The best horror movies do not rely on the thing in the dark. They rely on the twenty minutes before it, and eight of them are compared below on national preservation first, then Academy Awards, then worldwide box office.
Six of the eight contain no monster at all. The runtimes run from 94 to 137 minutes, and the last column says where the dread actually comes from, which is a better guide than a rating to whether a film will work on you.
| # | Film | Runtime | Record on paper | Where the dread comes from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Psycho (1960) | 1 hour 49 minutes | National Film Registry, 1992 | A house, a motel and a conversation about taxidermy |
| 2 | Rosemary’s Baby (1968) | 2 hours 17 minutes | 1 Academy Award | Neighbours, doctors and a husband who all agree |
| 3 | The Sixth Sense (1999) | 1 hour 47 minutes | $672.8 million worldwide | A child who cannot tell anyone what he sees |
| 4 | The Conjuring (2013) | 1 hour 52 minutes | $319.5 million worldwide | A farmhouse, a cellar and a hand clap |
| 5 | The Others (2001) | 1 hour 41 minutes | Goya award for best film | A sealed house and children who cannot see daylight |
| 6 | Hereditary (2018) | 2 hours 7 minutes | $90.2 million worldwide | A family in mourning and a diagnosis nobody made |
| 7 | It Follows (2014) | 1 hour 40 minutes | $23.3 million worldwide | Something walking toward you, always, at walking pace |
| 8 | The Babadook (2014) | 1 hour 34 minutes | AACTA award for best film | A widowed mother who has not slept in six years |
Why Six of These Horror Films Have No Monster
Psycho, Rosemary’s Baby, The Sixth Sense, The Others, Hereditary and The Babadook all withhold or dissolve the thing the poster promises. The threat in each is a person, a pattern or an emotional state, and the supernatural arrives late or not at all.
That is the consistent difference between horror that stays with people and horror that works once. A creature can be looked at and dismissed. A neighbour, a doctor or a sleepless parent cannot.
It also explains the award record. Two of these were nominated for best picture and two won their national film prize, which the genre as a whole almost never achieves.
The Eight Best Horror Movies, Compared
1. Psycho (1960): The Film That Killed Its Lead in the First Act
Director: Alfred Hitchcock · Runtime: 1 hour 49 minutes · Starring: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles · National Film Registry, 1992
Alfred Hitchcock spends forty minutes on an embezzlement thriller and then removes the protagonist. Audiences in 1960 had no framework for that, which is why he refused to let anyone into cinemas late.
The Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry in 1992. Anthony Perkins plays Norman as likeable for most of the film, and the parlour scene with the stuffed birds is the real horror sequence.
It grossed about $50 million on a small black and white budget and runs 109 minutes.
2. Rosemary’s Baby (1968): A Horror Film Where Nobody Believes Her
Director: Roman Polanski · Runtime: 2 hours 17 minutes · Starring: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon · One Academy Award
Roman Polanski shoots 137 minutes of an apartment building and almost nothing supernatural happens on screen. Ruth Gordon won the Academy Award for best supporting actress as the neighbour.
The dread is procedural: a change of doctor, a strange drink, a husband taking the other side. Every individual event has an innocent explanation, which is what makes the pattern unbearable.
It grossed $33.4 million. The final scene gives the audience the confirmation the film has withheld for two hours and does not show the thing itself.
3. The Sixth Sense (1999): The Highest Grossing Film on This List
Director: M. Night Shyamalan · Runtime: 1 hour 47 minutes · Starring: Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette · $672.8 million worldwide
M. Night Shyamalan grossed $672.8 million, more than every other film here combined, and earned six Academy Award nominations including best picture, which horror almost never manages.
The twist is famous enough to have outlived the film, but the picture holds up because it is built as a grief drama first. Toni Collette does the heaviest work in the car scene near the end.
At 107 minutes it is restrained with its scares. Haley Joel Osment was eleven and carries most of the running time.
4. The Conjuring (2013): Old-Fashioned Haunting, Shot With Real Craft
Director: James Wan · Runtime: 1 hour 52 minutes · Starring: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Lili Taylor · $319.5 million worldwide
James Wan builds the film out of camera moves rather than editing: long sweeps through the house that let the audience search the frame before anything appears.
It grossed $319.5 million and launched a franchise, but the first film is tightly plotted and keeps its scares in the house. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson play the investigators as tired professionals.
At 112 minutes it is the most conventional pick here and the best executed version of that convention.
5. The Others (2001): A Ghost Story Where the Rules Are the Clue
Director: Alejandro Amenábar · Runtime: 1 hour 41 minutes · Starring: Nicole Kidman, Alakina Mann, James Bentley · Goya award for best film
Alejandro Amenabar won the Goya for best film, direction and screenplay, and shot almost the entire picture in candlelight because the premise forbids open curtains.
