Top 35 Scariest Films of All Time, Ranked

From what dark dreams did these 35 scary movies spring?

35 Scary Movies That Will Make You Scream

Pumpkin-spiced everything is already in stores, and the Oktoberfest beers are lining the shelves, which means that Halloween can’t be far behind — even though 2020 has already felt like one, big endless scary movie for most families.

But just what are the scariest movies out there? We’re so glad you asked because we ranked the top 35, according to rankings from Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes. And while defining what is objectively “scary” varies from person to person, these scary films are guaranteed to give you (and any kids allowed to watch) the serious willies. That is, of course, if you dare to watch them!

35. The Thing

Release Date: June 25, 1982

Metacritic Rating: 57

Tomatometer: 84

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 92

Combined Score: 77.66

How It Ranks

While there’s really no such thing as a “perfect” film, the perfect example of the creature feature is John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” A shape-shifting alien lifeform crash-lands in Antarctica, wakes up “probably not in the best mood” — as hero R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell) says — and proceeds to wreak havoc at an American research station, gradually taking the men over and graphically disposing of the ones it doesn’t. Who is human and who is a Thing? Actually, even the screenwriter, Bill Lancaster, once admitted he wasn’t entirely sure!

Outstanding pre-computer practical creature effects by Rob Bottin and a sinister, minimalist musical score by the late Ennio Morricone — and no small dose of gallows humor — makes “The Thing” endlessly rewatchable, earning it the No. 35 spot on our list.

33. The Skin I Live In (tie)

Release Date: Oct. 14, 2011

Metacritic Rating: 70

Tomatometer: 81

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 84

Combined Score: 78.33

How It Ranks

Spanish director Pedro Almodovar is known for his offbeat, adult-oriented dramas, but in 2011, the auteur re-teamed with longtime leading man Antonio Banderas for the first time in 21 years for something a little bit different.

Banderas stars as a plastic surgeon who is developing a revolutionary type of artificial skin that requires a, well, human guinea pig for testing — and he finds it in young Vera (Elena Anaya). More psychological horror than gross-out spectacle, the film tackles obsession in a way that would make Alfred Hitchcock proud.

33. I Saw the Devil (tie)

Release Date: March 4, 2011

Metacritic Rating: 67

Tomatometer: 81

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 87

Combined Score: 78.33

How It Ranks

Serial killers get quite a lot of play in the horror genre, so it’s refreshing when a film comes along to turn its conventions upside down. “I Saw the Devil” from South Korea sees an intelligence agent (Byung-hun Lee) tracking down the serial killer (Min-sik Choi) who murdered his love with a homemade guillotine. Egads!

Then comes cannibalism. Then the aforementioned cop kidnaps the serial killer. Intrigued yet?

32. It

Release Date: Sept. 28, 2017

Metacritic Rating: 69

Tomatometer: 85

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 84

Combined Score: 79.33

How It Ranks

Stephen King’s “It” made it to the big screen a couple of times, but we like the 2017 “Chapter One” version the best — and so do other critics. The story of the terrifying clown, Pennywise, haunted a new generation of viewers when it was released.

But the young actors and hilarious screenwriting made this film much more than your average horror flick. Unfortunately, the “Chapter Two” version didn’t live up to the first.

31. Stree

Release Date: Aug. 30, 2018

Metacritic Rating: N/A

Tomatometer: 79

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 81

Combined Score: 80

How It Ranks

One of the great things about horror movies is that fear is a universal human experience, and terror can be filtered through the unique experiences and beliefs of various cultures.

So was true with “Stree,” a ghostly cinematic tale from India about the titular witch, who abducts people during an annual festival, leaving only their clothing behind. But the vengeful spirit seems to only take men, leading some female villagers to see if they can uncover the secret.

