Each film genre captivates viewers for different reasons, yet horror is unique in that most fans are seeking a singular experience: to be scared. Whether through sudden jolts, unsettling themes, or graphic scenes, horror films are crafted to quicken the pulse and keep audiences tethered to their seats—although, at times, they may incite viewers to rush for the exit before the film concludes. The genre has consistently been a favorite in cinema due to its electrifying ability to evoke such visceral reactions. 

Fear is inherently personal, making it challenging to pinpoint, let alone rank, the most terrifying movies of all time. The most frightening films are not necessarily the top-rated ones. Thus, we dug deep into cinematic history, examined numerous reviews, and analyzed fan-contributed lists from the internet to compile a list of the 15 most spine-chilling movies ever. Think you can guess which film claims the top spot for inducing the most fear? Keep reading to uncover the answer.

It must be acknowledged that the storyline of “Smile” might initially seem contrived, resembling lesser-acclaimed films like the 2018’s CGI-heavy “Truth or Dare.” However, beneath its seemingly frivolous plot about a monster using sinister smiles lies one of the most impactful horror films in recent times. This film delves into themes of trauma and mental health while delivering genuine scares without restraint.

“Smile” opens with a counseling session between therapist Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) and a patient whose disturbing hallucinations lead them to suicide. This sets off a series of increasingly horrific events for Rose, who realizes that not only was her former patient telling the truth, but she wasn’t the first to be plagued by this curse. Worse still, there may be no way for Rose to escape meeting the same fate as those who came before her, leaving her increasingly isolated and resigned to her fate. And of course, it’s tough to talk about “Smile” without a nod to its eye-popping final scene, giving audiences a shockingly vile payoff.

Cast: Sosie Bacon, Kyle Gallner, Caitlin Stasey

Director: Parker Finn

Rating: R

Runtime: 1hr 55min

Where to watch: Netflix

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Being chased is one of our most primal fears. Now throw in the deepest, most uncomfortable invasion of privacy you could imagine, and you’ll have an idea what “It Follows” is about if the title didn’t give it away. In the film, a night of physical intimacy turns into a nightmare for Jay Height (Maika Monroe) after it’s revealed that she’s become the target of a monster that will hunt her unless she passes its curse to someone else.

On the surface, “It Follows” is strikingly similar to “Smile.” But while the curse in “Smile” is spread from one victim to another through witnessing death, the entity in “It Follows” spreads through the act of sex — a moment of pleasure when we are at our most vulnerable. The film provides some of the most viscerally unpleasant scenes in modern horror, with the entity capable of becoming anyone from a complete stranger to a beloved family member — gaining your trust before delivering a grisly death.

Cast: Maika Monroe, Jake Weary, Daniel Zovatto

Director: David Robert Mitchell

Rating: R

Runtime: 1hr 40min

Where to Watch: HBO Max

Not all scary movies fall squarely into the horror genre, and not all are even rated R. The PG-rated “Jaws” cracks the list thanks to its blood-curdling suspense and shocking realism. The scares in “Jaws” don’t come from the supernatural, but from a real danger: A natural predator that lives off our shores.

The story of a coastal town terrorized by a killer shark, “Jaws” was more than just a movie, it was a cultural phenomenon, and its impact reached beyond the theater. So frightening was the film that it led to a notable decrease in beach attendance, while scientists believe it also led to a generational jump in cases of galeophobia — the fear of sharks. 

Released back in 1975, “Jaws” was also an industry-changing instant classic, turning Steven Spielberg into Hollywood’s hottest director. It shook cinemas to their core, too, with its bloody scares helping it become the top-grossing film of the year. 

Cast: Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw

Director: Steven Spielberg

Rating: PG

Runtime: 2hr 10min

Where to Watch: Tubi, Peacock

“Lake Mungo” might not ring any bells for audiences that aren’t devoted fans of horror, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worthy of attention. Released in 2008, the Australian faux documentary chronicles the “real” Palmer family, whose daughter Alice tragically drowns at the age of 16. But not long after her body is dredged from the waters, she comes back. At least, that’s what we’re led to believe. As the story progresses, dark secrets come to light about not just Alice, but other members of the community, giving audiences a head scratcher of a watch that’s just as mysterious as it is horrifying.

The sole directing credit for filmmaker Joel Anderson,”Lake Mungo” is a slow burn, meaning that you won’t see many of the typical horror tropes here. There’s hardly any jump scares, and not really even the type of haunting antics you might expect in the usual ghost story. What instead unfolds over the film’s brief 88-minute runtime is a story of sorrow, drama, and mourning that all comes to a head with a truly unsettling final act, as well as one downright terrifying scene that’s stuck with viewers ever since “Lake Mungo” was released.

Cast: Talia Zucker, David Pledger, Rosie Traynor

Director: Joel Anderson

Rating: R

Runtime: 1hr 28min

Where to Watch: Tubi, Prime Video

Written and directed by horror writer Clive Barker, “Hellraiser” was adapted from his own novella, “The Hellbound Heart.” Mixing elements of psychological terror, supernatural devilry, and serial killer mayhem, the film introduced audiences to the next great horror villain, affectionately known as Pinhead (Doug Bradley). The film begins with the twisted Frank (Sean Chapman) unwittingly opening a doorway to hell via a strange puzzle box that summons a group of demons known as Cenobites.

