The Best of the Best Horror Films
by zbobholley | created - 22 Jan 2012 | updated - 03 Jun 2012 | PublicIn No Order
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1. The Thing (1982)
R | 109 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
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: 465,982 | Gross: $13.78M
2. The Devil's Rejects (2005)
R | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Horror
The murderous, backwoods Firefly family take to the road to escape the vengeful Sheriff Wydell, who is not afraid of being as ruthless as his target.
Director: Rob Zombie | Stars: Sid Haig, Sheri Moon Zombie, Bill Moseley, William Forsythe
Votes: 105,709 | Gross: $17.04M
3. Saw (2004)
R | 103 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
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: 466,252 | Gross: $56.00M
4. In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
R | 95 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
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: 79,235 | Gross: $8.95M
5. Nosferatu (1922)
Not Rated | 94 min | Fantasy, Horror
Vampire Count Orlok expresses interest in a new residence and real estate agent Hutter's wife.
Director: F.W. Murnau | Stars: Max Schreck, Alexander Granach, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schröder
Votes: 105,323
6. The Black Cat (1934)
Not Rated | 65 min | Crime, Horror, Romance
American honeymooners in Hungary become trapped in the home of a Satan-worshipping priest when the bride is taken there for medical help following a road accident.
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer | Stars: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, David Manners, Julie Bishop
Votes: 12,972 | Gross: $0.51M
7. Pontypool (2008)
Not Rated | 93 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A radio host interprets the possible outbreak of a deadly virus which infects the small Ontario town he is stationed in.
Director: Bruce McDonald | Stars: Stephen McHattie, Lisa Houle, Georgina Reilly, Hrant Alianak
Votes: 35,441
8. The Last House on the Left (1972)
R | 84 min | Crime, Horror, Thriller
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: 40,242 | Gross: $3.10M
9. Braindead (1992)
R | 104 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
A young man's mother is bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey. She gets sick and dies, at which time she comes back to life, killing and eating dogs, nurses, friends, and neighbors.
Director: Peter Jackson | Stars: Timothy Balme, Diana Peñalver, Elizabeth Moody, Ian Watkin
Votes: 103,223 | Gross: $0.24M
10. Black Death (2010)
R | 102 min | Action, Drama, History
Set during the time of the first outbreak of bubonic plague in England, a young monk is given the task of learning the truth about reports of people being brought back to life in a small village.
Director: Christopher Smith | Stars: Eddie Redmayne, Sean Bean, Carice van Houten, Kimberley Nixon
Votes: 51,208 | Gross: $0.02M
11. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Not Rated | 67 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Hypnotist Dr. Caligari uses a somnambulist, Cesare, to commit murders.
Director: Robert Wiene | Stars: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher, Lil Dagover
Votes: 69,996
12. I Saw the Devil (2010)
Not Rated | 144 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
A secret agent exacts revenge on a serial killer through a series of captures and releases.
Director: Jee-woon Kim | Stars: Lee Byung-hun, Choi Min-sik, Jeon Gook-hwan, Chun Ho-jin
Votes: 146,012 | Gross: $0.13M
13. Trick 'r Treat (2007)
R | 82 min | Comedy, Horror
Five interwoven stories that occur on Halloween: an everyday high school principal has a secret life as a serial killer; a college virgin might have just met the guy for her; a group of teenagers pull a mean prank; a woman who loathes the night has to contend with her holiday-obsessed husband; and a mean old man meets his match with a demonic, supernatural trick-or-treater.
Director: Michael Dougherty | Stars: Anna Paquin, Brian Cox, Dylan Baker, Rochelle Aytes
Votes: 104,583
14. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Unrated | 83 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
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: 40,392 | Gross: $0.61M
15. Carriers (2009)
PG-13 | 84 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
As a lethal virus spreads globally, four friends seek a reputed plague-free haven. But while avoiding the infected, the travelers turn on one another.
Directors: David Pastor, Àlex Pastor | Stars: Chris Pine, Piper Perabo, Lou Taylor Pucci, Emily VanCamp
Votes: 49,633 | Gross: $0.09M
16. Bug (2006)
R | 102 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
An unhinged war veteran holes up with a lonely woman in a spooky Oklahoma motel room. The line between reality and delusion is blurred as they discover a bug infestation.