30. The Sixth Sense

Release Date: Aug. 6, 1999

Metacritic Rating: 64

Tomatometer: 88

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 90

Combined Score: 80.67

How It Ranks

“I see dead people” is a movie quote that we’ll never forget from a movie with a plot twist that was certainly one for the books. What we appreciated about this movie most was that it was released right before social media took hold, which meant that people actually kept the plot twist a secret. Imagine that!

Of course, M. Night Shyamalan has written and directed several scary films since, but none of them have managed to surpass the genius that was this film.

29. The Shining

Release Date: May 23, 1980

Metacritic Rating: 66

Tomatometer: 84

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 93

Combined Score: 81

How It Ranks

All work and no play make Jack an ax-wielding Lakers fan. That and the disease of alcoholism, which is truly the main villain of “The Shining,” as on-the-wagon Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) gradually falls prey to demons — literal and figural — who push him back to the bottle at the snowed-in Overlook Hotel of author Stephen King’s fervid imagination. Obsession has seldom been given a face like Jack’s, whose descent into madness director Stanley Kubrick masterfully renders over two-plus terrifying hours.

As notorious as “The Shining” is for its mayhem, the film actually features few incidents of real violence. It’s the fact that Jack’s wife and son are the ones being menaced that makes the fright that much more awful.

28. Train to Busan

Release Date: July 22, 2016

Metacritic Rating: 72

Tomatometer: 94

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 84.66

Combined Score: 83.55

How It Ranks

Just when you thought you’d seen every possible permutation of a zombie flick, South Korean director Sang-ho Yeon expanded the genre in 2016.

This tale of flesh-eaters involves menacing everyday folks whose days started out rather simply on a train trip from Seoul to the city of Busan. The cramped quarters prove fertile ground for paranoia, betrayal and, yes, some rather uncouth dining on human flesh.

26. The Exorcist (tie)

Release Date: Dec. 26, 1973

Metacritic Rating: 81

Tomatometer: 83

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 87

Combined Score: 83.67

How It Ranks

A vengeful spirit taking over someone’s body is a frightening premise, but it’s so much worse when the possessed is a child. Linda Blair was barely a teen when she portrayed Regan, the victim of the demon Pazuzu.

The filthy words the demon forces out of her mouth moved audiences wearied even by the Vietnam War to leave their seats. (Blair even received death threats from religious extremists.) Other than the wardrobe and sets, “The Exorcist” has barely aged in 47 years, and it’s guaranteed to make you never look at pea soup the same way again.

26. The Invisible Man (tie)

Release Date: Feb. 24, 2020

Metacritic Rating: 72

Tomatometer: 91

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 88

Combined Score: 83.67

How It Ranks

Tied with “The Exorcist” is one of the more recent films on this list. “The Invisible Man,” starring Elisabeth Moss, is loosely based on the 1897 novel of the same name.

The psychological thriller tells the story of a woman who believes she’s being stalked by her abusive boyfriend. Moss’ acting was well received by viewers everywhere, although the unfortunate timing of the release (right before the pandemic hit), led to skewed box office numbers.

25. A Nightmare on Elm Street

Release Date: Nov. 16, 1984

Metacritic Rating: 76

Tomatometer: 94

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 83

Combined Score: 84.33

How It Ranks

This cult classic is likely one that everyone thinks of first when they think of horror films. Written and directed by Wes Craven, the movie brought us one of the best villains of all time: Freddy Krueger. His disfigured face alone will haunt your dreams.

The movie was so popular when it was first released that the franchise eventually released a total of nine slasher films — the most recent of which was a remake of the original released in 2010. But, let’s be real, it wasn’t nearly as good as the original.

24. Dawn of the Dead

Release Date: April 19, 1979

Metacritic Rating: 71

Tomatometer: 93

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 90

Combined Score: 84.66

How It Ranks

Wait, the dead don’t stay dead? This sequel to “Night of the Living Dead” (more on it later) came out a decade after the original, and zombies are still chomping on everyone in sight. This time, though, our heroes are trapped with the hungry undead inside a mall.

