100 Horror Movies that Will Give You Nightmares for Years

Looking for the scariest horror movies that will give you nightmares for years to come? These are our top 100 terrifying horror movie flicks that every horror fan needs to see at least once.

You might want to break out your nightlight before you start watching!

When it comes to scary movies, there’s definitely no shortage of options.

From vampire flicks to gory films that turn your stomach, from subtle psychological terror to jump scenes that send you flying off your chair, movie producers seem to never run out of new ways to scare us…and we’re happy about that!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl-6SnoZ7ck

Why do we love horror movies so much?

I’m going to let you in on a little secret.

Up until around age 14, I was petrified of horror movies.

If someone in my house was watching one, I had to hide out in a totally different room, preferably on a different floor!

I remember one night my grandmother and one of my aunts were watching Poltergeist.

My other aunt, who also hated scary movies, made me sleep on her floor just because she could hear bits and pieces through the wall!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coGH4OaR9hc

Then in my teen years, I dated a guy that was all about horror movies.

He not only liked watching them, but he was one of those people who would analyze exactly what made them scary.

I reluctantly watched The Evil Dead with him, and it kicked off my newfound love of all things scary!

Surprising Benefits of Watching Horror Movies

You’d think with my anxiety disorder, I’d stay far away from anything as stressful as a horror flick!

It turns out, though, that there are actually a lot of benefits to be terrified! A few include:

• Burning calories (true story!): about 200 per movie! Just don’t eat a ginormous popcorn or you’ll totally negate this benefit!
• Helping to relieve anxiety. Shocker, right, but watching scary things happen and then get resolved helps alleviate your own stress.
• In fact, a good scare may even boost your immune system!

Who knew, right? Of course, we don’t need an excuse to indulge in a good scary flick!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3_p0fmQWiM

Whether you’re in it for the unexpected benefits or just plain love being scared, with thousands of horror movies out there it’s definitely hard to decide where to start.

The movies on the list below are my picks for the top 100 horror movies of all time.

You’ll notice that there is a mix of very old and relatively new, of psychological horror and the outright terrifying.

I like to mix things up because I feel like if we watch the same type of scary movie over and over (gory flicks, for example) we kind of get immune to the “horror” parts pretty fast.

I hope you enjoy my list!

100 Horror Movies Every Scary Movie Lover Should See

*Affiliate links included below. We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no extra cost to you.

Unless otherwise noted, I am talking about the original version for movies that have reboots.

This list isn’t in a particular order, so dig in where ever you want!

1. Psycho
2. Rosemary’s Baby
3. Dracula
4. Let the Right One In
5. The Omen
6. Poltergeist
7. Night of the Living Dead
8. The Conjuring
9. Amityville Horror
10. The Evil Dead
11. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
12. Carrie
13. It
14. The Stand
15. Halloween
16. Nightmare on Elm Street
17. Friday the 13^th
18. Texas Chainsaw Massacre
19. The Exorcist
20. The Shining
21. Paranormal Activity
22. The Howling
23. The Fog
24. Deliverance
25. Saw
26. Near Dark
27. The Silence of the Lambs
28. Hellraiser
29. The Changeling
30. Blue Velvet
31. The Ring
32. The Grudge
33. Darkness Falls
34. An American Werewolf in London
35. The Last House on the Left
36. Carnival of Souls
37. The Fall of the House of Usher
38. Jaws
39. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
40. The Wicker Man
41. Alien
42. Nosferatu
43. Final Destination
44. American Psycho
45. Videodrome
46. Gaslight
47. The Thing
48. Freaks
49. Suspiria
50. From Dusk Til Dawn
51. The Watcher in the Woods
52. The Others
53. Sixth Sense
54. Thirteen Ghosts
55. Interview with a Vampire
56. The Mothman Prophecies
57. 28 Days Later
58. Rose Red
59. May
60. The Exorcism of Emily Rose
61. A Haunting in Connecticut
62. 10 Cloverfield Lane
63. Insidious
64. Occulus
65. Pet Sematary
66. Candyman
67. Lights Out
68. Event Horizon
69. The Lost Boys
70. Creepshow
71. Angel Heart
72. The Serpent and the Rainbow
73. The Hitcher
74. The Woman in Black
75. Sinister
76. Silent Hill
77. Let Me In
78. Disturbing Behavior
79. Scream
80. Snow White: A Tale of Terror
81. Flatliners
82. The Mist
83. 1408
84. 30 Days of Night
85. I Am Legend
86. The Descent
87. Hostel
88. The Cabin in the Woods
89. The Fly
90. Cube
91. The Blair Witch Project
92. When a Stranger Calls
93. The People Under the Stairs
94. Session 9
95. Signs
96. Cujo
97. In the Mouth of Madness
98. The Babadook
99. It Follows
100. Seven

Horror Movie Recommendations by Mood & Theme

Like I said, the list isn’t in any particular order, but if you want a “where to start” guide, check out my recommendations by mood or theme.

Best Ghostly Visitors & Haunted House Movies

If you love being scared by ghostly visitors and things that go bump in the night, start with:

1. Amityville Horror (do yourself a favor and go with the original!)
2. The Shining
3. Rose Red
4. Poltergeist
5. The Conjuring
6. A Haunting in Connecticut
7. Insidious
8. Sixth Sense
9. The Ring
10. Paranormal Activity

Horror Movies with Monsters

Prefer your horror with a heavy dose of monster madness? Try these:

1. Dracula (Vampires)
2. Night of the Living Dead (Zombies)
3. It (Evil clowns, weird monsters & nightmarish creatures galore)
4. The Exorcist (demons)
5. Hellraiser (sort of an alien but not really)
6. Darkness Falls (the tooth fairy, I kid you not!)
7. Cujo (a dog, and I actually felt bad for him)
8. The Lost Boys (vamps again)
9. The Mothman Prophecies (hard to describe, but it’s NOT a moth!)
10. The Others

Scariest Movies With Human Bad Guys

To me, there’s nothing scarier than a horror movie in which the monster is human! Prepare to become a hermit after watching these!

1. Seven
2. Deliverance
3. Silence of the Lambs
4. Blue Velvet
5. Angel Heart
6. Friday the 13th (at first, at least)
7. Halloween
8. American Psycho
9. Sessions 9
10. Hostel

So, you may be thinking “where are all the sequels?”

I mean, there are like 5,000 Friday the 13th movies, half a dozen Final Destinations (because someone didn’t get the memo that, by definition, there is only ONE final, except when you’re talking about school finals!), and so on.

Just about every movie on this list made after around 1990 has a sequel!

I didn’t include them because, a) with them this would be a list of 5 movies and their sequels and b) I rarely find the second, third, or 15th movie as scary as the original.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvvhLPq_kFk

Take The Ring for example.

That movie scared me half to death. The Ring 2, on the other hand, didn’t even make me flinch.

It seemed like they took everything that was scary about the first one and just redid it, but threw in a bit more gore and scary background music.

Also, some of these movies may not have a reputation for being terrifying to us now, but they were the epitome of horror during the year they were made!

In 50-100 years from now, people will probably laugh at what we find scary!

Tell me, how many of these horror movies have you seen? Which movies do you think I should have added to the list? Which do you think just weren’t all that scary at all? Share your thoughts below!