My Top Films for Halloween
by brittneyrwilliams | created - 27 Oct 2013 | updated - 03 Oct 2018 | PublicA list of my favorite films just in time for Halloween. The list is comprised of films that are scary (or in some case super scary). Others are fun to watch because they just fit the theme of this holiday perfectly. It is also not in any particular order. Hope you enjoy my list and maybe find some new films to enjoy and rediscover some old ones! :)
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1. 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: 105,305
2. The Exorcist (1973)
R | 122 min | Horror
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: 454,368 | Gross: $232.91M
3. Ringu (1998)
Not Rated | 96 min | Horror, Mystery
A reporter and her ex-husband investigate a cursed video tape that is rumored to kill the viewer seven days after watching it.
Director: Hideo Nakata | Stars: Nanako Matsushima, Miki Nakatani, Yûko Takeuchi, Hitomi Satô
Votes: 77,387
4. 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: 138,945 | Gross: $0.09M
5. When a Stranger Calls (1979)
R | 97 min | Mystery, Thriller
A psychopathic killer terrorizes a babysitter, then returns seven years later to menace her again.
Director: Fred Walton | Stars: Carol Kane, Charles Durning, Rutanya Alda, Carmen Argenziano
Votes: 14,298 | Gross: $21.41M
6. Magic (1978)
R | 107 min | Drama, Horror
A ventriloquist is at the mercy of his vicious dummy while he tries to renew a romance with his high school sweetheart.
Director: Richard Attenborough | Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Ann-Margret, Burgess Meredith, Ed Lauter
Votes: 13,424 | Gross: $25.94M
7. Candyman (1992)
R | 99 min | Horror, Thriller
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: 100,059 | Gross: $25.79M
8. It's Alive (1974)
PG | 91 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
The Davises are expecting a baby, which turns out to be a monster with a nasty habit of killing people whenever it is scared. And it is easily scared.
Director: Larry Cohen | Stars: John P. Ryan, Sharon Farrell, Andrew Duggan, Guy Stockwell
Votes: 8,969
9. The Last Man on Earth (1964)
Not Rated | 86 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
When a disease turns all of humanity into the living dead, the last man on earth becomes a reluctant vampire hunter.
Directors: Ubaldo Ragona, Sidney Salkow | Stars: Vincent Price, Franca Bettoia, Emma Danieli, Giacomo Rossi Stuart
Votes: 21,476
10. 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: 27,446
11. Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Approved | 137 min | Drama, Horror
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: 234,810
12. It (1990)
TV-14 | 96 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
In 1960, seven pre-teen outcasts fight an evil demon who poses as a child-killing clown. Thirty years later, they reunite to stop the demon once and for all when it returns to their hometown.
Stars: Richard Thomas, Tim Reid, Annette O'Toole, Harry Anderson
Votes: 140,744
13. Phantasm (1979)
R | 89 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A teenage boy and his friends face off against a mysterious grave robber, known only as the Tall Man, who employs a lethal arsenal of unearthly weapons.
Director: Don Coscarelli | Stars: A. Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Reggie Bannister, Kathy Lester
Votes: 41,229 | Gross: $11.99M
14. 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: 131,986 | Gross: $4.27M
15. Carrie (1976)
R | 98 min | Horror, Mystery
Carrie White, a shy, friendless teenage girl who is sheltered by her domineering, religious mother, unleashes her telekinetic powers after being humiliated by her classmates at her senior prom.
Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, John Travolta
Votes: 206,413 | Gross: $33.80M
16. 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: 226,628 | Gross: $2.12M
17. Poltergeist (1982)
PG | 114 min | Horror, Thriller
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: 179,360 | Gross: $76.61M
18. The Birds (1963)
PG-13 | 119 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
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: 204,303 | Gross: $11.40M
19. The Haunting (1963)
G | 112 min | Horror
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: 42,455 | Gross: $2.62M
20. The Entity (1982)
R | 125 min | Drama, Horror
A woman is tormented by an invisible being.
Director: Sidney J. Furie | Stars: Barbara Hershey, Ron Silver, David Labiosa, George Coe
Votes: 18,238 | Gross: $13.28M
21. Child's Play (1988)
R | 87 min | Horror, Thriller
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: 116,562 | Gross: $33.24M
22. Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
R | 128 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
The centuries old vampire Count Dracula comes to England to seduce his barrister Jonathan Harker's fiancée Mina Murray and inflict havoc in the foreign land.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu Reeves
Votes: 238,143 | Gross: $82.52M
23. Hellraiser (1987)
R | 94 min | Horror, Thriller
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: 140,340 | Gross: $14.56M
24. 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: 386,687 | Gross: $52.90M
25. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Approved | 80 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.