The zombies wander aimlessly store by store, which leads to the film’s profound tragicomic line: “This was an important place in their lives.” Think about that the next time you go into a mall.

23. Evil Dead II

Release Date: March 13, 1987

Metacritic Rating: 72

Tomatometer: 97

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 89

Combined Score: 86

How It Ranks

Less a sequel than a remake of its predecessor, “Evil Dead II” finds luckless Ash (Bruce Campbell) again battling demons from beyond the grave at, where else, a cabin in the woods. Director Sam Raimi, who grew up with Campbell in Michigan, made no bones about his love for all things “Three Stooges,” and thus many of the scenes in “Evil Dead II” are warped versions of Stooges gags.

The result is something you’re genuinely not sure whether to scream or laugh at when the buckets of blood get poured over poor Ash, and that’s precisely where Raimi wants you.

22. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Release Date: Oct. 31, 1962

Metacritic Rating: 75

Tomatometer: 92

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 92

Combined Score: 86.33

How It Ranks

When your two main characters are feuding, middle-aged actresses, the best thing to do is cast two middle-aged actresses who can’t stand one another. Thus, anti-friends Bette Davis and Joan Crawford lend more than a patina of real life animosity to the two lead characters, who are not only thespians but also sisters.

Baby Jane (Davis) becomes terribly jealous of even moderate success that sister Blanche (Crawford) sees in midlife, leading Jane to torment her sister in ever more twisted ways. Doubtless this didn’t require much in the way of “acting” from the two leads.

21. Let the Right One In

Release Date: Dec. 12, 2008

Metacritic Rating: 82

Tomatometer: 98

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 90

Combined Score: 86.67

How It Ranks

Vampires are certainly creepy, but this Swedish import from the late-aughts posits the question: What would you do if you were enslaved to a creature of the night? And what if said demon was a child? Well, not a child per se, but an undead being permanently stuck in tweenhood. Yes, the vampire Eli has a mortal manservant, but she yearns for company closer to her “age,” and thus she and a bullied boy named Oskar commence on a friendship that will be anything but typical.

Unnerving and highly original, “Let the Right One In” treats horror matter-of-factly and avoids in-your-face jump scares and other tired tricks of the genre.

19. Night of the Living Dead (tie)

Release Date: Oct. 1, 1968

Metacritic Rating: 89

Tomatometer: 97

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 87

Combined Score: 87.67

How It Ranks

At present, Jordan Peele may be making the most biting commentary on race relations in the horror genre, but long before him, there was Pittsburgh’s George A. Romero, who turned an investment of a few thousand dollars into a blockbuster zombie story that was as much indictment on prejudice as it was condemning cannibalism. (Note: Do not eat other people!)

When the dead start rising from graves to chow down on human flesh, a small group of the living holes up in an abandoned home, among them the resourceful Ben (Duane Jones), the lone African American among them. As fear and exhaustion take their toll on the group, it isn’t long before some of the white survivors turn a cruel eye on Ben — leading us to wonder just who are the real monsters out there.

19. Freaks (tie)

Release Date: Feb. 20, 1932

Metacritic Rating: 80

Tomatometer: 95

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 88

Combined Score: 87.67

How It Ranks

Only a year after triumphing at theaters with the Bela Lugosi-starring “Dracula,” director Tod Browning turned from fantastical villains to oddities of the human kind. Indeed, many of the actors hired for “Freaks” had been or even were at the time of filming circus sideshow performers, and Browning based much of the screenplay on his own time working in the big tents.

Various versions of “Freaks” are known to exist, but the “original” cut is thought to be lost to history. Perhaps check under the elephants?

17. The Innocents (tie)

Release Date: Dec. 25, 1961

Metacritic Rating: 88

Tomatometer: 94

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 86

Combined Score: 89.33

How It Ranks

Henry James wrote many a ghost story, including “Turn of the Screw,” which served as the basis for “The Innocents” from 1961. Deborah Kerr is Miss Giddens, a governess at a rather upscale property who becomes convinced that the house is haunted.

