A Definitive List of the Best Halloween Movies of All Time
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Holidays are a time of traditions, and in that spirit, we love to do the same things year after year. For Halloween, that means scaring ourselves to death with a classic horror movie. And while there are so many great scary movies out there, when this time of year rolls around, we reach for the familiar. We want to spend time with our villains, be they Dracula, Michael Myers, Chucky or Freddy Krueger. We reach for those familiar directors, from old greats like James Whale or Stanley Kubrick to newer faves like Jordan Peele or James Wan. We want that oddly comforting feeling of walking around a darkened, spooky house, knowing that something is going to jump out at us at any minute.
When the mood strikes, these are the best Halloween movies of all time. Most of them have stood the test of time because they pick at a nagging anxiety, be it something small (like creepy dolls) or something larger (the looming dread that, no matter how hard you try, you'll never be able to keep your family totally safe). Others are newer favorites we know will stick around because they come from some of our favorite voices in horror. And still others combine the old and the new, putting in new entries (or reboots, or remakes) into long-running favorite franchises. They have some of our favorite horror elements — be they witches, vampires, haunted houses, ghosts or psychological scares — which is another reason why you'll want to reach for these every October. (And maybe throughout the year? Horror really has no season.)
Note: There are a couple of family-friendly picks on this list, but most of them are of the blood, guts and gore variety. If you're looking for something to watch with the younger ones, there are many more suggestions on our list of scary movies for kids.
Halloween (1978)
Given that this iconic film — featuring the unstoppable killing machine that is Michael Myers — shares a name with the year's spookiest holiday, it's just about as classic as they come. It's worth it for the atmospheric John Carpenter score alone. Recently, a new trilogy gave the tried-and-true series a refresh with its original star, Jamie Lee Curtis. In Halloween, Director David Gordon Green re-focused the series on the Strode women, and the way they react to the return of Michael Myers. A sequel, Halloween Kills, followed in 2021, and the trilogy came to a conclusion last year with Halloween Ends..
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RELATED: How to Watch All the Michael Myers Movies in Order
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966)
For many, it's simply not Halloween season until the whole family has gathered on the couch to watch this animated special starring the Peanuts gang. Will the Great Pumpkin finally show up this year?
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Mia Farrow is chilling as the pregnant young Rosemary, who must face the truth about the secret origins of the mysterious child she's carrying. It's a true, slow-burn terror.
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Nosferatu (1929)
Can a horror movie from 1929 still hold up close to 100 years later? Take one look at F. W. Murnau's creature, embodied brilliantly by actor Max Schreck, and you'll say the answer is a resounding yes.
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Poltergeist (1982)
Even now, if you say, "They're heeeere," in a creepy voice, people will shudder. It's all thanks to this story about a house possessed by angry spirits.
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Psycho (1960)
Everything about Hitchcock's Psycho, from its string-filled score to its creepy twist ending is classic. And yet, when you watch it — whether it's for the first time or the hundredth — it still brings up feelings of dread.
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Beetlejuice (1988)
A Tim Burton invention, Beetlejuice is a family-friendly horror film tracing a couple who find themselves stuck haunting their home in the afterlife. It's one of the few movies that puts you on the side of the ghosts haunting the house.
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The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Leatherface stands up there with the greats when you talk about horror-movie franchise icons. The first one is a grimy, seedy tale of five friends who pick up a hitchhiker, only to be drawn into a house where a chainsaw-wielding killer lurks. The film launched a host of sequels, reboots and sequels to the reboots, including 2022's Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a Netflix film that has Leatherface pitted against influencers seeking to gentrify his neighborhood.
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Get Out (2017)
Jordan Peele's masterpiece, which uses horror as a vehicle to explore racism, is an absolute must-see. You'll be thinking about this one long after you turn the lights out.
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Child's Play (1988)
Imagine Toy Story, but without, well, all the things that give it Disney's stamp of approval. Instead of Woody and Buzz, this movie follows a young boy who receives a doll that takes on a possessed life of its own. When you're finished with the film series, you can move on to the Chucky TV show that ran on SYFY recently (and now streams on Peacock).
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RELATED: How to Watch the Child's Play Movies in Order
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
It's up for debate whether this classic falls into the Halloween or Christmas category. Either way, Tim Burton's imaginary world is a transparent delight. (So maybe watch it once a week from October to December?)
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Night of the Living Dead (1968)
George A. Romero has made his career directing the best zombie movies, usually using the undead as a stand-in to say something about mass culture at large. But even if the metaphors go over your head, just watching the flesh-eating creatures is scary enough on its own. There are six sequels: Dawn of the Dead (which is sadly not streaming, but the 2004 remake is), Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead.