After his death at the hands of the demons, Frank is partially resurrected in the attic of his old home, where his brother Larry (Andrew Robinson) and niece Kirsty (Ashley Laurence) now live. To bring him fully back to life, Frank needs the blood of innocent victims, and his former lover — and Frank’s current wife — Julia (Clare Higgins) brings him the poor souls he needs to slaughter to live again.

“Hellraiser” expertly blends different shades of horror, terrorizing its viewers with a mix of soul-chilling dread and spine-tingling terror. From the deranged, skinless Frank to the perverse and sadistic Cenobites, “Hellraiser” depicts a gruesome world that makes it one of the scariest movies ever made.

Cast: Ashley Laurence, Clare Higgins, Doug Bradley

Director: Clive Barker

Rating: R

Runtime: 1hr 34min

Where to Watch: Tubi, Pluto TV

In “The Descent” we follow a group of six spelunkers who visit a remote cave deep in the mountains of Appalachia. Things go wrong right from the start: Forced to explore deeper into the maze-like system of caves after a collapse partway through the expedition leaves them scrambling to find a way out, they soon make the horrifying discovery that they aren’t alone. Peering back at them through the darkness are a species of cannibalistic human-like monsters, preying on and picking them off one by one unless they can make it out alive.

Though unrelated, “The Descent” may be one of the best films out there for fans of the 2016 documentary “Missing 411,” which tried to make sense of the dizzying number of real-life disappearances that occur in and around remote national parks. The fact that “The Descent” is one of just a handful of horror flicks to be composed of an entirely female cast of protagonists adds a unique angle to this terrifying film.

Cast: Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, MyAnna Buring

Director: Neil Marshall

Rating: R

Runtime: 1hr 39min

Where to Watch: Tubi, Prime Video

Adapted from the classic Shirley Jackson novel “The Haunting of Hill House,” “The Haunting” tells of paranormal researcher Dr. John Markway (Richard Johnson) and three companions who investigate a mansion in New England with an infamous past. Before long, the property’s tragic history seemingly comes alive, with increasingly bizarre occurrences driving the team’s paranoia — and the mind of its most vulnerable member (Julie Harris) — to the breaking point.

Directed by visionary filmmaker Robert Wise, “The Haunting” was an absolute cinematic achievement, and not just for its time. Filmed in black and white and making use of some of the most interesting camerawork of the day, both elements combine to make watching “The Haunting” as terrifying as it is realistic. Given the subtlety in which the alleged “haunting” unfolds, there’s an unavoidable question that lingers all the way to the end of whether anything we see really happens — or is all the product of a kind of group hysteria.

Cast: Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson

Director: Robert Wise

Rating: G

Runtime: 1hr 53min

Where to Watch: Prime Video, Apple TV

Dogs may be man’s best friend, but the one at the Antarctic Outpost 31 certainly isn’t. The remote research station, populated by a cast of characters including pilot R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell), biologist Blair (A. Wilford Brimley), and mechanic Childs (Keith Davis), is besieged by a visitor from another world that’s been unearthed from an icy slumber. With an insatiable bloodlust and the ability to take on any form –including human — the titular “thing” transforms the research station into a deadly game of cat and mouse, as paranoia and distrust become just as deadly as the extraterrestrial monster.

Impressive practical effects, solid performances, and a crippling sense of dread in the isolated arctic setting work hand-in-hand to make “The Thing” not just one of the best sci-fi movies of all time, but easily one of the best horror movies too. It may have underperformed at the box office (along with “Blade Runner,” which opened the same weekend), but all of its merits have made it an all-time classic.

Cast: Kurt Russell, Keith David, A. Wilford Brimley

Director: John Carpenter

Rating: R

Runtime: 1hr 49min

Where to Watch: Prime Video

Naomi Watts stars in “The Ring” — a remake of the 1998 Japanese horror flick “Ringu” — as Rachel Keller, a journalist whose niece is killed after watching a mysterious videotape that promises death within seven days to anyone who views it. After watching the tape herself, Keller is left trying to figure out its origin and solve the mystery behind its otherworldly powers before her time’s up.

Set in and around the city of Seattle, 2002’s “The Ring” is fittingly drenched in a moody, atmospheric blanket that wraps the film up in a perfect sense of unease. But of course, the biggest part of what makes “The Ring” so terrifying is whenever the contents of the tape are shown on screen. The grainy shots of Samara crawling out of a well and stumbling towards the camera have deservedly gone down as some of the eeriest in horror, making “The Ring” the rare remake that holds its own against the original.

Cast: Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, Brian Cox

Director: Gore Verbinski

Rating: R

Runtime: 1hr 50min

Where to watch: Prime Video, Apple TV

By the turn of the millennium, filmmakers had tried just about everything that could be done in horror, and it was tough to find a fresh take on the genre. Then came “The Blair Witch Project,” a film initially marketed as being the only surviving footage taken by three actual people who mysteriously vanish while camping in the woods — and it took cinemas by storm.

