My top 50 Horror movies

by pheonix2279 | created - 12 Sep 2011 | updated - 28 Sep 2011 | Public

This list is purely based on my own opinion.I know there will be people who will disagree with it.If so don't be too disrespectful about it.

 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. Psycho (1960)

R | 109 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller

97 Metascore

A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin

Votes: 718,206 | Gross: $32.00M

2. The Shining (1980)

R | 146 min | Drama, Horror

68 Metascore

A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.

Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers

Votes: 1,106,528 | Gross: $44.02M

3. Halloween (1978)

R | 91 min | Horror, Thriller

90 Metascore

Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.

Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tony Moran, Nancy Kyes

Votes: 306,764 | Gross: $47.00M

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: 235,145

5. The Exorcist (1973)

R | 122 min | Horror

83 Metascore

When a young girl is possessed by a mysterious entity, her mother seeks the help of two Catholic priests to save her life.

Director: William Friedkin | Stars: Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Linda Blair, Lee J. Cobb

Votes: 454,908 | Gross: $232.91M

6. 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: 139,098 | Gross: $0.09M

7. 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: 183,609 | Gross: $30.86M

8. The Thing (1982)

R | 109 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi

57 Metascore

A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.

Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Keith David, Richard Masur

Votes: 466,565 | Gross: $13.78M

9. The Omen (1976)

R | 111 min | Horror, Mystery

62 Metascore

Mysterious deaths surround an American ambassador. Could the child that he is raising actually be the Antichrist? The Devil's own son?

Director: Richard Donner | Stars: Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, Harvey Stephens, David Warner

Votes: 132,484 | Gross: $4.27M

10. Alien (1979)

R | 117 min | Horror, Sci-Fi

89 Metascore

The crew of a commercial spacecraft encounters a deadly lifeform after investigating a mysterious transmission of unknown origin.

Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Veronica Cartwright

Votes: 950,509 | Gross: $78.90M

11. 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: 92,278 | Gross: $0.06M

12. Suspiria (1977)

R | 92 min | Horror

79 Metascore

An American newcomer to a prestigious German ballet academy comes to realize that the school is a front for something sinister amid a series of grisly murders.

Director: Dario Argento | Stars: Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci, Miguel Bosé

Votes: 105,410

13. The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

R | 90 min | Horror, Thriller

64 Metascore

On the way to California, a family has the misfortune to have their car break down in an area closed to the public, and inhabited by violent savages ready to attack.

Director: Wes Craven | Stars: Susan Lanier, Robert Houston, John Steadman, Janus Blythe

Votes: 39,227 | Gross: $25.00M

14. Poltergeist (1982)

PG | 114 min | Horror, Thriller

79 Metascore

A family's home is haunted by a host of demonic ghosts.

Director: Tobe Hooper | Stars: JoBeth Williams, Heather O'Rourke, Craig T. Nelson, Beatrice Straight

Votes: 179,549 | Gross: $76.61M

15. Freaks (1932)

Not Rated | 64 min | Drama, Horror

80 Metascore

A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.

Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Roscoe Ates

Votes: 50,598 | Gross: $0.63M

16. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

PG | 115 min | Horror, Sci-Fi

75 Metascore

When strange seeds drift to earth from space, mysterious pods begin to grow and invade San Francisco, replicating the city's residents one body at a time.

Director: Philip Kaufman | Stars: Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright

Votes: 69,846 | Gross: $24.95M

17. The Evil Dead (1981)

NC-17 | 85 min | Horror

71 Metascore

Five friends travel to a cabin in the woods, where they unknowingly release flesh-possessing demons.

Director: Sam Raimi | Stars: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DeManincor, Betsy Baker

Votes: 232,382 | Gross: $2.40M

18. Salem's Lot (1979)

PG | 100 min | Horror

A novelist and a young horror fan attempt to save a small New England town which has been invaded by vampires.

Stars: David Soul, James Mason, Lance Kerwin, Bonnie Bedelia

Votes: 27,478

19. The Last House on the Left (1972)

R | 84 min | Crime, Horror, Thriller

68 Metascore

Two teenage girls heading to a rock concert for one's birthday try to score marijuana in the city, where they are kidnapped and brutalized by a gang of psychopathic convicts.

Director: Wes Craven | Stars: Sandra Peabody, Lucy Grantham, David Hess, Fred J. Lincoln

Votes: 40,281 | Gross: $3.10M

20. Event Horizon (1997)

R | 96 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

35 Metascore

A rescue crew is tasked with investigating the mysterious reappearance of a spaceship that had been lost for seven years.

