In Wes Craven’s “Scream” — not quite the definitive horror movie but certainly the definitive account of horror fandom — final girl Sidney famously responds to the question of whether she likes scary movies with a resounding no. “What’s the point? They’re all the same,” she says through the phone to the movie’s slasher. “Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can’t act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door.”

Her complaint acts as a clever joke about the stale state of the mainstream slasher genre that Craven was riffing on (and unintentionally revived) through his tongue-in-cheek meta spin. But it’s also a nod toward the less-than-flattering viewpoint that gatekeepers and non-horror aficionados have toward the genre, as a playground for cheap and easy B-movies and formulaic jump scares.

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Anyone who dives into the history of horror will know that that’s certainly not the case. Rooted in silent cinema classics like “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” and “The Phantom Carriage,” the horror genre encompasses campy creature features, exploitative shock fests, cerebral psychological terror, vomit-inducing flesh-and-spine-bursting Cronenberg creations, mournful ghost stories, modern “elevated horror,” and a dozen other microcategories beyond films about a stalker with a knife and a grudge. And that’s not to discount the slasher films that offer something rivetingly new and original.

What makes a horror film a part of the genre thus has relatively little to do with its actual content and everything to do with what it provokes within its audience. Making a truly scary movie — one that burrows into your mind and delivers a sense of unease that can’t be forgotten — is a task that requires much more skill behind the camera than it is often given credit for, and the best horror movies have a craft to them that stands up to any auteur project or Oscar Best Picture winner. It’s no surprise that the genre has such a passionate, devoted following of film geeks that regularly turn out for new releases — when a horror movie is great, there’s no experience quite like it.

In building IndieWire’s new list of the greatest horror movies ever made, we opted to omit some films that straddle the nebulous line between the horror and thriller genres (so you won’t find “The Silence of the Lambs” here, to get a particularly major example out of the way), at least for now. We paid attention to films that paved the way for the genre and for filmmaking as a whole, as well as to modern classics that bring something new and brilliant to the canon today. What every film on this list has in common is that their horrors are more than just boogeymen and spirits projected upon a silver screen, but a conduit into which deeper real-life fears are made manifest. From social discontent to primal fear of the unknown, horror is a genre that reflects on humanity’s most potent paranoia, and the eternal darkness that rests within us. Read on for our list of the 75 greatest horror movies ever made.

With editorial contributions from Christian Blauvelt, Alison Foreman, Sarah Shachat, Ryan Lattanzio, Christian Zilko, Marcus Jones, Mark Peikert, Jim Hemphill, Marya Gates, Tambay Obenson, and Noel Murray.

HEREDITARY, Milly Shapiro, 2018. /© A24 /Courtesy Everett Collection

75. “Hereditary” (dir. Ari Aster, 2018)

Ah, yes, it’s the anaphylactic skull “thwack” heard ‘round the world!

Like a car wrapped around a telephone poll, “Hereditary” was so widely celebrated upon its release that the film’s sterling reputation has since become something of a cliché. For studio A24 and scads of so-called “elevated horror” fans — born out of the genre renaissance this film helped create — there’s Before Ari Aster and After Ari Aster. The filmmaker’s algebraic feature debut in 2018 was indeed a key turning point in horror’s reputation across Hollywood. It’s also an exquisite, stand-alone display of artistry that deserves to be assessed outside the history it inherited… pun intended.

The unflappable Toni Collette deserved an Oscar for her “Hereditary” performance as Annie Graham, a miniatures artist grappling with complicated grief brought on by the death of her difficult mother, Ellen (Kathleen Chalfant). Her children, the oddball Charlie (Milly Shapiro) and her older brother Peter (Alex Wolff), have lived in the shadow of Annie and Ellen’s maternalistic trauma bond for as long as they can remember. With dad Steve (Gabriel Byrne) doing his best in the background, the family’s visible tension serves as an ideal starting block for Aster’s ultimately blistering take on supernatural possession.

Pulling inspiration from horror classics like “Rosemary’s Baby” and domestic dramas like “Scenes From a Marriage,” “Hereditary” is so exquisite and exacting in its consideration of film history that its references are almost imperceptible. As Annie starts to unravel, spurred on by the slippery Joan (Anne Dowd) and a not-so-helpful support group, her emotion looms larger than almost any of Aster’s nightmarish vignettes. Peter isn’t far behind, experiencing an agonizing psychological torment that’s on par with the physical atrocities’ characteristic of torture porn. Toss in some genuinely astounding jump-scares…and a brilliantly detailed text that makes every viewing feel new…and it’s no wonder “Hereditary” sent so many heads spinning. (Close your eyes and listen carefully. Can you still hear Annie screaming?) —AF 

SCREAM, Drew Barrymore, 1996

74. “Scream” (dir. Wes Craven, 1996)

It’s an incredible achievement that a film this meta, this referential could also succeed so completely as a terrifying horror film in its own right. Yes, director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson depict a world here in which characters find themselves in a horror movie even as they’re endlessly discussing other horror movies and horror movie tropes, but by the ‘90s and the videostore era, it was not uncommon to find more than a few movie freaks who knew more about movies than real life. Some of them even became filmmakers themselves. Craven, almost 30 years older than Williamson, was able to bring some old-school storytelling brio to this slasher movie of slasher movies even as it cobbled together parts from other films, especially the opening scene that recasts “When a Stranger Calls” with poor, doomed Drew Barrymore. “Scream” wouldn’t succeed if it was only a movie about movies, though. Its fundamental conceit that the moronic high school jerks everyone spent their teen years with (at least a few of them, come on) might actually be outright murderous feels like… not a vast leap. —CB

A TALE OF TWO SISTERS, (aka JANGHWA, HONGRYEON), Yum Jung-ah (standing), Lim Su-jeong, 2003. ©Tartan Films/courtesy Everett Collection

73. “A Tale of Two Sisters” (dir. Kim Jee-woon, 2003)

Inspired by an oft-filmed Joseon dynasty-era folktale, South Korean director Kim Jee-woon’s “A Tale of Two Sisters” offers a darkly absurdist take on psychological horror. Largely unfolding in a secluded gothic country estate, the film follows Su-mi (Im Soo-jung) home after being released from a mental institution. There she reunites with her younger sister Su-yeon (Moon Geun-young) and the two butt heads with their icy stepmom Heo Eun-joo (Yum Jung-ah). Soon disturbing events, including the sight of her mother’s ghost, begin to shake Su-mi to her core. A heavy sense of dread cloaks the whole film in darkness, its restrained narration lulling the viewers into a state like sleep, which is then disrupted by carefully crafted jump scares and quick-cut editing. As the plot becomes more and more convoluted, the film reveals itself to be one best felt in all its eerie glory, rather than fully understood. —MG