Set in Maryland, the film follows a trio of film students investigating the Blair Witch, a mysterious entity said to inhabit the region. By the end, none are left alive, but it’s the eerie nature of its guerrilla-style filmmaking that makes it so spine-tingling. What appears on screen feels more real than anything audiences were accustomed to, and viewers believed that it was evidence of a real disappearance thanks to a brilliant marketing campaign.

Produced on a true shoestring budget, the film managed to break into the top 10 highest-grossing films of the year. It wasn’t long before there were copycats, with “found footage” movies becoming a dime a dozen — but none have been as truly jaw-dropping as “The Blair Witch Project” was in 1999. 

Cast: Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, Joshua Leonard

Director: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez

Rating: R

Runtime: 1hr 18min

Where to watch: Prime Video

Slasher movies might be the most popular subgenre of horror, but they all owe a debt to “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” a movie so shocking and vile that it remains as terrifying today as it was almost 50 years ago when it first rattled cinemas in 1974.

Set in a backwater town in the titular state, “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” is a pretty simple premise: A group of teens stumble across a house in the middle of nowhere and suddenly find themselves pursued by a family of psychotic, bloodthirsty human monsters — including the chainsaw-wielding madman known as Leatherface, so-named for his use of another man’s skin as a mask.

The 1970s were home to some landmark horror movies, but “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” carved its own place in the genre with its unrelenting atmosphere of decay and depravity. What made it all the more hair-raising is that it was inspired by the true story of serial killer Ed Gein. And though it’s spawned a remake in addition to several sequels and prequels — none can match the 1974 original.

Cast: Marilyn Burns, Gunnar Hansen, Edwin Neal

Director: Tobe Hooper

Rating: R

Runtime: 1hr 23min

Where to watch: Tubi, Peacock

The story of a child being the spawn of the Devil has been done to death, but it started with “Rosemary’s Baby” in 1968. The film tells the story of an expectant mother (Mia Farrow) whose neighbors’ odd behavior causes her concern. As frightening events unfold around her, Rosemary discovers that the neighbors are part of a Satanic cult that has arranged for her to be impregnated by Satan himself.

Long before its copycats, “Rosemary’s Baby” told a demon-child story that also touched on controversial subjects like sexual assault, religion, motherhood, and abortion. Ultimately, it may fully embrace the supernatural, but what makes this classic film so unnerving is that the inciting incident is an experience many deal with in real life — an unexpected pregnancy — and the overwhelming ramifications of bringing new life into the world.

Cast: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon

Director: Roman Polanski

Rating: R

Runtime: 2hr 16min

Where to watch: Paramount+, Prime Video

After breaking out as the director of “Saw,” James Wan helmed some of the biggest horror movies in recent memory, but his best might still be “The Conjuring.” Set in the ’70s, the film loosely adapts the story of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (played here by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) as they look into a possible possession that’s torn a New England family apart.

The first entry in what would become the “Conjuring” universe, the movie works so well thanks to its subtlety. The film relies on building atmosphere as the Warrens come to terms with the true nature of the demon’s presence, as well as the subsequent battle with the Catholic Church for permission to conduct an exorcism. It’s a rough, tense ride that’s so creepy it even reportedly bled into the real world, with bizarre things happening on the set.

Cast: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Ron Livingston

Director: James Wan

Rating: R

Runtime: 1hr 52min

Where to watch: HBO Max

Hitting theaters in 2018, Ari Aster’s directorial debut doesn’t take long to turn disturbing, flooring audiences not long into its runtime with a brutal decapitation sequence that ranks among the scariest horror movie scenes of all time. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg for the terrifying depths “Hereditary” goes to. From there, the story evolves into a tale of grief, possession, and conspiracy, as the grieving family attempts to communicate with the recently deceased, only for her to seemingly return … with a vengeance.

As frightening as they come, “Hereditary” is a slowly unraveling mystery that gets more and more unsettling with every layer you pull back. But it’s also a deep exploration of the effects that trauma — especially when accompanying a child’s death — can have on those who survive. It’s a tough watch on multiple levels, and easily one of the scariest films ever made.

Cast: Toni Collette, Milli Shapiro, Alex Wolff

Director: Ari Aster

Rating: R

Runtime: 2hr 7min

Where to watch: Prime Video

No horror film has ever been as impactful as “The Exorcist.” It changed the way we view scary movies, the way studios make them, and the way cinemas market them. It took the genre of the supernatural — which had previously relied on mildly spooky ghosts and increasingly dated vampires — and made it so visceral, modern, and disturbing that audiences could barely stay conscious; there were widespread reports of audience members fainting, vomiting, and fleeing for the exits.

Seeing “The Exorcist” in 1973 must have been an extraordinary experience, and while you might think its scares have since become tame by today’s standards, that’s hardly the case. This powerful tale of faith vs. evil still manages to terrify. We may never see another film that so effectively frightens a packed house of moviegoers.

Cast: Ellen Burstyn, Max Von Sydow, Linda Blair

Director: William Friedkin

Rating: R

Runtime: 2hr 2min

Where to watch: Prime Video