Director: Don Siegel | Stars: Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates, King Donovan
Votes: 54,680
26. Freaks (1932)
Not Rated | 64 min | Drama, Horror
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: 50,547 | Gross: $0.63M
27. She Devil (1957)
Passed | 77 min | Crime, Horror, Sci-Fi
Doctors Scott and Bach inject the dying Kyra Zelas with a formula which saves her life - but also renders her almost immortal and wickedly evil.
Director: Kurt Neumann | Stars: Mari Blanchard, Jack Kelly, Albert Dekker, John Archer
Votes: 490
28. The Fly (1958)
Not Rated | 94 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A scientist has a horrific accident when he tries to use his newly invented teleportation device.
Director: Kurt Neumann | Stars: David Hedison, Patricia Owens, Vincent Price, Herbert Marshall
Votes: 25,634 | Gross: $3.00M
29. The Sixth Sense (1999)
PG-13 | 107 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist, starts treating a young boy, Cole, who encounters dead people and convinces him to help them. In turn, Cole helps Malcolm reconcile with his estranged wife.
Director: M. Night Shyamalan | Stars: Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams
Votes: 1,050,126 | Gross: $293.51M
30. The Whistler (1944)
Passed | 59 min | Film-Noir, Mystery
A depressed man hires an assassin to kill him when he least expects it, but when his life takes an upward turn, he finds he now wishes to live.
Director: William Castle | Stars: Richard Dix, Gloria Stuart, J. Carrol Naish, Alan Dinehart
Votes: 1,118
31. The Witches (1990)
PG | 91 min | Adventure, Comedy, Family
A young boy stumbles onto a witch convention and must stop them, even after he has been turned into a mouse.
Director: Nicolas Roeg | Stars: Anjelica Huston, Mai Zetterling, Jasen Fisher, Rowan Atkinson
Votes: 54,614 | Gross: $10.36M
32. Carnival of Souls (1962)
Approved | 78 min | Horror, Mystery
After a traumatic accident, a woman becomes drawn to a mysterious abandoned carnival.
Director: Herk Harvey | Stars: Candace Hilligoss, Frances Feist, Sidney Berger, Art Ellison
Votes: 27,783
33. The Tingler (1959)
Not Rated | 82 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
An obsessed pathologist discovers and captures a parasitic creature that grows when fear grips its host.
Director: William Castle | Stars: Vincent Price, Judith Evelyn, Darryl Hickman, Patricia Cutts
Votes: 9,443
34. A Bucket of Blood (1959)
Approved | 66 min | Comedy, Crime, Horror
A dimwitted busboy at a beatnik cafe passes off a cat he accidentally killed and covered in plaster as a sculpture, prompting a demand for more art that compels him to commit murders.
Director: Roger Corman | Stars: Dick Miller, Barboura Morris, Antony Carbone, Julian Burton
Votes: 7,877
35. The Others (2001)
PG-13 | 104 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
In 1945, immediately following the end of Second World War, a woman who lives with her two photosensitive children on her darkened old family estate in the Channel Islands becomes convinced that the home is haunted.
Director: Alejandro Amenábar | Stars: Nicole Kidman, Christopher Eccleston, Fionnula Flanagan, Alakina Mann
Votes: 392,850 | Gross: $96.52M
36. Tormented (1960)
Unrated | 75 min | Horror, Thriller
A man lets a former flame fall to her death rather than let her interfere with his new relationship, but her ghost returns to disrupt his impending nuptials.
Director: Bert I. Gordon | Stars: Richard Carlson, Susan Gordon, Lugene Sanders, Juli Reding
Votes: 2,934
37. Ghost Ship (2002)
R | 91 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A salvage crew discovers a long-lost 1962 passenger ship floating lifeless in a remote region of the Bering Sea, and soon notices that its long-dead inhabitants may still be on board.