M3GAN (2023)
The Model 3 Generative Android — that's M3GAN to you — was designed to relate to kids and protect them. But when the prototype is paired with a girl grieving her parents, she takes her directive too far in one of the most fun horror movie to come out in years.
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Young Frankenstein (1974)
Heralded as one of the funniest movies of all time (full stop), the jokes in this hilarious Mel Brooks spoof still hold up. It's perfect for when you want to watch something in the Halloween spirit, but don't feel like being scared.
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The Conjuring (2013)
When paranormal investigators are called to search an isolated farmhouse, they think they can handle the less-than-horrifying hauntings there. But, if we know anything from the horror movies of yore, it's that spirits should never be underestimated. The movie is based on the real-life exploits of paranormal researchers Ed and Lorraine Warren. If you like it, you can follow up with the sequels or the spin-offs, including the Annabelle and The Nun franchises.
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RELATED: How to Watch the Entire Conjuring Series in Order
The Shining (1980)
Easily one of the most recognizable entries on this list, The Shining features Jack Nicholson's breathtaking performance as the writer-turned-madman Jack Torrance. It's a Stephen King classic that director Stanley Kubrick truly makes his own.
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X (2022)
A group of friends decide to rent a barn on the grounds of a farmhouse and try to surreptitiously film a dirty movie, which would chagrin the farm's elderly owners. When the aged Pearl catches wise to what the group is doing, she starts stalking the filmmakers, including young ingénue Maxine. Mia Goth plays a dual role as both Pearl and Maxine in a movie that has a lot on its mind about aging, art and how to make a legacy. After X debuted in spring 2022, a surprise sequel, Pearl, immediately followed before the end of the year. A third movie, MaXXXine, is also on the way.
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A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Even little kids who don't watch scary movies know who Freddy Krueger is. (And they kind of think he's cool?) But if you sing, "One, two, Freddy's coming for you," even the tough ones will run away.
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RELATED: How to Watch the Nightmare on Elm Street Movies in the Right Order
Trick 'r Treat (2007)
What happens when you don't follow the rules of Halloween traditions? The residents of a small Ohio town find out in this horror flick that weaves together four intertwining tales. While it had a small release, this movie has had a cult following — Trick 'r Treat Sam, the kid with the burlap mask and the orange PJs, is a surprisingly enduring kids' Halloween costume.
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House on Haunted Hill (1959)
No doubt you've heard the premise before: A wealthy eccentric offers five guests a big cash prize if they can survive the night in a haunted house. Vincent Price plays the millionaire in this classic film by William Castle. When it was shown originally, Castle, who was known for his in-theater gimmicks, had a skeleton with red, glowing eyes float over the audience at the end of the movie. There was also an ill-regarded remake made in 1999.
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A Quiet Place (2018)
This inventive post-apocalyptic thriller takes place in a world where even the slightest sound can spell your imminent death. Real-life couple Emily Blunt and John Krasinksi play the parents in this tale of how we can never really keep our children safe. After many pandemic delays, A Quiet Place Part II followed in 2021, and picks up immediately where the first movie leaves off.
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Barbarian (2022)
The premise is simple: A woman shows up to the house she rented for the weekend, only to find a man inside who says he had already booked it. It's late, there's rain pouring down, and the man offers to share the space for the night. Do you go in? This movie plays with your expectations for what happens in a typical horror movie, and has an astute eye toward the way men and women respond to different threats differently, which keeps a seemingly no-frills setup fresh.
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Hocus Pocus (1993)
The campy Disney Halloween classic makes chatty black cats and goofy witches the epitome of Halloween fun. And now that the much-anticipated Hocus Pocus 2 is out on Disney+, you can plan a double feature this Halloween.
RELATED: See How the Hocus Pocus Cast Has Changed Over the Years
The Babadook (2014)
Besides being a great Halloween costume, the Babadook — a menacing figure in a top hat and coat — also represents an ambivalence to parenthood. (Not that any parents out there can relate!) But, kids or no, the way it menaces the family in this movie is very, very frightening.
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Orphan (2009)
Esther earns her place among the Creepy Horror Movie Children pantheon, right alongside Danny from The Shining and all those kids from Village of the Damned. In the movie, she's adopted into a new family and starts to exhibit strange behaviors that start to want to drive the family apart. A sequel, Orphan: First Kill, came out last year — and the same actress plays Esther, despite it being 13 years later. (How? The other actors wore heels and lifts in their shoes to make her seem like she was still kid-sized.)