THE BIRDS, Tippi Hedren, 1963

72. “The Birds” (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)

There’s this thrill that happens in a great horror film whenever the audience feels like they, themselves, might be in danger from the terrors they’re witnessing onscreen, and few understand how to implicate a viewer better than Alfred Hitchcock. So it’s no coincidence that there’s an electric moment in the middle of “The Birds” when, sheltering in a restaurant after the first wave of avian aggression on Bodega Bay, a distraught character looks directly into the camera and says “I think you’re the cause of all this. I think you’re evil!” They don’t just mean Tippi Hedren. But it’s hard not to enjoy how Hitchcock takes such a simple premise — the birds, they are attacking people — and builds sonic and visual cathedrals of tension. Whether it’s what might be lurking up in an attic, or whether it’s what’s hiding in plain side beside a school yard, we know there’s unexplainable danger lurking ahead of our characters but not exactly when it will strike. We’re the cause of all this, but Hitchcock succeeds in making the execution(s) surprising. —SS

BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, 1992

71. “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1992)

As played by Gary Oldman, the title vampire in Francis Ford Coppola’s luscious and pulsating “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” has a spirit as restless as the film’s director. Here, Coppola traverses the Ottoman Empire of the 15th century to London and Transylvania in an over-the-top, hyper-stylized Gothic that relies almost exclusively on practical effects and painterly set design to tell the most extravagant Stoker adaptation ever made.

American actor Keanu Reeves’ British accent as Jonathan Harker — a solicitor sucked into Count Dracula’s world — was criticized at the time but only now adds to the mannered air of Coppola’s whole creation. Winona Ryder’s performance as Harker’s fiancée Mina is as memorably arch as well, though Oldman’s incarnation of Dracula (in humanlike and other animal forms) is up there with Max Schreck as Count Orlok in 1922’s “Nosferatu.” Coppola’s “Dracula” isn’t jump-out-of-your-seat scary — but it pummels you with a relentless, hurtling terror, carried by Wojciech Kilar’s operatic score, that never lets up. An iconic scene where Mina’s friend Lucy (Sadie Frost) is attacked and bitten by Dracula — who travels to London in the form of an escaped wolf — is pure dialed-to-11 insanity, setting a pace that doesn’t flag for the rest of the film. —RL

TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME, Sheryl Lee, 1992. © New Line Cinemas /Courtesy Everett Collection

70. “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” (dir. David Lynch, 1992)

It’s hard to overstate the shock that audiences (and his own collaborators!) must have felt when David Lynch unveiled his vision for the post-ABC era of “Twin Peaks.” Sure, the original run of the series changed TV history in ways too numerous to count, from its serialized plot and embrace of surrealism to the very notion that a celebrated filmmaker could bend the confines of primetime television to fit his own ideas. But at the end of the day, it was still a network show that had to work within certain rules. Overarching themes of rape, incest, addiction, and abuse could be eluded to, but not even David Lynch could truly skirt FCC regulations.

But from the opening frames of his prequel film “Fire Walk with Me,” Lynch made it clear that this was not your grandmother’s “Twin Peaks.” The soap opera-inspired intro with Angelo Badalamenti’s hauntingly nostalgic theme song was scrapped in favor of harsh blue opening title cards and new Badalamenti music that felt utterly devoid of warmth. The film that followed that was even harsher, as Lynch’s unflinching portrait of the sexual violence that Laura Palmer endured during her final hours on earth brought everything that the ABC series implied into unambiguously graphic detail. The film exposed the true extent of Lynch’s ambitions for the franchise as an exploration of why evil manages to thrive in our most idyllic spaces — setting the stage for the triumph that would eventually follow in “Twin Peaks: The Return.” —CZ

IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS, Kevin Rushton, Sam Neill, Gene Mack, 1995, (c)New Line Cinema/courtesy Everett Collection

69. “In the Mouth of Madness” (dir. John Carpenter, 1994)

“When people begin to lose their ability to know the difference between fantasy and reality the old ones can begin their journey back,” novelist Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow) tells insurance investigator John Trent (Sam Neill) in John Carpenter’s “In The Mouth of Madness.” On one hand, this is a straightforward account of the film’s plot in which Cane’s novels are a gateway for ancient creatures to take over the planet. On the other hand, the line also describes the descent into a delirium akin to madness that many frenzied fans find themselves in after they become obsessed with works of fiction. Screenwriter Michael De Luca’s sharply satirical script mines the world of H.P. Lovecraft, monsters and all, to examine this troubling phenomenon. Neill’s committed and totally unhinged performance perfectly matches Carpenter’s freak, establishing both as masters of the genre. The film ends on a meta moment in a movie theater as Neill’s disturbing laughter dissipates into a disquieting silence, leaving the audience to contemplate their own relationship with reality. —MG

JAWS, Susan Backlinie, 1975

68. “Jaws” (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1975)

Is “Jaws” really a horror movie? Or is it an adventure film? The movie itself makes a powerful case for it being the former. After all, it ends up centering on a PTSD-suffering World War II veteran so desperately wracked with survivor’s guilt that he literally is hoping to be eaten by a shark, meeting the same fate of his long-dead crewmates of the U.S.S. Indianapolis. And it’s about the two unwitting companions trapped on a boat with him: What’s scarier than being trapped in a confined place with a deranged person? Poor Brody and Hooper thought they were living out one drama — the quest to kill a killer shark — and they all, shark included, got pulled into Quint’s drama instead. His trauma suddenly dictates their own fates.

The best horror films understand the power of the things you don’t see. Sometimes that’s out of necessity, when your mechanical shark doesn’t work. That’s how you get the horrifying, unforgettable opening scene with poor “summer girl” Chrissy being dragged beneath the surface by a Charcharodon charcharias. And sometimes it’s because what you, the audience, can imagine is literally more powerful than what a filmmaker could ever visualize: Quint’s iconic monologue about the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis is more powerful than if it had been staged in its entirety, so unforgettable it actually makes “Jaws” a World War II movie, even if it’s about the war still being waged in one very disturbed veteran’s mind three decades after the cannons went silent. The guilt and regret Quint carries with him is as powerful as that carried by any horror film character ever. If that isn’t scary, what is? Well, maybe the dereliction of duty of Amity’s local government! Its recreational-industrial complex would sacrifice tourists and residents on the altar of those sweet summer dollars. —CB

DAWN OF THE DEAD, Lenny Lies, 1978. ©United Film Distribution Company/Courtesy Everett Collection

67. “Dawn of the Dead” (dir. George Romero, 1978)