The film’s cinematography was so respected, it was even used as an inspiration for a Nine Inch Nails video decades later. In another bit of trivia, “In Cold Blood” author Truman Capote worked on the screenplay.

17. The Birds (tie)

Release Date: March 28, 1963

Metacritic Rating: 90

Tomatometer: 95

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 83

Combined Score: 89.33

How It Ranks

Alfred Hitchcock was no stranger to poking at our terrors, and in 1963, the Master of Suspense adapted Daphne Du Maurier’s tale of nature going rogue for the big screen. No reason is ever given for why the avians suddenly turn violently against mankind, and that’s part of its terror.

But there’s also a bit of a hidden message there: How long can our species mess with nature before it strikes back?

16. Get Out

Release Date: Feb. 24, 2017

Metacritic Rating: 85

Tomatometer: 98

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 86

Combined Score: 89.67

How It Ranks

Taking a somewhat opposite tack of the gang from “Flight of the Conchords,” funnyman Jordan Peele went full, full dark for his directorial debut. Peele’s film is at once both a legitimate horror tale as well as a meditation on race in America, what with its cabal of rich white suburbanites who seek to transfer the consciousnesses of African Americans into other bodies.

Peele more or less crafted a new subgenre of modern “race horror,” and in the process earned himself an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

15. Peeping Tom

Release Date: May 15, 1962

Metacritic Rating: N/A

Tomatometer: 96

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 85

Combined Score: 90.5

How It Ranks

Nowadays, there’s a rating system decreeing which films are off-limits to moviegoers of a certain age, but in 1960, it was not so. One of the films that supposedly began shifting things away from the Production Code to a self-policing rating system was the British import “Peeping Tom,” which, though it may seem tame by today’s standards, was a big-time shocker for its day.

Carl Boehm stars as a twisted man who not only murders women, but he also captures their final looks of terror on camera. This was decades before social media, mind you.

13. Repulsion (tie)

Release Date: Oct. 2, 1965

Metacritic Rating: 91

Tomatometer: 95

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 86

Combined Score: 90.67

How It Ranks

Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski was becoming popular not only in Europe but in the United States by the mid-1960s, partly due to the notoriety of this twisted tale of a Belgian woman named Carol (Catherine Deneuve), who moves into her sister’s London apartment. Left alone at one point, Carol begins hallucinating, leading her — and us — to wonder what is real and what is not.

The movie is psychologically creepy and is also rather notorious for being the first film passed by the British Board of Film Censors that featured the sound of a female orgasm. (Did we mention censorship was on the outs in the ’60s?)

13. Halloween (tie)

Release Date: Oct. 25, 1978

Metacritic Rating: 87

Tomatometer: 96

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 89

Combined Score: 90.67

How It Ranks

Masked killers became so commonplace that they eventually became ripe for parody (remember “Scary Movie”?). But everything old was once new, and John Carpenter’s truly terrifying tale of the masked Michael Myers escaping from a mental hospital and returning to his Illinois hometown for Halloween has caused more than a few sleepless nights over the years.

And much like “Jaws,” Carpenter’s sawing musical theme inspires as much dread as does Michael with a butcher knife in hand — even when he’s offscreen.

12. King Kong

Release Date: March 2, 1933

Metacritic Rating: 90

Tomatometer: 98

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 86

Combined Score: 91.33

How It Ranks

Beauty may have killed the beast, but it was special effects pioneer Willis O'Brien who gave birth to the giant ape. O’Brien’s stop-motion work on King Kong, the dinosaurs of Skull Island and other fantastic creatures might look primitive today, but imagine seeing this spectacle on a big screen amid the Depression, when people sought relief any way they could from the nation’s woes (and at 35 cents a pop, movie tickets were a bargain).