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Scream (1996)
This clever classic reinvigorated the slasher genre with deadly wit. Watch to learn the rules of the genre, like why you should never get too close to the man in the mask, only to have those tropes be subverted. A sixth entry in the franchise, Scream IV, came out earlier this year, and moves the action to New York City for the first time.
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Cat People (1942)
Film critic Roger Ebert says this movie, "wasn't frightening like a slasher movie, using shocks and gore, but frightening in an eerie, mysterious way that was hard to define; the screen harbored unseen threats, and there was an undertone of sexual danger that was more ominous because it was never acted upon." It's a good one to watch with someone who wants to see scary movies, but can't handle jump scares or gore.
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Hellraiser (1987)
Okay, gore fans, this one's for you: Hellraiser is about a puzzle box that, if solved correctly, is said to open a portal to a realm of pleasure. But when a man buys it and tries to solve it in his attic, he suffers some gnarly consequences. This movie is also the originator of the Cenobites, including the "Pinhead" figure, which are their own horror icons. The film spawned nine sequels, and last year it received the reboot treatment.
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Hereditary (2018)
An absolutely terrifying paranormal horror — featuring Toni Collette in impeccable form as the Graham family matriarch — Hereditary is what you watch if you don't want a wink of sleep on Hallow's Eve.
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Death Becomes Her (1992)
Frenemies played by Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep discover the secret of eternal youth — but as it turns out, living forever isn't all it's cracked up to be. More comedy than horror, this Robert Zemeckis classic is a fun ride.
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Terrifier (2016)
Move over, Pennywise there's a new creepy clown in town — Terrifier's Art the Clown. The Terrifier franchise is known for being low in budget but extra high in gore, blood and kills, living up to its name. The sequel, Terrifier 2, made headlines because it cost a mere $250,000 to make (some of it crowdsourced from Indiegogo) but earned more than $15 million at the box office last year. A third movie is in the works.
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The Monster Squad (1987)
Here's one that you can watch with the tweens (maybe) and teens (most likely). In the vein of something like The Goonies, this film has a bunch of kids who have to go up against the classic Universal monsters, including Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, the Mummy, the Wolf Man and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
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The Ring (2002)
A remake of the 1999 Japanese horror film Ringu, this classic takes the whole "creepy child" trope to a whole other level. Trust us: You'll have a hard time watching any old cassette tapes ever again.
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The Blair Witch Project (1999)
The movie that popularized the concept of "found footage" horror, this cult favorite follows a group of film students who get lost in the woods while investigating the local "Blair Witch." Try not to think about it next time you're off in the woods.
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The Purge (2013)
One night a year, a laws are suspended and everything becomes legal so people can blow off steam — what can go wrong, right? The Purge is the backdrop for five movies and a TV series — each with their own creepy masks — which show you all the different ways society can break down when there are no rules keeping everyone in line.
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RELATED: How to Watch All of 'The Purge' Movies in Order
Insidious (2010)
Directed by James Wan, who co-created Saw and would go on to do The Conjuring, this film follows a family that's haunted by an unfriendly presence after moving to a new house. When their oldest son, Dalton, falls into a coma, they have to consult a psychic and enter an unearthly realm of existence to find his soul and bring it back. This film already has three sequels and a new one, Insidious: The Red Door, comes out in July.
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Practical Magic (1998)
Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock as sibling witches? Sign us up. This delightful cult-classic rom-com is a perfect pick for anyone who wants a gentle, lovelorn Halloween.
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The Sixth Sense (1999)
"I see dead people" is by far one of the most popular Halloween movie quotes to this day, and rightly so. In this paranormal drama, Haley Joel Osment plays a 9-year-old boy who has to help spirits move on, in sometimes unexpected ways.
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Friday the 13th (1980)
There's a reason so many of us are wary of Friday the 13th whenever it comes up on our calendars. We can owe a lot of that nervousness to this eerie fan-favorite and the franchise that followed.
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Coraline (2009)
Follow young explorer Coraline through a door into an alternate dimension, where she meets characters who seem much like those in her real life... but maybe a little off (even as they promise her everything she wants). Even though it's made for children, Coraline's creepy button eyes will make even adults a little unsettled.
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Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Loosely based on Washington Irving's 1820 short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," Christina Ricci and Johnny Depp star in this gothic romance directed by Tim Burton. It has plenty of macabre touches, but also some silliness, too.
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Us (2019)
A brilliant invention from Jordan Peele, this allegorical horror features a family who discover their violent doppelgängers while on vacation. The only thing scarier than a monster is... yourself.