“This was an important place in their lives” goes the famous line in George Romero’s sequel to “Night of the Living Dead.” The character who says that is referring to a shopping mall, specifically the Monroeville Mall located outside of Romero’s native Pittsburgh. That consumerism could still have pull, even for the undead, is pretty hilarious in its own right. And one could argue that that mall, with its light-up fountains, animatronics, canned music, and glorious ‘70s chain stores, is simply one of the greatest settings for any horror movie. But it serves a more important role than simply to illuminate that we’ll shop till even after we drop. Our quartet of heroes, escaped from Philadelphia in a helicopter they land at the mall, hole up there, because it’s the zombie apocalypse. And they have the time of their lives! They take money from the bank (not that they need to pay anyone), try on clothes and watches, grab bags full of candy, go ice skating, try out sports equipment, eat rich foods, and play arcade games. You can have the greatest fun when most of the rest of humanity is dead! In an extremely zero-sum economy, that might be the end state. —CB

SUSPIRIA, Jessica Harper, 1977. TM and Copyright © 20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved. Courtesy: Everett Collection.

66. “Suspiria” (dir. Dario Argento, 1977)

The giallo twisted into the shape of a pitch-black fairy tale, “Suspiria” brought Italian master Dario Argento international fame even as he left his signature genre behind. Not that he left the lessons he learned from his proto-typical slashers like “Deep Red” in the dust: Between its neon-hued light, buckets of blood, and nerve-wracking tension, the tale of a little girl lost at a ballet academy that doubles as a coven for witches utilizes every trick in Argento’s arsenal to fantastical and nightmarish extremes. Its surreal, wobbly plot feels appropriate for the copyright visual experience that Argento takes the audience and Susie (Jessica Harper) through in the dollhouse-like Tanz Akademie, all soundtracked to the unforgettable progressive rock score by Goblin. It adds up to a film that’s nastily violent yet stunning in its beauty — while there’s a scarce amount of actual ballet, the elegance of the dance is present all the same. —WC

THE BABADOOK, from left: Noah Wiseman, Essie Davis, 2013. ©IFC Midnight/Courtesy Everett Collection

65. “The Babadook” (dir. Jennifer Kent, 2014)

The ghoulish home invader in “The Babadook” is conjured out of a children’s pop-up book and fittingly appears only a handful of times in the 2014 film. A thoughtful meditation on the persistence of grief, Jennifer Kent’s tour de force character study is a dark fairytale that’s ultimately all about its flawed human star. Essie Davis dazzles as the quietly rage-filled Amelia Vanek, a widow struggling to raise her ill-behaved 7-year-old, Samuel (Noah Wiseman) in Adelaide, Australia. Still grieving the death of her husband (Ben Winspear), who died in a car crash the same day her son was born, Amelia spends much of the movie untangling her well-intentioned stoicism from the reality of her tragic circumstance.

Plenty of horror movies are made better with a rewatch, but not since “The Sixth Sense” has an ending so beautifully reframed every heartbreaking beat to come before it. Kent’s script is straightforward but elegant, expanding on her short film “Monster” from 2005 to create a more complete picture of unresolved trauma. Against a backdrop of muted domestic malaise and sinister forces that are mostly unseen, Davis and kid star Wiseman (acting way beyond his years) expertly navigate Amelia and Samuel’s very personal hell — a painful prison that’s not self-made but fortified by its captives’ denial. There’s a world in which “The Babadook” works as a tense family drama. Instead, Kent valiantly wields the weapons of genre to make a compelling case for monster movies as portraiture of the highest art. —AF

SHAUN OF THE DEAD, Kate Ashfield, Simon Pegg, 2004, (c) Rogue Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection

64. “Shaun of the Dead” (dir. Edgar Wright, 2004)

Horror and comedy often feel like opposing sides of the same coin, thanks to their shared focus on eliciting visceral, often unexplainable primal emotions from us. It’s not easy to academically explain what makes something funny or scary, but we can always recognize when someone does it well. Plenty of auteurs have successfully made the jump from comedy to horror (or vice versa), but combining the two genres into one film is often a difficult task. Lean too far towards comedy and you’re left with a parody, but get too scary and any laughter that emerges from the audience will be more nervous than genuine.

That tension only makes “Shaun of the Dead” more impressive. Edgar Wright’s triumphant debut feature is the kind of comedy that only an obsessive horror fan could have made, paying tribute to the zombie giants like George Romero who came before him while inserting his distinct style of visual humor in droves. The film blends comedy and horror so well because it never seeks to mock what happens in zombie apocalypse. Instead, it takes its undead invasion seriously, while keeping in mind that normal people who lived normal lives before a horror movie starts will likely try to continue doing so even as monsters surround them. The result is a romantic comedy that merely happens during a zombie invasion — and a pitch-perfect directorial debut that correctly predicted the cinematic treats that Wright would go on to deliver over the next two decades. —CZ

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, Brooke Adams, 1978, © United Artists/courtesy Everett Collection

63. “Invasion of the Body-Snatchers” (dir. Phillip Kaufman, 1978)

Philip Kaufman transplanted the Cold War-era aesthetic of Don Siegel’s 1956 B-horror movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” to a more visceral and real, New Hollywood-era San Francisco for the 1978 remake. Kaufman’s version, again about an alien race that leaves its dying planet to take the form of seed-podded humans on Earth, more closely works from Jack Finney’s 1955 novel.

All special effects — including the gross bodily transformations that occur as cocooned pod people emerge as affectless versions of their former selves — were created in camera. That practicality is appropriate for a movie that works just as well as a human drama (strange moods are written off as marital discord rather than as something possibly planet-engulfing) as it does high-minded science fiction. Donald Sutherland brings his ‘70s sangfroid to the role of a scientist trying to alert the government to a possible alien takeover — leading to the famous final scene in which nobody is the same person they began the movie as. —RL

THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE, (aka KORKARLEN, aka THE PHANTOM CHARIOT, aka THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT, aka THY SOUL SHALL BEAR WITNESS), Olof As, 1921

62. “The Phantom Carriage” (dir. Victor Sjöström, 1921)

A major influence on the work of Ingmar Bergman, director Victor Sjöström’s “The Phantom Carriage,” adapted from Selma Lagerlöf’s 1912 novel “Körkarlen,” is a ghostly morality tale about the destructive force of selfishness and the redeeming power of compassion. The film stars Sjöström as a dispirited drunkard named David Holm who is forced to reflect on his past mistakes by the driver of Death’s carriage, who is chosen each year at the strike of midnight on New Year’s Eve. A cinematic poet, Sjöström’s unparalleled use of double exposure and dazzling color tinting creates an evocative atmosphere, while his innovative narrative structure, which employs flashbacks within flashbacks, disorients viewers, placing them directly into Holm’s disturbed psyche. Decades later, Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” would craft a similar portrait of the ravages of alcoholism on the family unit, going so far as to lift visual cues directly from Sjöström’s groundbreaking film. —MG

