Horror movies have been around since the dawn of cinema, and it’s unlikely they’re going to go away anytime soon. From the black and white monster movies of the 30s and 40s all the way through to our modern day, horror has always had a knack for adapting itself to whatever time period comes next. The last fifty years in particular have given audiences some of the scariest and greatest horror films ever made.
Often blending supernatural terror with higher ideas about humanity, society, and more, horror films of the last fifty years have become ingrained in the popular consciousness to the point of being as iconic as the likes of Dracula, Frankenstein, and more. Films like The Shining, and Let The Right One In have become decade-defining masterpieces in their own right, finding new ways to both scare and enlighten audiences. They’re the films that keep the genre going, and help it to last forever.
15
‘Sinners’ (2025)
Directed by Ryan Coogler
Sometimes a horror film doesn’t need to be consistently scary in order to be brilliant, and no recent film shows this better than Sinners. Michael B. Jordan plays both Smoke and Stack, twin gangsters who have returned home to Mississippi after working with Al Capone in Chicago. With the aid of their younger cousin Sammy (Miles Caton), they’re turning an old sawmill into a juke joint. What begins as a night full of music, love, and freedom, will end in bloodshed, terror, and a revelatory experience for those who survive.
Sinners may be more of a slow burn compared to other horror films, but that doesn’t make it any less impactful when the horror arrives. All the lead characters are engaging, leading to genuine suspense when the horror comes right to their front doorstep. In some characters’ cases, their fates may even be preferable to living through the real-life horrors of this period, lending an interesting and nuanced morality for what is otherwise an enjoyably straightforward story.
Sinners
- Release Date
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April 18, 2025
- Runtime
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138 minutes
14
‘Hereditary’ (2018)
Directed by Ari Aster
Family is always a touchy subject in horror movies, and Hereditary is no exception. After the passing of her mother, Annie Graham (Toni Collette) becomes wracked with complicated feelings that contribute to a barely audible yet undoubtedly dysfunctional family dynamic. Her son Peter (Alex Wolff) becomes aware that some things in his family’s ancestry are not what they seem, and he and his little sister Charlie (Milly Shapiro) seem to have inherited something truly horrifying.
Hereditary is a film best watched with as little detail as possible, because every twist and turn builds and builds and builds in a slow burn for the ages. Toni Collette gives the performance of her career as someone who is equal parts victim and perpetrator, trying to keep the family together while knowing she has a darker side of herself to manage. The plot remains somewhat enigmatic even when the credits start rolling, but once looked at in the bigger picture, it’s utterly devastating.
Hereditary
- Release Date
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June 8, 2018
- Runtime
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2h 7m
13
‘Get Out’ (2017)
Directed by Jordan Peele
Black photographer Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) is heading to meet his white girlfriend Rose’s (Allison Williams) family. Nervous about her parents’ reception to their daughter dating a black man, he’s taken aback by their open acceptance and kindness. But soon he begins to notice strange things on their property and unwittingly finds himself the latest subject of a procedure that will strip him of his consciousness but leave his body almost perfectly preserved.
Get Out is one of the strongest directorial debuts for any director, let alone comedy star and now horror maestro Jordan Peele. Dealing heavily with race while subverting the typical villain of such a narrative, it reminds the viewer that racism isn’t always based on aggressive hate – sometimes it’s based on clueless condescension and even in supposedly progressive thinking. The premise of Get Out is horrifying, the lead performances from Kaluuya and Williams are perfect, and the ending is hilariously satisfying.
Get Out
- Release Date
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February 24, 2017
- Runtime
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1 hour, 44 minutes
12
‘Scream’ (1996)
Directed by Wes Craven
Someone has taken their love of scary movies too far, starting a real-life serial killing spree dressed in a mask to follow a slasher villain’s methods. Woodsboro High student Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) has found herself one of the killer’s targets, and her friends must follow the basic rules to either survive or die trying – don’t make love, don’t drink alcohol or do drugs, and don’t say I’ll be right back. But Sidney will find the killer has a more personal connection to her than she could have dreamed of.
Directed by horror superstar Wes Craven, Scream is structured to be the ultimate slasher movie while also going out of its way to make fun of the genre’s tropes – dumb teenagers, bad acting, characters who engage in morally scrupulous behavior, and everybody being a suspect even when the most obvious one is in plain sight. The script is brilliant, the acting is iconic, and the tone is pitch-black and perfect.
