The 100 Scariest Movies of All Time

Director: Kyle Edward Ball

Skinamarink is an entirely new kind of found-footage horror film, delighting fans of the genre looking for the next boundary-pushing thrill. The film follows two young children, alone and afraid, looking for their parents as parts of their house disappear.

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Director: David Lynch

Inland Empire is an experimental thriller that starts Laura Dern as an actress on a cursed film production.

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Director: Gerald Kargl

Angst is such a violent film that the 1983 Austrian-prison-psychopath thriller (!) was banned in many countries.

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Directors: Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza

A found-footage cult classic, Rec follows a reporter and her cameraman as they investigate an emergency call to a quarantined apartment building.

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Director: Julia Ducournau

Raw follows a young vegetarian in veterinary school who turns cannibalistic after getting her first taste of meat.

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Director: Demian Rugna

A funhouse of terror, Terrified features one horrifying image after another as supernatural events occur in Buenos Aires.

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Director: Andy Muschietti

Thought Bill Skarsgård’s take on Stephen King’s creepy clown was scary? Just wait until you see Chapter 2.

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Director: Coralie Fargeat

The Substance is a soon-to-be body-horror staple, starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Dennis Quaid in a story about a celebrity who resorts to experimental drugs to look younger.

Mubi

Director: James Wan

Horror visionary James Wan delighted viewers with a new kind of horror movie in 2004 with Saw, a film about a sadistic villain who loves setting up violent traps.

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Director: Rose Glass

One of the most modern films on this list, A24’s Saint Maud follows a religious caretaker who questions her faith. After self-immolating, she receives signs that warn her to stay ready for a dangerous test.

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Director: James DeMonaco

What if murder were legal for 24 hours? That’s the system the government creates to curb crime and overpopulation in The Purge … to obviously detrimental effects.

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Director: Na Hong-jin

Korean horror movies will scare you in ways that you never imagined were possible. Train to Busan put zombies on a high-speed train and The Call made even talking on the phone a scary endeavor. In The Wailing, director Na Hong-jin blends multiple genres to tell a unique story of demons and plagues. It’ll frighten horror buffs who think they’ve seen it all.

Netflix

Director: David Robert Mitchell

The fear of being followed is one of the worst feelings in the world. Naturally, director David Robert Mitchell capitalized on that fear in It Follows, featuring a woman who is targeted by an unrelenting entity.

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Director: Peter Jackson

Before Peter Jackson started adventuring with hobbits, the New Zealand–based director wowed audiences with a zombie flick—also known in some markets as Dead Alive—about a woman who turns violent after she’s bitten by a mutant rat-monkey hybrid creature.

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Director: Demián Rugna

This Argentinian horror film about demonic possession on a farm shocks viewers with some of the goriest imagery of the past few years.

Hulu

Director: Bryan Bertino

With the help of some truly ruthless intruders, The Strangers takes the bones of every home-invasion story and kicks it up a notch. When Kristen and James head to their vacation home in (of course!) the wilderness, they expect to have a relaxing retreat. Instead, they’re forced to fight for their lives when a strange woman knocks on their door.

Netflix

Director: Scott Derrickson

It goes without saying that you shouldn’t buy a haunted house. But in Sinister, true-crime writer Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) thinks it’s a perfectly rational idea. In hopes of writing a best seller, he moves his family into a home where an unsolved murder took place. But he soon learns that curiosity comes at a price.

Amazon

Directors: Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala

Goodnight Mommy follows two young boys who are reunited with their mom after she has a mysterious surgery. They’re initially overjoyed to see her, but their excitement turns to fear when she sets strange house rules. Is the woman they’ve been sent to really their mom, or someone else?

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Director: Danny and Michael Philippou

Did you go to a party where the hosts brought out a severed hand that they play a weird Ouija-like ritual with as the main attraction? Definitely do not ask it about your mother’s suicide! “All throughout the film, I was drawing from things that scare me personally,” Danny Philippou told Esquire.

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Director: Clive Barker

Hellraiser kicks off with two classic horror tropes you should avoid at all costs: moving into an old, scary house where a murder occurred and buying a mystical puzzle box. I’m so glad they did, though—because it gave us Pinhead.

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