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Ghostbusters (1984)
This is a good one to throw on for a mixed-aged group, since it's a mix of funny and scary (and hopefully not too terrifying). Make it a month-long Ghostbusters marathon with the sequel, the re-do and 2021's Ghostbusters: Afterlife — plus a sequel to that coming out this year.
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Happy Death Day (2017)
Think of it as the Groundhog Day of Halloween movies: A young woman wakes up to find it's her birthday, every day, and she has to experience her own murder over and over. She begins to investigate her own death, hoping she can break the time loop. A sequel, Happy Death Day 2 U, followed in 2019, and goes in even more of a sci-fi direction.
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The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Host your own midnight showing of this musical comedy horror film starring a young Susan Sarandon and Tim Curry — then just try to hold yourself back from dancing along to the "Time Warp."
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Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Another Tim Burton cult classic, this surprisingly heartwarming tale of a young man makes us re-think the definition of what a "monster" really is. Is it the grotesque human with the scissors for hands, or the "normal"-looking suburbanites who gossip and back-stab around him?
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The Evil Dead (1981)
Before he dipped into the MCU, Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness director Sam Raimi toyed with overlapping timelines and alternate takes in his Evil Dead series. The Evil Dead, The Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness all feature hero Ash going up against a series of deformed creatures after running afoul of The Book of the Dead. And, without a Marvel-sized budget, they're all done with B-movie verve.
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Pet Sematary (1989 film)
Pretty much any Stephen King adaptation — and there are a lot of them — makes for good Halloween viewing. This one follows a man who, wracked with grief over the death of his toddler, buries the kid in a pet cemetery that is said to bring dead things back to life. It works — but his son comes back wrong. This film also has a sequel and a more recent remake.
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Halloweentown (1998)
If your kids wish that Halloween could be every night of the year, you’re in luck: In the magical Disney classic Halloweentown, that’s basically how it goes.
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The Addams Family (1991)
This kid-friendly classic is an easy choice for a spooky — but not nightmare-inducing — Halloween movie night. There's a recent cartoon version with a road-trip-themed sequel, but you can't beat the OG — and its 1993 follow-up, Addams Family Values — for its chemistry between Raul Julia and Anjelica Houston.
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An American Werewolf in London (1981)
This Jonathan Landis horror-comedy is worth it for the werewolf transformation alone — the movie won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Makeup. (The famed Rick Baker created the looks.)
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Carrie (1976)
In this high school horror story, a young misfit shows her bullies the terrible power that she possess. But who are the real evil ones?
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The Amityville Horror (1979)
A couple moves into their dream home, only to discover the previous tenants met a deadly end. Really, this drama teaches an important life tip: If the house you’re buying seems too good to be true, call the ghostbusters before you settle in.
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Paranormal Activity (2007)
Get prepared to look at your suburban home — and your home security system — in an all-new light. This movie focuses on a young couple who suspect a paranormal presence after moving into their tract home in suburbia. They set up video cameras to pursue their hunch and, well, horror ensues.
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Ready or Not (2019)
If you like us vs. them survival-type movies, this is the thriller for you: It follows a woman (Samara Weaving) who, on the night of her nuptials, is told by her wealthy in-laws that it's a tradition for them to spend the wedding night playing games, since board games are the main focus of their business. The game turns out to be a high-stakes, life-or-death competition, and she has to try and escape their mansion alive.
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It (2017)
Since Pennywise the Clown has consistently been one of the most popular Halloween costumes in recent years, it's only fitting that the 2017 remake of Stephen King's bone-chilling story makes the cut. Make it a double-feature by following it up with 2019's It: Chapter 2, both directed by The Flash's Andy Muschietti.
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The Haunted Mansion (2003)
Disneyland built the house, but Eddie Murphy makes the movie. By the end of this heart-warming Disney classic, you may just change your mind about those grim, grinning ghosts. Watch this one before they reboot it — a new version is planned for this summer, starring Owen Wilson, Rosario Dawson, Tiffany Haddish, Lakeith Stanfield and Danny DeVito.
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The Craft (1996)
Teenage angst goes supernatural when the new girl at school falls in with a coven of witches — and things go off the rails. It's a good one to watch with your BFFs (or frenemies).
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The Exorcist (1973)
This famous paranormal horror from 1973 is based loosely around actual events. Loosely. Reassuring, right?
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Smile 2022
This movie made a name for itself with a viral marketing campaign that had people sit in the background of events like baseball games wearing a wide, rictus grin. Shudder! In the film itself, people see these grinning entities only to wind up dead a few days later, and one therapist tries to break the chain of deaths.