A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT, Sheila Vand, 2014. ©Kino Lorber/Courtesy Everett Collection

61. “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night” (dir. Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014)

Dubbed the, “first Iranian vampire Western,” Ana Lily Amirpour’s directorial debut “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” is a stridently feminist, sublimely beguiling, decidedly punk rock entry into the vampire canon. The small San Joaquin Valley town of Taft, California stands in for the Iranian ghost-town Bad City, which Amirpour filmed in stark black and white. Sheila Vand stars as the titular Girl, a black-hued chador-clad, skateboard-riding vampire who roams the streets at night looking for bad men to quench her thirst for blood. Her path crosses with a good young man named Arash (Arash Marandi) after she kills the drug dealer of his heroin-addicted father. As the two are mystically drawn to each other, the Girl must suppress her desire for his blood, while Arash must ignore the feelings of unease that arise after he suspects she may be responsible for a series of deaths in the neighborhood. —MG

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, David Naughton, 1981

60. “An American Werewolf in London” (dir. John Landis, 1981)

Backpacking through Europe takes a furry turn in John Landis’ howlingly good “An American Werewolf in London.” This genre-bending gem proves that lycanthropy is no walk in the park – or on the moors, for that matter. David Naughton stars as Jack, an American tourist who learns the hard way to beware of moonlit strolls in rural England. After a vicious wolf attack leaves his best friend dead and him scarred, Jack wakes up in London with a new appreciation for rare steak and an undead buddy (Griffin Dunne) who’s literally falling to pieces. Landis deftly balances horror and humor, serving up genuinely scary moments alongside wickedly funny dark comedy. The legendary transformation scene, featuring Oscar-winning effects by Rick Baker, still stands as the gold standard for practical werewolf metamorphosis. You’ll feel every cracking bone and sprouting hair follicle. As Jack grapples with his impending full-moon freakout, he finds solace (and romance) with a plucky nurse played by Jenny Agutter. Their tender moments make the inevitable tragic turn all the more gut-wrenching. The film builds to a chaotic crescendo in Piccadilly Circus that’ll have you cheering and wincing in equal measure. With its fish-out-of-water humor, quotable one-liners (“A naked American man stole my balloons!”), and pitch-perfect soundtrack (who knew Creedence Clearwater Revival could be so ominous?), “An American Werewolf in London” is a horror-comedy that actually excels at both. It’s a different kind of European vacation. —TO

ONIBABA, from left: Jitsuko Yoshimura, Nobuko Otowa, 1964

59. “Onibaba” (dir. Kaneto Shindō, 1964)

This is not your run-of-the-mill ghost story – Kaneto Shindo’s “Onibaba” dishes out primal terror against the swaying susuki grass of 14th-century Japan. This delirium of a film proves that sometimes, the most terrifying monsters are the ones we become to survive. In war-torn feudal Japan, a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law eke out a grim existence by murdering lost samurai and selling their gear. Their uneasy alliance is threatened when a neighbor returns from war, leading to forbidden passions and jealousies. Add a mysterious samurai mask that may or may not be cursed, and you’ve got a recipe for psychological horror that’ll haunt your dreams. Shindo’s black-and-white cinematography transforms the vast grasslands into a claustrophobic maze, with characters appearing and disappearing like specters. The iconic hole where they dump their victims becomes a gaping maw to the underworld, hungry for fresh souls. The film’s eerie atmosphere is punctuated by bursts of violence and a hypnotic drum-heavy score that’ll have your heart pounding in sync. As our anti-heroines descend further into madness and desperation, “Onibaba” strips away the veneer of civilization to reveal the savage beast lurking within us all. Part historical drama, part Buddhist morality tale, and all nerve-shredding tension, “Onibaba” is a masterclass in less-is-more horror. You’ll probably feel the need to ponder the lengths you’d go to survive in a mad, mad world. —TO

THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE, (aka EL ESPINAZO DEL DIABLO), Irene Visedo, 2001, (c) Sony Pictures Classics/courtesy Everett Collection

58. “The Devil’s Backbone” (dir. Guillermo Del Toro, 2001)

A pivotal piece of Guillermo del Toro’s filmography, “The Devil’s Backbone” is one of the director’s most inspired fusions of genre thrills and thematic depth. Set during the Spanish Civil War, the movie is about an orphaned boy named Carlos (Fernando Tielve), who endures the bullying of his classmates, the petty power-plays of the orphanage’s deceitful handyman Jacinto (Eduardo Noriega), and the eerie presence of a vengeful ghost named Santi (Junio Valverde). The film features hidden gold, an unexploded bomb, and stealthy freedom fighters, all located in and around a haunted institution. It’s a story about people caught in various kinds of limbo — between life and death, between wealth and poverty, and between opposing political factions — and how they’re perpetually, anxiously on the verge of tipping from one side to the other. —NM

The Cremator

57. “The Cremator” (dir. Juraj Herz, 1969)

Rudolf Hrušínský gives a performance that rivals Anthony Perkins in “Psycho” in director Juraj Herz’s darkly comic, deeply unsettling “The Cremator.” An expressionistic character study based on a Ladislav Fuks novel, the film is set in 1930s Czechoslovakia, and scrutinizes the kind of man ideally suited to Europe’s coming wave of cruel authoritarianism. Hrušínský plays Karel Kopfrkingl, an outwardly fastidious and principled cremator whose work has tainted his perspective on human bodies and humanity itself. Obsessed with Buddhism and Nazism, Karel spends a lot of his time thinking about his fellow countrymen’s various flaws while ignoring or dismissing his own — which convinces him that most folks would be better off incinerated. As Karel gradually turns theory into reality, Herz and Hrušínský incisively illustrate how a fanatical dictatorial mindset can infect people, becoming their entire personality and occupation. —NM

SANTA SANGRE, Blanca Guerra (center), 1989. © Republic Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection

56. “Santa Sangre” (dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1989)