Scream
- Release Date
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December 20, 1996
- Runtime
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112 minutes
11
‘Ringu’ (1998)
Directed by Hideo Nakata
Journalist Reiko Asakawa (Nanako Matsushima) discovers her nephew and a group of his friends have recently died in the same way and at the same time. Her investigation leads her to discover they watched a mysterious videotape rumored to be cursed – if played, it shows a series of disturbing images before abruptly cutting off, and whoever watches it will die in seven days. After watching the tape, Reiko goes deeper into exploring the tape’s origins, and what a young woman named Sadako Yamamura (Rie Inō) has to do with it.
The American remake may be the one that cemented the story as a global phenomenon, but Ringu is the film that not only revolutionized Japanese horror films, it helped bring more attention to their kinds of ghost stories to international markets. The premise of a cursed videotape with a ghost that crawls out of a television set feels decidedly modern, and the lack of extreme gore allows the power of suspense to seep right through the screen.
Ringu
- Release Date
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January 31, 1998
- Runtime
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95 Minutes
10
‘Dawn of the Dead’ (1978)
Directed by George A. Romero
There have been several zombie movies that can easily be called masterpieces over the last half-century (not least of all, Train to Busan, (•REC) and 28 Days Later), but horror master George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead is a bite above the rest.
Ken Foree and Gaylen Ross star in the gory, tense and darkly funny picture about survivors waiting on the zombie apocalypse in a Midwestern mall. Dawn of the Dead is tense and scary, and succeeds handsomely as social commentary. It was remade successfully in 2004, but Zack Snyder‘s film can’t touch the original’s revolutionary qualities. Without hesitation, it’s easy to call this the greatest zombie movie ever made. – Samuel R. Murrian
9
‘American Psycho’ (2000)
Directed by Mary Harron
Based on the novel by Brett Easton Ellis, American Psycho is a character study of a truly disturbed and awful human being. Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) is an investment banker in 1980s New York City. He spends his days going through an extensive facial care and workout routine, listening to Phil Collins and Huey Lewis & the News, dining in expensive restaurants, and the occasional violent murder.
Rather than focusing on a hero or an unfortunate soul, American Psycho places the audience’s viewpoint through the duplicitous main character with an uncertain conclusion. Is Patrick Bateman just a really boring guy who imagines himself as a violent killer to make himself more interesting? Or is he a genuine killer whose status as the son of the man that owns the company allows him to get away with his crimes and not even be aware of it? Either way, he may just be his own worst victim.
8
‘Evil Dead 2’ (1987)
Directed by Sam Raimi
The Evil Dead franchise has more blood than a vampire’s fridge, and Evil Dead 2 runs on blood like gasoline. Serving as both a sequel to and a soft remake of the 1981 classic, Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) has survived the night that killed his girlfriend, but his torment has just begun. The evil force that has possessed the Knowby Cabin is still going to take any opportunity to mess with him – whether by resurrecting his girlfriend as a bloodthirsty zombie, possessing his hand until he’s forced to cut it off with a chainsaw, or driving him mad any way it can.
More than any installment in the franchise, Evil Dead 2 is, at its core, a tale of man and his environment, with Ash trying his best to defeat an unbeatable force of nature. The scares are just as effective as the laughs, keeping the tension and hope for survival genuine while never forgetting to have some fun along the way. Blood, chainsaws, and one of the greatest heroes in horror history. What’s not to love?
7
‘The Silence of the Lambs’ (1991)
Directed by Jonathan Demme
The only horror film to ever win the Academy Award for Best Picture is actually a genre hybrid. Thomas Harris‘ page-turner about a young FBI trainee on the trail of a serial killer gained a lot of early notice as one of those books that was simply destined to be a film. The adaptation is one of scarce few high-profile movies that are better than the book.
Jonathan Demme‘s masterpiece improves upon its (already quite good) source material thanks to humanistic direction, spotless pacing, and career-defining performances from Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. The Silence of the Lambs is one of only three pictures to win the “Big Five” at the Oscars, with honors for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. – Samuel R. Murrian
6
‘The Babadook’ (2014)
Directed by Jennifer Kent
If it’s in a word, or it’s in a look, you can’t get rid of this Australian masterwork. Grieving widow Amelia (Essie Davis) is struggling to raise her energetic son Sam (Noah Wiseman) when they find a mysterious book about a monster called Mister Babadook. Sam becomes obsessed with proving the Babadook’s existence, while Amelia tries tearing up the book and throwing it away. But the book comes back, predicting that he will come for Amelia and force her to kill her child.
A cross between a family drama and a monster movie, The Babadook is a metaphorical tale of grief and motherhood. The titular monster is not the true lead, instead keeping the focus on the relationship between Amelia and her son, and how she goes between caring for him one minute and trying to murder him the next. But while the final resolution shows their situation is not completely free from horror, there is still very much love present.
The Babadook
- Release Date
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November 28, 2014
- Runtime
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94 Minutes
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Noah Wiseman
Samuel Vanek