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Children of the Corn (1984)
Stephen King has a penchant for making the mundane mortifying, so it’s no surprise this adaptation of his 1978 short story made corn fields become one of the creepiest places to spend Halloween. A new spin on Children of the Corn — this one with an eco-minded, children-deserve-revenge-on-adults-for-trashing-the-planet bent — came out earlier this year.
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The Witch (2015)
This movie, about a family rejected by their Puritan church and sent to live away from the safety of their community, has a rhythm and a cadence all its own. It may not hit you with jump-scares, but it'll get under your skin.
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Saw (2004)
While most remember the Saw franchise as the one that ushered in an era of movies high on gore and violence, the original Saw movie felt novel for its mixture of horror and police procedural — and for its killer twist. And it's got plenty of sequels if Saw isn't vicious enough.
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Candyman (1992)
In 2021,Candyman got a Jordan Peele-produced remake. Wait... we've said his name twice now! We only get three more before he's summoned in this 1992 horror film.
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Nope (2022)
Jordan Peele's Nope is harder to wrap your head around than Get Out or Us, having a sci-fi bent in addition to a horror one. But once you get on its wavelength, you'll feel its existential scares, and some of its iconography (the cloud with the tail of flags trailing out, the inflatable arm-waving guys, Gordy the chimpanzee) will stick with you after the movie is over.
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Suspiria (1977)
This Dario Argento film shows you can fill your movie with bright colors and still have it be totally unsettling. When a student travels abroad to study dance, she finds the school is not what she thought it would be. In 2018, Amazon released a remake starring Dakota Johnson.
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Dracula (1931)
There is nothing more classic than Bela Lugosi as Dracula himself. If you're looking for the iconic Universal monsters, here's the place to start.
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The Haunting (1963)
If ghosts are more your flavor than slashers or monsters, this is your jam. It's a classic, New England haunted house movie.
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The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Both an entry within and a satire of the horror genre, this fascinating film features classic tropes — college students trapped in a cabin, zombies, werewolves and evil rituals — but cleverly turns them each on their head. It's a good one to watch after you've seen a bunch of horror movies and have the tropes in the front of your mind.
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The Witches (1990)
If you're looking for another kid-friendly flick, there's no beating the 1990 film version of Roald Dahl's creepy classic starring the incandescent Angelica Houston as the Grand High Witch. It pulls no punches while staying on kid-level.
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Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
Francis Ford Coppola does for Dracula what he did for The Godfather before it, using his Coppola magic to bring the book to the screen. This ornate, gothic movie features swing-for-the-fences performances by Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves.
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The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
How many decades have Halloween partygoers been teasing their hair and trying to add the white streak to emulate this bride? After watching the James Whale film, you can see why she's endured.
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The Thing (1982)
Remote location? Check. Shape-shifting villain? Check. Kurt Russell to the rescue? Check. This satisfying sci-fi/horror movie manages to entice even Halloween skeptics.
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The Invisible Man (2020)
Although it's a newer addition to the horror genre, The Invisible Man has earned its place among like classics, including the original that bears its name, for Elisabeth Moss's tour-de-force performance alone. Leigh Whannell, one of the Saw creators, manages to wring intense drama while focusing mostly on the Invisible Man's victim, instead of the monster himself.
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Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1954)
Classic horror doesn't always have to creep you out. If you want to get into the mood but also want to sleep at night, try this monster-filled comedy.
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Hubie Halloween (2020)
If you're on the hunt for a funny, warm-hearted Halloween movie — and you're the type of person who'll appreciate a good Adam Sandler Easter egg — then this movie is for you.
Fun Size (2012)
A high school senior is forced to babysit her little brother on Halloween night — and chaos ensues after she loses track of him while out trick-or-treating. It's a caper comedy wrapped in a Halloween costume.
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The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
This gilled creature adds more of a sci-fi element to the classic lineup of Universal monsters. When it falls for a beautiful lab assistant, the film takes on a beauty-and-the-beast quality, but fishier.
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Malignant (2021)
James Wan, the creator of the Saw and Insidious franchises, returned to the horror genre with this film. It follows a woman who starts to have visions of horrible murders, and then starts to suspect they're happening in real life.
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RELATED: The Best Horror Movies to Stream on Max
Zodiac (2007)
Zodiac isn't what you think of when you picture a Halloween movie, but a lot of the horror elements are there including obsession, murder and feeling powerless in the face of the unknown. Even scarier: It all happened! David Fincher follows one man's quest to try and use research, logic and information sharing to figure out the killer's identity even after the police have failed to crack the case.
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