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, to Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “Santa Sangre” – a copyright circus of the psyche and a surrealist horror masterpiece that proves the family that slays together, stays together… in the most twisted way possible of course. Our ringmaster of madness is Fenix, a mime we first meet perched naked atop a tree in a mental asylum (as one does). Through a series of hallucinatory flashbacks, we witness his circus upbringing, complete with an alcoholic knife-thrower father and a religious zealot mother who worships an armless saint. When Mom loses her own arms in a grisly acid attack, young Fenix becomes her literal hands – setting the stage for an Oedipal nightmare. Jodorowsky throws everything but the kitchen sink (and maybe that too) into his fever dream of a film. Elephant funerals, tattooed women, synchronized swimming in blood, and a man wrestling a giant prop vagina are just appetizers in this visual feast. The director’s background in mime and comics bleeds into every frame, creating a heightened reality where the grotesque and the beautiful dance a savage tango. As adult Fenix, freed from the asylum, goes on a murderous rampage at his mother’s behest, “Santa Sangre” becomes a meditation on trauma, control, and the thin line between reality and delusion. It’s a psycho-sexual Pinocchio story where our puppet longs to be a real boy, but Mommy’s got the strings. Controversial, visually stunning, and utterly unforgettable, “Santa Sangre” will leave you questioning your sanity, your relationships, and possibly your career choice if you happen to be in the circus arts. —TO

CARNIVAL OF SOULS, Candace Hilligoss, 1962

55. “Carnival of Souls” (dir. Herk Harvey, 1962)

Producer Val Lewton’s films set a template for low-budget horror filmmaking, but they were still studio films. “Carnival of Souls” was a true indie, made for $33,000 by Lawrence, Kansas-based industrial filmmaker Herk Harvey and shot largely in Salt Lake City. After being the sole survivor of a car wreck, Candace Hilligoss’s Mary moves to a new town, rents a one-room apartment, deals with a creepy, leering neighbor, and takes a job as a church organist. Then the visions start. She begins seeing an undead man lurking around her. Even creepier than the neighbor who keeps wanting to encroach on her space and ask her out on a date. Then there are strange moments when all the sound around her seems to vanish, and it’s like no one can see her. She’s invisible? At least to the male gaze, thankfully, but being invisible is scary in all other aspects. Then there’s the abandoned carnival pavilion on the salt flats at the edge of town that has an unusual pull on her. A score of all organ music adds to the unforgettable effect as “Carnival of Souls” heads toward an inescapable twist of an ending. —CB

THE SEVENTH VICTIM, Erford Gage, Kim Hunter, 1943

54. “The Seventh Victim” (dir. Mark Robson, 1943)

One of the things that made Val Lewton’s movies so distinctive was their evocative locations, always replicated on soundstages with the tiniest budgets but massive, enveloping mood: New Mexico in “The Leopard Man,” a Caribbean island in “I Walked with a Zombie,” a Greek island in “Isle of the Dead.” But in “Cat People” and “The Seventh Victim,” he brought every bit as exotic a sensibility to depicting New York City. “The Seventh Victim,” in fact, has the single creepiest depiction of the New York City subway ever, a testament to Lewton, and director Mark Robson, and their capacity to make even the ordinary otherworldly.

Loosely connected to “Cat People,” at least in the reappearance of that film’s predatory psychiatrist character (Tom Conway) in, oddly enough, now a quasi-heroic capacity, “The Seventh Victim” follows Kim Hunter as a girl searching New York City for her missing sister (Jean Brooks), whose descent into a Satanic cult is made evident by her horrendously creepy hairstyle. Death is omnipresent in horror, but the most profound horror movies suggest that a life poorly lived is even worse than death. And that’s the message of “The Seventh Victim”: The pursuit of happiness can be desperately difficult — and, for some, an unattainable goal altogether. —CB

HAXAN, (aka WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE AGES), 1922

53. “Häxan” (dir. Benjamin Christensen, 1922)

If you’ve ever wanted to see a witch kiss Satan on the ass, we’ve got a film for you! The most expensive Scandinavian production at the time, Benjamin Christensen’s silent film “Häxan” is one for the sickos. This strident essay film proposes that witch-hunts were linked to misunderstandings of mental and/or neurological disorders. Christensen achieves this by combining documentary-style recreations of medieval torture techniques as presented in the “Malleus Maleficarum,” a 15th-century German guide for inquisitors, with singularly weird narrative vignettes that explore the historical roots and superstitions surrounding witchcraft. Oscillating between cheeky humor, abject horror, unbridled compassion, and obsessive fascination, “Häxan” defies categorization. Heavily censored upon release due to its anti-clericalism and graphic depictions of torture, nudity, and sexual perversion, the film was re-released in 1968 with English-language narration by William S. Burroughs. Thankfully, the Swedish Film Institute has since restored the film, preserving Christensen’s original, uncompromising vision. —MG

KWAIDAN, Segment: Hoichi, The Earless, Katsuo Nakamura, 1964

52. “Kwaidan” (dir. Masaki Kobayashi, 1964)

There’s nothing quite like the creeping dread of a ghost story well told. Enter Masaki Kobayashi’s anthology horror film “Kwaidan,” which hauntingly brings to life four Japanese folk tales, adapted by Yoko Mizuki from story collections by Lafcadio Hearn. Despite its vibrant color palette, striking cinematography by Yoshio Miyajima, and painterly sets, each segment is somehow more unsettling than the next. In “The Black Hair,” a selfish swordsman leaves his wife to seek wealth, but discovers that regret can have deadly consequences. “The Woman of the Snow” follows a young woodcutter who survives an encounter with a yuki-onna spirit, later learning the hard way that promises should be kept. A blind biwa player is tricked into playing for an undead audience in “Hoichi the Earless.” The film ends in a meta fashion with “In a Cup of Tea,” in which a folktale’s author suffers the same fate as his character. —MG

THE EXORCIST, Linda Blair, 1973. (c) Warner Bros./ Courtesy: Everett Collection.

51. “The Exorcist” (dir. William Friedkin, 1973)

It can be hard, 50 years later, to watch “The Exorcist” today and remember that there was a time when William Friedkin’s most famous film would be greeted with vomit and fainting by a disturbed filmgoing public. That’s not a slight against the movie, in any way: it’s just an inevitability of the barriers that this story of demonic possession helped break that Friedkin’s influential take feels a bit tame in hindsight. Nowadays, the strength of “The Exorcist” is in its subtlety rather than its shock, the patience with which Friedkin and screenwriter William Peter Blatty handle the material, building up the tension and horror while allowing actors Ellen Burstyn and Jason Miller space to flesh out their indelible portrayals of an atheist mother fighting for her daughter and a young sensitive priest grappling with his faith.

