saxon

Votes: 262,622 | Gross: $25.50M

9. Children of the Corn (1984)

R | 92 min | Horror, Thriller

45 Metascore

A young couple is trapped in a remote town where a dangerous religious cult of children believes that everyone over age 18 must be killed.

Director: Fritz Kiersch | Stars: Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, R.G. Armstrong, John Franklin

Votes: 57,355 | Gross: $14.57M

10. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

R | 96 min | Fantasy, Horror

49 Metascore

A psychiatrist familiar with knife-wielding dream demon Freddy Krueger helps teens at a mental hospital battle the killer who is invading their dreams.

Director: Chuck Russell | Stars: Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, Craig Wasson, Patricia Arquette

Votes: 90,351 | Gross: $44.79M

11. Pet Sematary (1989)

R | 103 min | Fantasy, Horror, Thriller

38 Metascore

After tragedy strikes, a grieving father discovers an ancient burial ground behind his home with the power to raise the dead.

Director: Mary Lambert | Stars: Dale Midkiff, Denise Crosby, Fred Gwynne, Brad Greenquist

Votes: 115,081 | Gross: $57.47M

12. Screamers (1995)

R | 108 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

A military commander stationed off planet during an interplanetary war travels through the devastated landscape to negotiate a peace treaty, but discovers that the primitive robots they built to kill enemy combatants have gained sentience.

Director: Christian Duguay | Stars: Peter Weller, Roy Dupuis, Jennifer Rubin, Andy Lauer

Votes: 29,468 | Gross: $5.78M

13. Scream (1996)

R | 111 min | Horror, Mystery

66 Metascore

A year after the murder of her mother, a teenage girl is terrorized by a masked killer who targets her and her friends by using scary movies as part of a deadly game.

Director: Wes Craven | Stars: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Skeet Ulrich

Votes: 388,612 | Gross: $103.05M

14. Cube (1997)

R | 90 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi

61 Metascore

A group of strangers awaken to find themselves placed in a giant cube. Each one of them is gifted with a special skill and they must work together to escape an endless maze of deadly traps.

Director: Vincenzo Natali | Stars: Nicole de Boer, Maurice Dean Wint, David Hewlett, Andrew Miller

Votes: 247,710 | Gross: $0.50M

15. Urban Legend (1998)

R | 99 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller

35 Metascore

A college student suspects a series of bizarre deaths are connected to certain urban legends.

Director: Jamie Blanks | Stars: Jared Leto, Alicia Witt, Rebecca Gayheart, Michael Rosenbaum

Votes: 71,506 | Gross: $38.07M

16. Anatomy (2000)

R | 103 min | Horror, Thriller

33 Metascore

A cute med student starts a summer course at Heidelberg University. David's on her dissection table. She met him the day before on the train. Something's wrong.

Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky | Stars: Franka Potente, Benno Fürmann, Anna Loos, Sebastian Blomberg

Votes: 14,035 | Gross: $0.01M

17. Final Destination (2000)

R | 98 min | Horror, Thriller

39 Metascore

After getting a premonition about a plane crash on his school trip, Alex, a student saves a few of his classmates. However, their situation gets complicated when death starts chasing them.

Director: James Wong | Stars: Devon Sawa, Ali Larter, Kerr Smith, Kristen Cloke

Votes: 279,643 | Gross: $53.33M

18. 28 Days Later (2002)

R | 113 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi

73 Metascore

Four weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus spreads throughout the UK, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary.

Director: Danny Boyle | Stars: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Christopher Eccleston, Alex Palmer

Votes: 446,032 | Gross: $45.06M

19. Anatomy 2 (2003)

R | 101 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

46 Metascore

Jo starts as intern in a Berlin hospital researching bionic muscle enhancement. Despite warnings, he joins an anti-Hippocratic group interested in results, not laws and body count.

Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky | Stars: August Diehl, Ariane Schnug, Herbert Knaup, Birgit von Rönn

Votes: 3,948

20. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

R | 98 min | Horror

38 Metascore

After picking up a traumatized young hitchhiker, five friends find themselves stalked and hunted by a deformed chainsaw-wielding loon and his family of equally psychopathic killers.

Director: Marcus Nispel | Stars: Jessica Biel, Jonathan Tucker, Andrew Bryniarski, Erica Leerhsen

Votes: 152,420 | Gross: $80.57M

21. Creep (I) (2004)

R | 85 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Trapped in a London subway station, a woman who's being pursued by a potential attacker heads into the unknown labyrinth of tunnels beneath the city's streets.

Director: Christopher Smith | Stars: Franka Potente, Sean Harris, Vas Blackwood, Ken Campbell

Votes: 31,758

22. The Descent (2005)

R | 99 min | Adventure, Horror, Thriller

71 Metascore

A caving expedition goes horribly wrong, as the explorers become trapped and ultimately pursued by a strange breed of predators.

Director: Neil Marshall | Stars: Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder

Votes: 247,050 | Gross: $26.02M

23. Wolf Creek (2005)

R | 99 min | Horror, Thriller

56 Metascore

Three backpackers stranded in the Australian outback are plunged inside a hellish nightmare of insufferable torture by a sadistic psychopathic local.

Director: Greg McLean | Stars: Nathan Phillips, Cassandra Magrath, Kestie Morassi, John Jarratt

Votes: 78,383 | Gross: $16.19M

24. The Mist (2007)

R | 126 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

58 Metascore

A freak storm unleashes a species of bloodthirsty creatures on a small town, where a small band of citizens hole up in a supermarket and fight for their lives.

Director: Frank Darabont | Stars: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden, Andre Braugher

Votes: 340,602 | Gross: $25.59M

25. 28 Weeks Later (2007)

R | 100 min | Horror, Sci-Fi

78 Metascore

Six months after the rage virus was inflicted on the population of Great Britain, the US Army helps to secure a small area of London for the survivors to repopulate and start again. But not everything goes according to plan.

Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo | Stars: Jeremy Renner, Rose Byrne, Robert Carlyle, Harold Perrineau

Votes: 293,947 | Gross: $28.64M

26. Cloverfield (2008)

PG-13 | 85 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

64 Metascore

A group of friends venture deep into the streets of New York on a rescue mission during a rampaging monster attack.

Director: Matt Reeves | Stars: Mike Vogel, Jessica Lucas, Lizzy Caplan, T.J. Miller

Votes: 420,832 | Gross: $80.05M

27. Martyrs (2008)

R | 99 min | Horror

A young woman's quest for revenge against the people who kidnapped and tormented her as a child leads her and a friend, who is also a victim of child abuse, on a terrifying journey into a living hell of depravity.

Director: Pascal Laugier | Stars: Morjana Alaoui, Mylène Jampanoï, Catherine Bégin, Robert Toupin

Votes: 106,502

28. The Midnight Meat Train (2008)

R | 100 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller

58 Metascore

A photographer's obsessive pursuit of dark subject matter leads him into the path of a serial killer who stalks late night commuters, ultimately butchering them in the most gruesome ways.

Director: Ryûhei Kitamura | Stars: Vinnie Jones, Bradley Cooper, Leslie Bibb, Brooke Shields

Votes: 71,143 | Gross: $0.08M



Recently Viewed