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson | Stars: Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan, Joely Richardson

Votes: 197,155 | Gross: $26.67M

21. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

R | 81 min | Horror, Mystery

80 Metascore

Three film students vanish after traveling into a Maryland forest to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their footage behind.

Directors: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez | Stars: Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, Joshua Leonard, Bob Griffin

Votes: 285,504 | Gross: $140.54M

22. Peeping Tom (1960)

Not Rated | 101 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller

A young man murders women, using a movie camera to film their dying expressions of terror.

Director: Michael Powell | Stars: Karlheinz Böhm, Anna Massey, Moira Shearer, Maxine Audley

Votes: 39,249 | Gross: $0.08M

23. The Changeling (1980)

R | 107 min | Horror, Mystery

70 Metascore

After the death of his wife and daughter in a car crash, a music professor staying at a long-vacant Seattle mansion is dragged into a decades-old mystery by an inexplicable presence in the mansion's attic.

Director: Peter Medak | Stars: George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere, Melvyn Douglas, Jean Marsh

Votes: 40,012

24. Pumpkinhead (1988)

R | 86 min | Fantasy, Horror

47 Metascore

After a tragic accident, a man conjures up a towering, vengeful demon called Pumpkinhead to destroy a group of unsuspecting teenagers.

Director: Stan Winston | Stars: Lance Henriksen, Jeff East, John D'Aquino, Kimberly Ross

Votes: 27,828 | Gross: $4.39M

25. Friday the 13th (1980)

R | 95 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller

22 Metascore

A group of teenage camp counselors attempt to re-open an abandoned summer camp with a tragic past, but they are stalked by a mysterious, relentless killer.

Director: Sean S. Cunningham | Stars: Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Jeannine Taylor, Robbi Morgan

Votes: 157,426 | Gross: $39.75M

26. The Fog (1980)

R | 89 min | Horror, Thriller

55 Metascore

An unearthly fog rolls into a small coastal town exactly 100 years after a ship mysteriously sank in its waters.

Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh, John Houseman

Votes: 82,987 | Gross: $21.38M

27. 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: 204,491 | Gross: $11.40M

28. Videodrome (1983)

R | 87 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

58 Metascore

A programmer at a Toronto TV station that specializes in adult entertainment searches for the producers of a dangerous and bizarre broadcast.

Director: David Cronenberg | Stars: James Woods, Debbie Harry, Sonja Smits, Peter Dvorsky

Votes: 102,968 | Gross: $2.12M

29. Don't Look Now (1973)

R | 110 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery

95 Metascore

A married couple grieving the recent death of their young daughter are in Venice when they encounter two elderly sisters, one of whom is psychic and brings a warning from beyond.

Director: Nicolas Roeg | Stars: Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland, Hilary Mason, Clelia Matania

Votes: 62,319 | Gross: $0.98M

30. 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: 262,461 | Gross: $25.50M

31. Candyman (1992)

R | 99 min | Horror, Thriller

61 Metascore

The Candyman, a murderous soul with a hook for a hand, is accidentally summoned to reality by a skeptic grad student researching the monster's myth.

Director: Bernard Rose | Stars: Virginia Madsen, Xander Berkeley, Tony Todd, Kasi Lemmons

Votes: 100,152 | Gross: $25.79M

32. Hellraiser (1987)

R | 94 min | Horror, Thriller

56 Metascore

A woman discovers the newly resurrected, partially formed, body of her brother-in-law and lover. She starts killing for him to revitalize his body and escape the demonic beings that are pursuing him after he escaped their underworld.

Director: Clive Barker | Stars: Andrew Robinson, Clare Higgins, Ashley Laurence, Sean Chapman

Votes: 140,509 | Gross: $14.56M

33. Prince of Darkness (1987)

R | 102 min | Horror

50 Metascore

A group of graduate students and scientists uncover an ancient canister in an abandoned church, but when they open the container, they inadvertently unleash a strange liquid and an evil force on all humanity.

Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Donald Pleasence, Lisa Blount, Jameson Parker, Victor Wong

Votes: 49,965 | Gross: $14.18M

34. The Haunting (1963)

G | 112 min | Horror

74 Metascore

Hill House has stood for about 90 years and appears haunted: its inhabitants have always met strange, tragic ends. Now Dr. John Markway has assembled a team of people who he thinks will prove whether or not the house is haunted.

Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Russ Tamblyn

Votes: 42,484 | Gross: $2.62M

35. Fright Night (1985)

R | 106 min | Horror

62 Metascore

"Fright Night" sees a teenager believing that the newcomer in his neighborhood is a vampire. He turns to an actor in a television hosted horror movie show for help to deal with the undead.

Director: Tom Holland | Stars: Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse, Roddy McDowall

Votes: 78,641 | Gross: $24.92M

36. 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: 128,577 | Gross: $5.10M

37. Jaws (1975)

PG | 124 min | Adventure, Mystery, Thriller

87 Metascore

When a killer shark unleashes chaos on a beach community off Cape Cod, it's up to a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer to hunt the beast down.

Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary

Votes: 659,368 | Gross: $260.00M

38. Scanners (1981)

R | 103 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

60 Metascore

A scientist trains a man with an advanced telepathic ability called "scanning" to stop a dangerous Scanner with extraordinary psychic powers from waging war against non scanners.

Director: David Cronenberg | Stars: Jennifer O'Neill, Stephen Lack, Patrick McGoohan, Lawrence Dane

Votes: 61,746 | Gross: $14.23M

39. The Entity (1982)

R | 125 min | Drama, Horror

35 Metascore

A woman is tormented by an invisible being.

Director: Sidney J. Furie | Stars: Barbara Hershey, Ron Silver, David Labiosa, George Coe

Votes: 18,265 | Gross: $13.28M

40. In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

R | 95 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror

53 Metascore

An insurance investigator begins discovering that the impact a horror writer's books have on his fans is more than inspirational.

Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Sam Neill, Jürgen Prochnow, Julie Carmen, David Warner

Votes: 79,321 | Gross: $8.95M

41. Jacob's Ladder (I) (1990)

R | 113 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery

62 Metascore

Mourning his dead child, a haunted Vietnam War veteran attempts to uncover his past while suffering from a severe case of dissociation. To do so, he must decipher reality and life from his own dreams, delusions, and perceptions of death.

Director: Adrian Lyne | Stars: Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Peña, Danny Aiello, Matt Craven

Votes: 117,874 | Gross: $26.12M

42. Child's Play (1988)

R | 87 min | Horror, Thriller

58 Metascore

A struggling single mother unknowingly gifts her son a doll imbued with a serial killer's consciousness.

Director: Tom Holland | Stars: Catherine Hicks, Chris Sarandon, Alex Vincent, Brad Dourif

Votes: 116,731 | Gross: $33.24M

43. 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: 445,660 | Gross: $45.06M

44. 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: 388,385 | Gross: $103.05M

45. The Nightcomers (1971)

R | 96 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller

Prequel to Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw", focusing on groundskeeper Peter Quint's slow corruption of the virtuous governess Miss Jessel and the children she looks after.

Director: Michael Winner | Stars: Marlon Brando, Stephanie Beacham, Thora Hird, Harry Andrews

Votes: 2,894 | Gross: $0.44M

46. Cujo (1983)

R | 93 min | Horror, Thriller

57 Metascore

Cujo, a friendly St. Bernard, contracts rabies and conducts a reign of terror on a small American town.

Director: Lewis Teague | Stars: Dee Wallace, Daniel Hugh Kelly, Danny Pintauro, Christopher Stone

Votes: 50,970 | Gross: $21.20M

47. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)

Unrated | 83 min | Biography, Crime, Drama

80 Metascore

Arriving in Chicago, Henry moves in with ex-con acquaintance Otis and starts schooling him in the ways of the serial killer.

Director: John McNaughton | Stars: Michael Rooker, Tracy Arnold, Tom Towles, Mary Demas

Votes: 40,436 | Gross: $0.61M

48. 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: 115,024 | Gross: $57.47M

49. Frailty (2001)

R | 100 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller

64 Metascore

A mysterious man arrives at the offices of an FBI agent and recounts his childhood: how his religious fanatic father received visions telling him to destroy people who were in fact "demons."

Director: Bill Paxton | Stars: Bill Paxton, Matthew McConaughey, Powers Boothe, Matt O'Leary

Votes: 91,346 | Gross: $13.10M

50. Saw (2004)

R | 103 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller

46 Metascore

Two strangers awaken in a room with no recollection of how they got there, and soon discover they're pawns in a deadly game perpetrated by a notorious serial killer.

Director: James Wan | Stars: Cary Elwes, Leigh Whannell, Danny Glover, Ken Leung

Votes: 466,646 | Gross: $56.00M



Recently Viewed