The two-hour runtime and slow boil storytelling make the full unveiling of Linda Blair’s possessed, demonic Regan all the more devastating, providing a horror monster whose salvation is all too easy to root for. So much of “The Exorcist,” from its lilting theme to Max von Sydow’s scene-stealing third-act appearance, has embedded itself into popular culture, but nobody (including the people behind its various sequels) has fully replicated what makes this story of faith in the modern world so moving. —WC 

CANDYMAN, Tony Todd, 1992. ©TriStar Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection

50. “Candyman” (dir. Bernard Rose, 1992)

Ever since Nia DaCosta’s divisive “Candyman” sequel from 2021, horror fans have been grappling with the legacy of Bernard Rose’s 1982 classic of the same name. Starring Virginia Madsen as a graduate student studying urban legend, this emotionally fraught ghost story uses the Cabrini-Green housing projects of Chicago to examine Black marginalization, the cycle of violence, and racial identity as portrayed through the lens of the white savior complex. There’s bittersweet irony in realizing that Rose himself is white and that the story his film is based upon comes from a Clive Barker anthology; the English author is white too and the source material does not explicitly discuss race.

When assessing what this film does well and how that was achieved, it’s worth considering authentic authorship. Nevertheless, the tour de force performance of Tony Todd as the titular Candyman demands our remembering. The actor came up with the villain’s incredible backstory as a victim of slavery and that thorny concept is what continues to intrigue audiences to this day. Riffing on modern folklore, the ethereal film from 1992 proffers that if anyone says the name “Candyman” five times in front of a mirror, the slasher villain will appear behind them ready to kill. Armed with a hook for a hand and perpetually surrounded by a swarm of bees, the dark legend comes face-to-face with final girl Helen (Madsen) early in the movie. That’s scary enough on its own, but the reign of terror that follows is almost unbearable when read as well-deserved vengeance for the failings of a racist society — never finished casting Black people as villains. —AF

CARRIE, from left: Sissy Spacek, William Katt, 1976

49. “Carrie” (dir. Brian De Palma, 1976)

Brian De Palma’s “Carrie” takes high school drama to supernatural heights, proving that pig’s blood is definitely not the accessory you want for prom night. Sissy Spacek shines as Carrie White, a shy outcast with a Bible-thumping madre from hell (Piper Laurie, chewing scenery like mad). When Carrie’s first period arrives in the school showers, her classmates react with all the empathy of a piranha feeding frenzy. Big mistake. Turns out, puberty unleashes Carrie’s latent telekinetic powers. And hell hath no fury like a telekinetic teenager scorned! De Palma ratchets up the tension, intercutting Carrie’s tentative steps toward normalcy with her tormentors’ cruel prank preparations. John Travolta oozes sleaze as the boyfriend roped into the plot, while Amy Irving’s Sue Snell wrestles with her conscience. The infamous prom scene is a masterclass in sustained dread, culminating in a copyright unleashing of Carrie’s rage. Cue flying cutlery, electrocutions, and a gym transformed into a fiery hellscape. The final jump scare will have you side-eyeing every peaceful garden for weeks. “Carrie” isn’t just a horror classic – it’s a searing indictment of bullying, religious fanaticism, and the perils of repression. It’ll make you grateful you survived high school and maybe, just maybe, have you reaching for your old yearbook to pen a few belated apologies. —TO

THE FLY, Geena Davis, 1986, TM and Copyright (c)20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved.

48. “The Fly” (dir. David Cronenberg, 1986)

Pour one out for the sweet, volatile, acid-vomiting Brundlefly — a singular icon of body horror artistry born from one of the subgenre’s most tragic efforts.

In 1986’s “The Fly,” Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis discover an explosive chemistry as Seth and Veronica. He’s a cutting-edge scientist using his teleportation prototypes to score chicks. She’s an ethically dubious journalist who keeps reporting on Seth’s work even after they start dating. What could go wrong? Typically, a whole lot less than what does when the researcher runs a dangerous test on himself and accidentally splices his genes with the DNA of a common housefly.

Stathis (John Getz), Veronica’s awful editor/even worse ex-boyfriend, buzzes in the periphery as the tortured couple decides what to do about Seth’s rapidly worsening condition. No one escapes the horror show that results from the accident unscathed, but it’s hard to say which victim of this brutal script suffers the most. Here, co-writers Cronenberg and Charles Edward Pogue are technically retelling Kurt Neumann’s 1958 film, which in turn adapts author George Langelaan’s short story of the same name. But Cronenberg’s signature style and Goldblum’s unforgettable visual transformation combine to create an indelible nightmare that belongs in a class of its own — one that ebbs and flows in tone to tremendous if not always intentional, effect.

Chris Walas and Stephan Dupuis won the Academy Award for Best Makeup because of this chunky experiment in evolutionary regression. Their cleverly detailed work, which almost always looks really, really wet, echoes the slippery existential logic we watch Seth experience as he medically declines. A smart script gives the actors a lot to work with (the “insect politics” scene is outright painful to witness), but both Goldblum and Davis bring such panache to their performances that they elevate an otherwise muddled plot.

Seth’s frantic fidgetiness establishes a creature feature centerpiece scary enough that the character could have gone on a finale rampage through the city that actually worked. But Veronica’s generous grief for this strange man — who, let’s be honest,  she doesn’t know that well and was weird to begin with — makes the intimacy of the ending a much stronger choice. Oh, we barely knew ye, Brundlefly. At least the sequel saved your baby. —AF

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, (aka LAT DEN RATTE KOMMA IN), Kare Hedebrant, 2008. Ph: Hoyte Van Hoytema/©Magnolia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

47. “Let the Right One In” (dir. Tomas Alfredson, 2008)

Set in the cold, bleak Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg in 1982, Tomas Alfredson’s “Let The Right One In” brought a fresh Scandinavian spin to the well-worn canon of vampire cinema. Adapted from his own 2004 novel by author John Ajvide Lindqvist, the film blends coming-of-age, romance, and horror tropes into a uniquely Nordic nightmare. Hoyte van Hoytema’s murky cinematography casts a frightful spell over the proceedings as we meet Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), a bullied pre-teen who spends his nights plotting violent revenge. When a strange girl named Eli (Lina Leandersson) moves in next door, the two bond over their loneliness, exchanging messages through their shared wall. Slowly, Oskar learns that Eli is not a girl, but rather a vampire with a thirst for human blood. Hedebrant’s towhead blonde hair contrasts with Leandersson’s dark, almost black hair, as if the two represent light and darkness, but Alfredson’s bloody, darkly romantic conclusion subverts any such symbolism. —MG

NIGHT OF THE DEMON, (aka CURSE OF THE DEMON), Dana Andrews, 1958

46. “Night of the Demon” (dir. Jacques Tourneur, 1957)