Director: William Friedkin | Stars: Ashley Judd, Michael Shannon, Harry Connick Jr., Lynn Collins
Votes: 37,782 | Gross: $7.01M
17. Jaws (1975)
PG | 124 min | Adventure, Mystery, Thriller
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: 658,770 | Gross: $260.00M
18. The Girl Next Door (2007)
R | 91 min | Crime, Drama, Horror
Follows the unspeakable torture and abuses committed on a teenage girl in the care of her aunt and the boys who witness and fail to report the crime.
Director: Gregory Wilson | Stars: William Atherton, Blythe Auffarth, Blanche Baker, Kevin Chamberlin
Votes: 29,356
19. The Wicker Man (1973)
R | 88 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
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: 92,130 | Gross: $0.06M
20. Dead Snow (2009)
Not Rated | 91 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
A ski vacation turns horrific for a group of medical students, as they find themselves confronted by an unimaginable menace: Nazi zombies.
Director: Tommy Wirkola | Stars: Jeppe Beck Laursen, Charlotte Frogner, Jenny Skavlan, Geir Vegar Hoel
Votes: 69,976 | Gross: $0.04M
21. Halloween (1978)
R | 91 min | Horror, Thriller
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: 306,536 | Gross: $47.00M
22.
Masters of Horror (2005–2007)
Episode:
John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns
(2005)
TV-MA | 59 min | Horror
With a torrid past that haunts him, a movie theatre owner is hired to search for the only existing print of a film so notorious that its single screening caused the viewers to become homicidally insane.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Norman Reedus, Colin Foo, Udo Kier, Christopher Redman
Votes: 9,796
23. Halloween (2007)
R | 109 min | Horror
After being committed for 15 years, Michael Myers, now a grown man and still very dangerous, escapes from the mental institution and immediately returns to Haddonfield to find his baby sister, Laurie.
Director: Rob Zombie | Stars: Scout Taylor-Compton, Malcolm McDowell, Tyler Mane, Brad Dourif
Votes: 130,512 | Gross: $58.27M
24. Paranormal Activity (2007)
R | 86 min | Horror, Mystery
After moving into a suburban home, a couple becomes increasingly disturbed by a nightly demonic presence.
Director: Oren Peli | Stars: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Mark Fredrichs, Amber Armstrong
Votes: 255,975 | Gross: $107.92M
25. Troll Hunter (2010)
PG-13 | 103 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A group of students investigates a series of mysterious bear killings, but learns that there are much more dangerous things going on. They start to follow a mysterious hunter, learning that he is actually a troll hunter.
Director: André Øvredal | Stars: Otto Jespersen, Robert Stoltenberg, Knut Nærum, Glenn Erland Tosterud
Votes: 79,501 | Gross: $0.25M
26. The Evil Dead (1981)
NC-17 | 85 min | Horror
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: 232,215 | Gross: $2.40M
27. The Shining (1980)
R | 146 min | Drama, Horror
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: 1,105,174 | Gross: $44.02M
28. Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Not Rated | 96 min | Horror, Thriller
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: 138,966 | Gross: $0.09M
29. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
R | 116 min | Drama, Horror, Musical
The legendary tale of a barber who returns from wrongful imprisonment to 1840s London, bent on revenge for the rape and death of his wife, and resumes his trade while forming a sinister partnership with his fellow tenant, Mrs. Lovett.
Director: Tim Burton | Stars: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall
Votes: 386,723 | Gross: $52.90M
30. Christine (1983)
R | 110 min | Horror, Thriller
A nerdish boy buys a strange car with an evil mind of its own and his nature starts to change to reflect it.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul, Robert Prosky
Votes: 92,333 | Gross: $21.20M
31. The Omen (1976)
R | 111 min | Horror, Mystery
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: 132,067 | Gross: $4.27M
32. Misery (1990)
R | 107 min | Drama, Thriller
After a famous author is rescued from a car crash by a fan of his novels, he comes to realize that the care he is receiving is only the beginning of a nightmare of captivity and abuse.
Director: Rob Reiner | Stars: James Caan, Kathy Bates, Richard Farnsworth, Frances Sternhagen
Votes: 235,259 | Gross: $61.28M
33. Let the Right One In (2008)
R | 114 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Oskar, an overlooked and bullied boy, finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl.