Director: Steve Beck | Stars: Julianna Margulies, Gabriel Byrne, Ron Eldard, Desmond Harrington
Votes: 108,919 | Gross: $30.11M
38. Happy Birthday to Me (1981)
R | 110 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
At the snobby Crawford Academy, Virginia's group of friends start to go missing years after horrible events that happened to her as a child around her birthday.
Director: J. Lee Thompson | Stars: Melissa Sue Anderson, Glenn Ford, Lawrence Dane, Sharon Acker
Votes: 11,207
39. American Psycho (2000)
R | 102 min | Crime, Drama, Horror
A wealthy New York City investment banking executive, Patrick Bateman, hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he delves deeper into his violent, hedonistic fantasies.
Director: Mary Harron | Stars: Christian Bale, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, Bill Sage
Votes: 713,944 | Gross: $15.07M
40. London After Midnight (1927)
Passed | 69 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
The abandoned home of a wealthy man who supposedly committed suicide five years earlier is taken over by ghoulish figures - could they be vampires?
Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Lon Chaney, Marceline Day, Henry B. Walthall, Percy Williams
Votes: 1,461 | Gross: $0.52M
41. The Strangler (1964)
Approved | 89 min | Crime, Drama, Horror
An overweight lab technician with low self esteem, brought on by his dominant mother, becomes a serial killer of female nurses.
Director: Burt Topper | Stars: Victor Buono, David McLean, Diane Sayer, Davey Davison
Votes: 1,093
42. The Boston Strangler (1968)
Approved | 116 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A series of brutal murders in Boston sparks a seemingly endless and increasingly complex manhunt.
Director: Richard Fleischer | Stars: Tony Curtis, Henry Fonda, George Kennedy, Mike Kellin
Votes: 10,810
43. The Invisible Man (1933)
TV-PG | 71 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A scientist finds a way of becoming invisible, but in doing so, he becomes murderously insane.
Director: James Whale | Stars: Claude Rains, Gloria Stuart, William Harrigan, Henry Travers
Votes: 39,894
44. Get Out (I) (2017)
R | 104 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A young African-American visits his white girlfriend's parents for the weekend, where his simmering uneasiness about their reception of him eventually reaches a boiling point.
Director: Jordan Peele | Stars: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Catherine Keener
Votes: 695,163 | Gross: $176.04M
45. 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: 658,677 | Gross: $260.00M
46. Eraserhead (1977)
Not Rated | 89 min | Fantasy, Horror
Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.
Director: David Lynch | Stars: Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Allen Joseph, Jeanne Bates
Votes: 127,292 | Gross: $7.00M
47. The Children (2008)
R | 84 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A relaxing Christmas vacation turns into a terrifying fight for survival as the children begin to turn on their parents.
Director: Tom Shankland | Stars: Eva Birthistle, Stephen Campbell Moore, Jeremy Sheffield, Rachel Shelley
Votes: 19,022
48. Children of the Damned (1964)
Approved | 89 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
Six impossibly intelligent children from all over the world with dangerous psychic powers hide in a church in England after the military tries to experiment on them. Besieged, they warn the military to back off before carnage ensues.
Director: Anton Leader | Stars: Ian Hendry, Alan Badel, Barbara Ferris, Alfred Burke
Votes: 5,021 | Gross: $1.00M
49. Halloweentown (1998 TV Movie)
TV-G | 84 min | Adventure, Comedy, Family
When a young girl living with her secret witch mother learns she too is a witch, she must help her witch grandmother save Halloweentown from evil forces.
Director: Duwayne Dunham | Stars: Debbie Reynolds, Kimberly J. Brown, Judith Hoag, Joey Zimmerman
Votes: 21,243
50. Goosebumps (1995–1998)
TV-PG | 22 min | Fantasy, Horror, Mystery
"Goosebumps" was a series of scary anthology stories based on the children's books by R.L. Stine. Series one was hosted by R.L. Stine for twelve episodes.
Stars: R.L. Stine, Kathryn Short, Cody Jones, Scott Wickware
Votes: 15,210
51. 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: 306,501 | Gross: $47.00M
52. The Short Films of David Lynch (2002 Video)
Not Rated | 97 min | Documentary, Animation, Drama
A collection of visionary director David Lynch's short films from the first 29 years of his career is accompanied by a special introduction to each film by the director himself.
Director: David Lynch | Stars: Jeffe Alperi, Robert Chadwick, Catherine E. Coulson, Eddy Dixon
Votes: 3,403
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