Jacques Tourneur had moved on from horror to other genres (notably film noir, directing one of its masterpieces, “Out of the Past”) by the time he made “Night of the Demon” in England. The time away hadn’t dulled his reflexes for creating fear out of the unknown. Starring Dana Andrews as a psychologist investigating a possible satanic cult, “Night of the Demon” is a ticking-clock thriller with a supernatural bent: a piece of parchment confers a death sentence on those who are handed it, and Andrew’s psychiatrist is powerless to convince anyone otherwise — including, by the end, himself. Tourneur’s evocative use of shadows is still at play here, and even the controversial reveal of the titular demon near the start of the movie does nothing to diminish the film’s impact. —MP

DEAD ALIVE, (aka BRAINDEAD), 1992, © Trimark/courtesy Everett Collection

45. “Brain Dead” (dir. Peter Jackson, 1992)

A word of warning: do not eat before watching this film. You’ll thank me later. The third film in acclaimed New Zealand director Peter Jackson’s “Splatter Phase,” coming after “Bad Taste” and “Meet the Feebles,” the zombie film “Braindead,” released in the U.S. Under the title “Dead Alive,” takes the Freudian idea that we all just want to go back into our mother’s wombs to disgusting and viscerally extreme heights. When a disease-ridden Sumatran rat-monkey is shipped from Skull Island to the Wellington Zoo, the lives of nebbish Lionel Cosgrove (Timothy Balme) and his domineering mother Vera (Elizabeth Moody) become horrifically, and irrevocably, altered. Following her son on a date to the zoo, Vera is bitten by the creature, and cannibalism, necrophilia, and other gross-out acts of gore ensue. Allegedly the filmmakers used nearly 80 gallons of fake blood during the film’s astonishingly grisly lawnmower-versus-zombie horde climax. —MG

CURE, (aka KYUA), Koji Yakusho (right), 1997

44. “Cure” (dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997)

When people talk about the mid-‘90s as the heyday streak of the great serial killer movies, from “Seven” to “The Silence of the Lambs,” they often leave out Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Cure.” The Japanese filmmaker’s dread-oozing noir, about a seemingly psychic and amnesiac serial killer who leaves no trace of his crimes other than the dazed victims he’s compelled to commit them, is itself inspired by Fincher’s “Seven.”

The great Koji Yakusho stars as a Tokyo police detective on the trail of a spree of gruesome killings, where the dead are left with an X carved into their chests, and the perpetrators, never far from the crime scene, have no memory of what they just did. What elevates “Cure” above serial killer pulp is its venture into Takabe’s (Yakusho) psyche — he’s got a schizophrenic wife at home and, meanwhile, the murder case at hand is weighing heavily on his mental health.

Cinematographer Tokushô Kikumura’s often mystical imagery subtly weaves the supernatural into Kurosawa’s screenplay until it takes over the narrative entirely. “Cure” emerges a hallucinatory fever dream that worms its way into your soul, leaving the fate of its characters (and its world) uncertain and unhappy. The movie is as addictive and hypnotic as the crimes at its center. —RL

ARREBATO, Will More, 1979. © Altered Innocence /Courtesy Everett Collection

43. “Arrebato” (dir. Ivan Zulueta, 1979)

The same post-Franco Spanish underground arts scene that produced Pedro Almodovar also nurtured Ivan Zulueta, a visual artist whose only feature film was this unique creep-out, about a man addicted to heroin and cinema. Eusebio Poncela plays the man, José, a struggling horror movie director who develops a fresh obsession when he meets Pedro (Will More), an artist whose work relies heavily on time-lapse photography and bewitching abstractions. “Arrebato” translates to English as “Rapture,” which describes the feeling Pedro seems to have achieved through making films — and that José keeps chasing in vain. José is slowly seduced by his new friend’s images, and by the thought that a camera could both stimulate and capture a moment of uncommon ecstasy. There are no scares per se in this film, just a mesmerizing depiction of an artist tormented by needs he seems incapable of meeting. —NM

ROSEMARY'S BABY, Mia Farrow, 1968

42. “Rosemary’s Baby” (dir. Roman Polanski, 1968)

Unlike “The Exorcist” or “Poltergeist,” Roman Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby” wasn’t plagued by misfortune and spine-chilling coincidences and injuries while in production on location in New York City or back at Paramount Studios. In fact, this adaptation of Ira Levin’s 1967 novel about a Vidal Sassoon-styled housewife (Mia Farrow) whose husband (John Cassavetes) and neighbors turn out to be emissaries of Satan couldn’t have gone better. Unless you count Frank Sinatra serving Farrow divorce papers on set.

That’s odd, seeing as how every handheld frame of “Rosemary’s Baby” — as shot with bold, docudrama realism by cinematographer William A. Fraker — seems to be summoning the spawn of Satan, right down to its evil-incanting score by Christopher Komeda. There’s always a Mandela Effect to this movie as you try to remember, years later, how much you saw of Rosemary’s baby or its real father — but Farrow screaming, in the movie’s all-timer of a last scene, “What have you done to its eyes?” is enough to convince you that you actually did see them. This is not just one of the best horror films of all time — it’s one of the greatest movies ever made, period. —RL

THE INNOCENTS, Peter Wyngarde, Deborah Kerr, 1961. TM and Copyright © 20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved. Courtesy: Everett Collection.

41. “The Innocents” (dir. Jack Clayton, 1961)

Jack Clayton’s morbid fairy tale “The Innocents” is the best and most loyal adaptation of Henry James’ chilling novella “The Turn of the Screw,” which became a seminal text of literary theory in the 20th century. Co-written by Truman Capote and led by the great actress Deborah Kerr as a governess driven to paranoia by the distressed children she’s caring for, this version is still as open-ended to cerebral and Freudian interpretations as the text.

The pioneering craft of “The Innocents” makes this an especially classic Gothic tale, from Daphne Oram’s synthesizer score to Freddie Francis’ deep-focus, black-and-white cinematography, where ghosts are driven into and out of the frame through restrained, natural light and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cutting. Many have argued, even dating back to the book, that the supernatural activity haunting the governess and her charges stems from her own sexual repression. The perverse “Innocents” leaves that door open while preserving the ambiguity of James’ story, which has haunted literature lecture halls for more than a century. —RL

NOSFERATU, Max Schreck, 1922

40. “Nosferatu” (dir. F.W. Murnau, 1922)