Eighty-seven years on, the original “King Kong” still elicits wonder, whether the toothy ape is duking it out with a T-Rex or clamoring up the then-new Empire State Building with screaming Fay Wray clutched in his palm.

10. Eyes Without a Face (tie)

Release Date: Oct. 24, 1962

Metacritic Rating: 90

Tomatometer: 98

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 87

Combined Score: 91.67

How It Ranks

In the early 1960s, French Director Georges Franju fashioned a truly creepy movie starring Pierre Brasseur as a plastic surgeon obsessed with grafting a new face onto his daughter, who was mutilated in a car accident.

Naturally, not all goes according to plan, leading to madness and murder. So controversial was the film that it required significant editing of the facial surgery sequence before U.S. censors would allow it to be shown stateside.

10. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (tie)

Release Date: Feb. 5, 1956

Metacritic Rating: 92

Tomatometer: 98

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 85

Combined Score: 91.67

How It Ranks

Remade several times — including a 1978 version with a truly creepy ending — but none matches the 1956 original “Body Snatchers,” which not only trafficked in paranoia about communist invasions but also introduced us to a new term, pod people, who are literally hatched from pods and look, talk and sound just like real people but are in fact aliens.

The trope of an outer space force “replacing” everyone you know has been used in science fiction for decades, but never as effectively as back in 1956, when Americans were fearful of not only Soviet aggression but nuclear annihilation.

8. The Silence of the Lambs (tie)

Release Date: Feb. 14, 1991

Metacritic Rating: 85

Tomatometer: 96

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 95

Combined Score: 92

How It Ranks

Believe it or not, this movie came out on Valentine’s Day of all days! It was a quick success at the box office and even won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1992. The movie introduces audiences to two serial killers. One, “Buffalo Bill,” is being investigated for skinning his female victims. And the other is none other than Hannibal Lecter, a psychiatrist and convicted cannibal serial killer brilliantly played by Anthony Hopkins, who’s been asked to help catch Buffalo Bill.

And then there’s Clarice (Jodie Foster), a young FBI agent trying to solve the case before another woman gets killed. Let’s just say that the line, “It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again,” is perhaps the creepiest line in scary movie history, among many others in this top 10 flick.

8. Nosferatu (tie)

Release Date: June 3, 1929

Metacritic Rating: N/A

Tomatometer: 97

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 87

Combined Score: 92

How It Ranks

With its pioneering use of light and shadow, the German Expressionist Dilmmaker F.W. Murnau established a great deal of the visual language of horror in this silent-version take on the legend of Dracula. Max Schreck is the inhuman, troll-like demon with two truly impressive fangs for imbibing the blood of his victims.

The film made it to U.S. shores not long before all things German went out of favor thanks to a certain power-mad dictator, but so unnerving was “Nosferatu” that the film was banned in Sweden — until 1972!

7. Bride of Frankenstein

Release Date: April 22, 1935

Metacritic Rating: 95

Tomatometer: 98

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 87

Combined Score: 93.33

How It Ranks

A sequel to the epic “Frankenstein” (stay tuned), Dr. Frankenstein’s Monster was back for more screams in 1935, with “Bride of Frankenstein,” which diverged from the ending of Mary Shelley’s novel in positing that Dr. Frankenstein and the Monster both survived.

So, with old Dr. F (Colin Clive) seemingly healed after falling out of a windmill last time around, he and the Monster have seemingly made peace, but only as long as the good doctor makes him a mate. Remember, there was no Tinder in the 1930s, so you had to create mates for your at-home monsters.

5. Alien (tie)

Release Date: May 25, 1979

Metacritic Rating: 89

Tomatometer: 98

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 94

Combined Score: 93.67

How It Ranks

“Alien” is basically a submarine movie set in outer space, but it’s unlikely any submarine on Earth ever had a stowaway as nasty as the xenomorph who snacks on the crew members of the Nostromo spaceship. The chest-bursting scene is legendary, but even more shocking is one of the very next scenes, where the chicken-size creature manages to grow tenfold in a disturbingly short time.