Director: Tomas Alfredson | Stars: Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl
Votes: 226,651 | Gross: $2.12M
34. Creepshow (1982)
R | 120 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
"Creepshow" is a 1982 movie that tells five grisly tales from a children's comic book: a murdered father rising from his grave, a bizarre meteor, a vengeful husband, a mysterious crate's occupant, and a plague of cockroaches.
Director: George A. Romero | Stars: Hal Holbrook, Leslie Nielsen, Adrienne Barbeau, E.G. Marshall
Votes: 53,159 | Gross: $21.03M
35. Zombieland (2009)
R | 88 min | Action, Comedy, Horror
A shy student trying to reach his family in Ohio, a gun-toting bruiser in search of the last Twinkie and a pair of sisters striving to get to an amusement park join forces in a trek across a zombie-filled America.
Director: Ruben Fleischer | Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Woody Harrelson, Abigail Breslin
Votes: 620,691 | Gross: $75.59M
36. The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009)
R | 92 min | Horror
A mad scientist kidnaps and mutilates a trio of tourists in order to reassemble them into a human centipede, created by stitching their mouths to each others' rectums.
Director: Tom Six | Stars: Dieter Laser, Winter Williams, Ashlynn Yennie, Akihiro Kitamura
Votes: 87,169 | Gross: $0.18M
37. House of 1000 Corpses (2003)
R | 89 min | Horror
Two young couples traveling across the backwoods of Texas searching for urban legends of murder end up as prisoners of a bizarre and sadistic backwater family of serial killers.
Director: Rob Zombie | Stars: Sid Haig, Karen Black, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon Zombie
Votes: 93,280 | Gross: $12.63M
38. The Call of Cthulhu (2005)
Not Rated | 47 min | Horror, Mystery
While sorting the affairs of his late Uncle, a man accidentally stumbles across a series of dark secrets connected to an ancient horror waiting to be freed.
Director: Andrew Leman | Stars: Matt Foyer, John Bolen, Ralph Lucas, Chad Fifer
Votes: 8,887
39. The Woman in Black (2012)
PG-13 | 95 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A young solicitor travels to a remote village where he discovers that the vengeful ghost of a scorned woman is terrorizing the locals.
Director: James Watkins | Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Janet McTeer, Ciarán Hinds, Emma Shorey
Votes: 192,520 | Gross: $54.33M
40. The Ward (2010)
R | 89 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
An institutionalized young woman becomes terrorized by a ghost.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Amber Heard, Mamie Gummer, Danielle Panabaker, Laura-Leigh
Votes: 44,853
41. Evil Dead II (1987)
R | 84 min | Comedy, Horror
Ash Williams, the lone survivor of an earlier onslaught of flesh-possessing spirits, holes up in a cabin with a group of strangers while the demons continue their attack.
Director: Sam Raimi | Stars: Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks, Kassie Wesley DePaiva
Votes: 181,755 | Gross: $5.92M
42. The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Passed | 93 min | Horror
A mad, disfigured composer seeks love with a lovely young opera singer.
Directors: Rupert Julian, Lon Chaney, Ernst Laemmle, Edward Sedgwick | Stars: Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, Arthur Edmund Carewe
Votes: 20,082 | Gross: $3.75M
43. Hostel (2005)
R | 94 min | Horror
Three backpackers head to a Slovak city that promises to meet their hedonistic expectations, with no idea of the hell that awaits them.
Director: Eli Roth | Stars: Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Eythor Gudjonsson, Barbara Nedeljakova
Votes: 190,836 | Gross: $47.33M
44. Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
R | 98 min | Horror, Musical, Sci-Fi
A worldwide epidemic encourages a biotech company to launch an organ-financing program similar in nature to a standard car loan. The repossession clause is a killer, however.
Director: Darren Lynn Bousman | Stars: Paul Sorvino, Anthony Head, Alexa PenaVega, Sarah Brightman
Votes: 26,523 | Gross: $0.14M
45. The House of the Devil (2009)
R | 95 min | Horror, Mystery
In 1983, financially struggling college student Samantha Hughes takes a strange babysitting job that coincides with a full lunar eclipse. She slowly realizes her clients harbor a terrifying secret, putting her life in mortal danger.
Director: Ti West | Stars: Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan, Mary Woronov, Greta Gerwig
Votes: 51,190 | Gross: $0.10M
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