Patton Oswalt maybe has the definitive take on “Nosferatu” (or at least why you shouldn’t show it to five and six year olds) and we can only agree with him — if you want disturbing images, that’s what F.W. Murnau has for you in this 1922 film that lightly adapts the “Dracula” story and kicks off cinema’s affair with vampires in the bargain. The camera’s pretty static, the characters’ are pretty goofy-looking to the contemporary eye, the story unfolds at the clip-clop pace of carriage horses who do not actually want to go through the pass into Transylvania. And none of that matters. “Nosferatu” drains the courage right out of you with dynamic framing choices, with Max Schreck’s otherworldly physicality as the evil Count Orlov, with bravura editing that makes telepathy seem possible just by cutting between two characters at two different windows, and with whatever the opposite of those Mizayaki pauses where we look at little incidental details of the world. Murnau’s little incidental details are death clocks, and Venus Fly traps, and mice scurrying out of a coffin, and misty castle walls where you’ll tumble to your death. By the standard of the 1920s or the 2020s, “Nosferatu” is exactly what it claims to be: a symphony of horror. — SS

HOUR OF THE WOLF (aka VARGTIMMEN)1968, Apparition

39. “Hour of the Wolf” (dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1968)

If you expand the definition of horror enough you could include any number of Ingmar Bergman movies as horror films. Especially if you think of horror as being about lives poorly lived, about guilt, and regrets, and horrible choices. “Hour of the Wolf” is an outright horror movie, but it begins as any number of his portraits of dysfunctional families… just pushed a little bit more in a horrific, genre-friendly direction. Max von Sydow plays Johan and Liv Ullmann is Alma, and they’re a couple living on the island of Faro in the Baltic Sea for the summer — he’s an artist, and he insists on not wanting to see any other human except Alma during that time. Of course, he doesn’t get his wish.

There’s a castle on the island populated by an appalling family more suited to Fellini than Bergman (whose character actor Erland Josephson has never been more unsettling, even walking on the walls in one gravity-defying effect), and they appeal very much to Johan’s worst self. As his mental state continues to decline, he confesses to Alma that he murdered a young boy, something shown in a terrifying scene shot with the film stock overexposed by cinematographer Sven Nykvist. The effects throughout the film are stark and stylish, but “Hour of the Wolf” is slightly emptyheaded — even literally at one moment, as one of the scariest makeup effects in the movie is when one character removes her face to reveal the hollowness within. —CB

PSYCHO, Anthony Perkins, with taxidermied owl, 1960

38. “Psycho” (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

For 100 minutes of its 109-minute runtime, “Psycho” by Alfred Hitchcock is a flawless masterpiece. Forgive the torturous, unneeded exposition scene that closes the film and only serves to suck the mystique out of Anthony Perkins’ central performance, and “Psycho” still stands tall as one of the Master of Suspense’s greatest and most influential works, a film so electrifying that it inspired numerous copycats and helped change the way that audiences watch Hollywood films. Hitchcock pulls off a masterful rug pull, immersing his audience in the impulsive embezzlement scheme of Janet Leigh’s skittish Marion Crane before taking her off the board entirely with the immortal shower attack scene. It’s a gambit that fully pays off because the filmmaking is so absurdly strong — from John L. Russell’s moody black-and-white cinematography to George Tomasini’s slick editing to Bernard Herrmann’s atmospheric score, this is commercial American cinema at the height of its powers.

And Perkins, in the central role of troubled momma’s boy Norman Bates, gives a performance both terrifying and uncomfortably real, a portrait of human insanity all too raw just for the movies. The exact nature of Norman’s mental troubles only receives more and more scrutiny as the years go by, as film stereotypes of trans and queer people have come into broader conversation. Still, Perkins’ sensitive performance adds real grace to the character, and the strain of gender ambiguity buried in the film feels like a starting point for horror’s inextricable relationship with queerness today. —WC

FREAKS, from left: Rose Dione, Schlitze, Diasy Earles, Johnny Eck, Peter Robinson, Angelo Rossitto, Daisy Hilton, Violet Hilton, Roscoe Ates, 1932

37. “Freaks” (dir. Tod Browning, 1932)

Greeted with scorn as an exploitative piece of trash by critics and audiences upon its 1932 release, Tod Browning’s “Freaks” has since been reclaimed as a work of shocking empathy. Set in the dazzling, vicious world of a roaming carnival, the pre-Code film renders its sideshow-attraction protagonists — dwarves and bearded ladies and siamese twins and the physically deformed — not as the monsters of the night but as the dignified heroes working to create a place for themselves in a world where they experience only rejection. The real monsters are the most beautiful of the carnival performers, Olga Baclanova’s trapeze artist Cleopatra and Henry Victor’s brawny strongman Hercules, who conspire to split up a little person couple Hans and Frieda (siblings Harry and Daisy Earles, giving deeply moving performances) and steal Hans’ wealth.

The version of “Freaks” that exists today is a bastardized, barely-hour long cut after MGM forced edits onto Browning’s project due to concerns about its content, though it still contains some genuine scares as the freaks turn on their abusers. And yet, “Freaks” is possibly the most uplifting of any film on this list, and a story that resonates with many horror geeks looking for community themselves: As the heroes chant during the most iconic scene, loving the film makes you “one of us, one of us.” —WC 

NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE, (aka NOSFERATU: PHANTOM DER NACHT), from left: Isabelle Adjani, Klaus Kinski, 1979, TM & Copyright © 20th Century Fox Film Corp./courtesy Everett Collection

36. “Nosferatu the Vampyre” (dir. Werner Herzog, 1979)

Made in homage to and borrowing its title from F. W. Murnau’s iconic silent film “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror,” Werner Herzog’s “Nosferatu the Vampyre” is a slightly more faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula,” though no less weird than its namesake. Filmed on location in Germany, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, and even in Guanajuato, Mexico for its opening sequence, Herzog’s film is a breathtaking production, drenched in dread. Donning pounds of makeup to resemble Max Schreck in Murnau’s 1922 film, Klaus Kinski’s sympathetic take on Count Dracula emphasizes the vampire’s tragic loneliness, while Isabelle Adjani adds complex layers of eroticism to her Lucy Harker. The film’s abject seriousness and grim atmosphere led critic Roger Ebert, in his Great Movies Collection, to write, “Here is a film that does honor to the seriousness of vampires. No, I don’t believe in them. But if they were real, here is how they must look.” —MG

THE OTHERS, Alakina Mann, James Bentley, 2001, (c) Dimension Films/courtesy Everett Collection

35. “The Others” (dir. Alejandro Amenábar, 2001)

“The Others” is a great slow-burn. Living on the Channel Islands just after World War II, very much a place between places, Nicole Kidman and her two children (James Bentley and Alakina Mann) are the uneasy masters of a cavernous gothic home, with shifty servants, an absent father/husband sent away during The War, and the unnerving sense that they are not alone in the house. Director Alejandro Amenábar doesn’t unfold anything here that seasoned horror fans won’t be able to guess, but he unspools the film’s dread with reli