Not only has the slimy space monster become a staple of popular culture, but so too has the series’ hero, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver).

5. Rosemary’s Baby (tie)

Release Date: June 12, 1968

Metacritic Rating: 96

Tomatometer: 98

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 87

Combined Score: 93.67

How It Ranks

Rosemary (Mia Farrow) is pregnant, but what she doesn’t know is she carries the antichrist in her womb. Roman Polanski’s first American movie is a paragon of cinematic dread, with Rosemary’s horror increasing as the reality of her situation slowly reveals itself.

Farrow’s terrified reaction in the film’s final scene is more dramatic than whatever it is she sees — which Polanski thankfully kept offscreen, allowing your imagination to fill in the horror.

3. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (tie)

Release Date: March 19, 1921

Metacritic Rating: N/A

Tomatometer: 100

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 89

Combined Score: 94.5

How It Ranks

Not to be confused with the 2006 remake, this movie received a difficult-to-achieve 100 rating on the Tomatometer. While the movie’s not so much horrifying as weirdly unsettling, German director Robert Wiene created a fantasia dealing with hypnosis, murder and the intriguing question: If you are told you will definitely commit a terrible act, even under hypnosis, how much choice do you have, and are you still morally responsible?

Not only that, but the reliability of the narrator is called into question near the end, which also brings up interesting philosophical quandaries of what is “truth,” and can you even believe your own eyes? These were great things to ponder at the dawn of a new artform that is, well, ultimately an illusion.

3. Les Diaboliques (tie)

Release Date: Jan. 1, 1955

Metacritic Rating: N/A

Tomatometer: 96

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 93

Combined Score: 94.5

How It Ranks

Many a noir film has dealt with the supposed “perfect crime,” and one of the genre’s prime suspects is the French “Les Diabolique” from 1955, which also manages to kick in a supernatural element (or is it imagined?) to the proceedings. Simone Signoret and Véra Clouzot are the femmes fatale out to murder the man they share in common, but when his body disappears, things go from strange to stranger.

The best noirs are not about the crime but about how the crime affects the perpetrators, and “Les Diabolique” takes on guilt in a whole new way.

2. Psycho

Release Date: Sept. 8, 1960

Metacritic Rating: 97

Tomatometer: 96

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 95

Combined Score: 96

How It Ranks

If you don’t know the secret behind “Mother,” we sure aren’t going to tell you. Rather, butter up some popcorn and treat yourself to a film that was at one time the most written about in history. Alfred Hitchcock pulled no punches in his most infamous work, with Hitch’s damaged dame Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) just looking for a little rest at the Bates Motel, where she soon takes an ill-advised shower.

Composer Bernard Hermann’s hellish, sawing strings during that disreputable scene are the stuff of nightmares — but then, no one ever got a good night’s rest at the Bates Motel anyway, according to the Yelp reviews.

1. Frankenstein

Release Date: Nov. 21, 1931

Metacritic Rating: 91

Tomatometer: 100

Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score: 100

Combined Score: 97

How It Ranks

Movies had barely graduated to “talkies” in 1931, which is why James Whale’s “Frankenstein” has rather little dialogue, and relies for much of its scariness on a truly bravura performance by Boris Karloff as Dr. Frankenstein’s Monster. At one point, the Monster encounters a young girl tossing flowers into a lake and happily joins her.

But then, when they run out of flowers, the Monster tosses the tyke herself into the lake. The creature’s naivete is frightening: He thinks it’s all just a game and doesn’t see how his actions might hurt the child. The scene was considered so shocking it was actually cut from the film and not restored until the 1980s. This movie received not one but two 100 ratings from critics and audiences alike on Rotten Tomatoes, earning it the much-deserved No. 1 spot on our list.