Nicole Kidman plays a mother enforcing rules that the audience is invited to find unreasonable. Every one of those rules turns out to be load-bearing.
It grossed $210 million and runs 101 minutes. There is no gore in it at all.
6. Hereditary (2018): A Grief Drama That Becomes Something Worse
Director: Ari Aster · Runtime: 2 hours 7 minutes · Starring: Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Gabriel Byrne · $90.2 million worldwide
Ari Aster spends the first hour on a family dealing with two deaths, and the horror arrives as an explanation for behaviour the audience has already watched.
Toni Collette appears on this list twice, and the dinner table scene here is the single most quoted piece of horror acting of the last decade. It grossed $90.2 million for A24.
At 127 minutes it is the second longest pick and has spent a week in the United States Netflix top ten. It is not a film to put on casually.
7. It Follows (2014): A Monster With One Rule and No Hurry
Director: David Robert Mitchell · Runtime: 1 hour 40 minutes · Starring: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Daniel Zovatto · $23.3 million worldwide
David Robert Mitchell gives the threat exactly one property: it walks, it never stops, and only the cursed person can see it. The camera then spends the film holding wide shots so the audience scans the background.
The setting is deliberately undatable, with 1980s cars, modern phones and no year ever given. That dislocation does half the work.
It grossed $23.3 million and runs 100 minutes. The score is the most imitated in modern horror.
8. The Babadook (2014): The Shortest Film Here, and the Monster Is the Metaphor
Director: Jennifer Kent · Runtime: 1 hour 34 minutes · Starring: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Hayley McElhinney · AACTA award for best film
Jennifer Kent won Australian Academy awards for best film, direction and original screenplay with her first feature. The creature comes out of a pop-up book and is never fully shown.
Essie Davis plays exhaustion rather than fear, and the film is explicit that the monster is grief that has not been dealt with. The ending does not banish it, it feeds it in the basement.
It took $10.7 million, the smallest figure here, and runs 94 minutes. It is the shortest and the saddest film on this page.
Matching the Dread to the Viewer
People who cannot sit through one of these will often watch another happily, because the mechanism is different. Sorting by where the dread comes from is more useful than sorting by how frightening a film is said to be.
- Nobody believes her: Rosemary’s Baby, The Babadook
- The house itself: The Others, The Conjuring, Psycho
- Grief and family: Hereditary, The Sixth Sense
- A rule you cannot break: It Follows
Runtime is the second filter. The Babadook at 94 minutes and It Follows at 100 finish early. Rosemary’s Baby at 137 and Hereditary at 127 are the two that sit on you afterwards.
How These Eight Were Compared
Each film needed a record outside itself: National Film Registry selection, an Academy Award, a national film prize or a confirmed worldwide gross. Preservation ranks first, then Oscars, then box office.
Each also had to build its fear from a situation rather than from editing, and had to be in wide enough circulation to stream tonight.
The dread column is the editorial judgement, and it is the one to read before the ranking. For a seasonal list sorted by who is in the room instead, seven Halloween films compared on rating and scare level covers the family end of the genre.
How to Choose Your Next Horror Film
If you have never seen Psycho, watch it before anything spoils the first act, and note that it is tamer than its reputation. If you want the best-constructed ghost story here, take The Others at 101 minutes.
If you want the one that will actually disturb you, take Hereditary and keep the evening free afterwards. If you want the cleverest premise, take It Follows. If you want to be sad rather than scared, take The Babadook.
The Others then The Sixth Sense runs 3 hours 28 and makes a matched pair about people who have misread their own situation, in that order. On a big screen, contrast matters far more than brightness for films shot this dark.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best horror movie of all time?
By record, Psycho: selected for the National Film Registry in 1992 and the film that established most of what the genre still does. The Sixth Sense is the highest grossing here at $672.8 million and was nominated for best picture.
Which of these horror movies is the least gory?
The Others has no gore at all, and Rosemary’s Baby and The Sixth Sense are close behind. Hereditary is the most graphic of the eight and The Conjuring the most reliant on sudden shocks.
How long are these horror films?
From 94 minutes to 137. The Babadook is the shortest at 94, then It Follows at 100 and The Others at 101. Rosemary’s Baby is the longest at 137 minutes, with Hereditary at 127.
Is Hereditary too much for a casual viewer?
For most people, yes on a first attempt. It is a grief drama for an hour and then becomes extremely distressing, with one sequence that viewers regularly report being unprepared for. The Others or The Conjuring are the better entry points.
