50 Best Classic Horror Movies of All Time from Psycho to The Exorcist

The Amityville Horror (1979)

Reportedly based on the real-life Lutz family’s abbreviated stint living at 112 Ocean Avenue, the site of a grisly mass murder in Long Island, New York, the horror film doesn’t have to be entirely accurate to scare the pants off its viewers with bleeding walls, the glow of a feral animal’s stare, and, of course, a previously doting-now possessed husband on a mission to murder his wife and children. Watch Now

The Birds (1963)

Alfred Hitchcock let the visual effects fly in his 1963 aviary apocalypse starring Tippi Hedren in her debut acting role. She plays Melanie Daniels, a socialite who follows a handsome lawyer to a bayside town where seagulls, crows, and other feathered fowl take out their rage on human flesh. Though it may sound ridiculous to suggest that a film about killer birds is terrifying, the legacy of its bizarro nature can’t be denied: The Birds remains one of the spookiest thriller-horror hybrids to have ever infected the genre. Watch Now

Ganja & Hess (1973)

Playwright Bill Gunn’s Ganja & Hess, an experimental vampire tale that wowed critics at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973, has a story to tell—and not just its cinematic narrative about an anthropologist named Hess who gets stabbed with a cursed dagger then finds himself immortal and in love with his assistant’s wife, Ganja. Behind the scenes, the film was heavily edited, chopped for time, and released as a Franken-picture the director wouldn’t even put his name on. Luckily, the Museum of Modern Art has restored Gunn’s initial vision, and you can view it in its original glory today. Watch Now

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Cat People (1942)

Parisian director Jacques Tourneur tapped into felinophobia for this haunting fantasy that transforms the irrational fear of cats into a purring vehicle for a truly disturbing mystery. French actress Simone Simon stars as Irena Dubrovna Reed, a Serbian national and sketch artist who falls in love with a New York man while harboring a wild secret: She just might be a devilish cultist who can shapeshift into a panther. Watch Now

Psycho (1960)

Maestro Hitchcock perfected the power of suggestion with his infamous shower scene starring Janet Leigh. Though graphic in nature, we never actually see blade penetrating flesh, and yet it’s impossible to shower without worrying a rube with mommy issues is on the other side of the curtain. Watch Now

The Shining (1980)

Stanley Kubrick’s all-time critics’ favorite is the ultimate horror film. So what if it butchers a narrative from the brilliant mind of Steven King? And so what if it’s set in a resort hotel of impossible proportions? Jack Torrance, his family, and his descent into madness is a seminal work that has given oxygen to some of the most enduring conspiracy theories of our time. People are still trying to figure it out. Watch Now

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Dead of Night (1945)

A relatively obscure horror anthology film, Dead of Night is anchored by the déjà vu had by an architect at a party whose recurring nightmare seems to be bleeding over into reality. Over the course of the night, he and the other party guests, who have all starred in his dream, take turns swapping disturbing and unhinged ghost stories—until, of course, the suspense is capped off with a stellar twist ending. Watch Now

Gaslight (1944)

Golden-era actress Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca) stars in a film of suspense, madness, and mind games helmed by George Cukor (A Star Is Born, the Judy Garland version). And though its horrors don’t borrow from the traditional scare tactics of the ‘40s—no wolf men, Franken-monsters, or mummified terrors here—it explores the scariest presence there is: a manipulative husband. Watch Now

Spider Baby (1967)

We’re not sure which we like better: the winning title, Spider Baby, or its runner-up, The Maddest Story Ever Told. A pitch-black comedy that holes up with a brood of deranged siblings whose brains are slowly turning to mush, Jack Hill’s story of deviant inbred cannibals spawned the concept of crazy killer families that the genre plays up in classics like House of a Thousand Corpses, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and The Cabin in the Woods. Watch Now

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The Last Man on Earth (1964)

The title alone is a terrifying thought. Let alone the fact that leading man Vincent Price is the sole survivor outrunning the zombies that are now invading what’s left of the planet after a global epidemic wipes out the human race. If it sound a little like Will Smith’s walking dead movie, that’s because I Am Legend is the 2007 remake. Watch Now

Carnival of Souls (1962)

Rickety rides, funhouses that aren’t fun, black magic: the carnival can be a terrifying place. In this less-is-more horror delight, a woman seemingly drowns, then stumbles out of the river, moves to Utah, and can’t shake a phantom who wants her to dance in the carnival of souls. Watch Now

The Haunting (1963)

Robert Wise’s haunted-house chiller based on Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House locks two women in a mansion and watches as they both lose their minds to fear. Now, its rating says G, but don’t let that convince you to watch in the dark. The film’s sound and effects will make you want to leave the lights on. Watch Now

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Duel (1983)

A Spielberg classic you may have missed, this made-for-TV movie was the director’s gateway horror thriller for Jaws. An elementary plot with a master behind the wheel, Duel is every motorist’s nightmare: a faceless trucker in a tractor-trailer terrorizes a business man in the desert. The end game? Death for one or the other. Watch Now

The Omen (1976)

Animals, kids, clowns: they’re a horror director’s essentials. Here, Richard Donner uses a pint-size spawn of the devil to elicit his screams. Everyone’s favorite father figure, Gregory Peck, takes the lead as an American ambassador trying to figure out if his son is the Antichrist. Watch Now

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

It’s German. It’s silent. But Robert Wiene’s monochromatic chiller still delivers the screams. Arguably the first horror movie ever in the can, it’s a highly-stylized nightmare about murder, madness, and somnambulism. You'll recognize its influences all over Tim Burton’s resume. Watch Now

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Nosferatu (1922)

Another German Expressionist horror staple, Nosferatu is the first surviving film to introduce a vampire to the big screen. Though its legacy is shrouded in a copyright horror story of its own (for ripping off Bram Stoker’s Dracula), Nosferatu is the one to thank for the “I vant to suck your blood” camp we crave. Watch Now

Dracula (1931)

Before Christopher Lee donned the infamous collared cape, Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi sank his fangs into the role of the “epitome of evil” in Tod Browning’s haunter. Not only did this Dracula establish the aesthetics of the villain, but he and Browning helped catapult the supernatural genre onto American soil. Watch Now

Frankenstein (1931)

The tale of the godless Dr. Frankenstein and his Monster who goes on a rogue killing spree dates back to 1831, a century before director James Whale adapted Mary Shelley’s fright fest for the screen. But its influence remains alive and continues to breed many a contemporary redux. Watch Now

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The Wolf Man (1941)

Bushy yak hairs, a fog machine, and a perfected moon howl, and the wooliest of the Universal Monsters was born. The film that launched a thousand lupine transformations had a release date that fell just two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and despite critical finger-wagging, it achieved blockbuster status. Watch Now

Les Diaboliques (1955)

Touted as the greatest thriller Hitchcock didn’t direct, Les Diaboliques is French suspense with a famous final twist. More “who’s doing that?” than whodunit, the plot follows two scorned women after they drown the sadist who wronged them in the bathtub—then go mad thinking he’s still alive. Watch Now

DeAnna Janes is a freelance writer and editor for a number of sites, including Harper’s BAZAAR, Tasting Table, Fast Company and Brit + Co, and is a passionate supporter of animal causes, copy savant, movie dork and reckless connoisseur of all holidays. A native Texan living in NYC since 2005, Janes has a degree in journalism from Texas A&M and  got her start in media at US Weekly before moving on to O Magazine, and eventually becoming the entertainment editor of the once-loved, now-shuttered DailyCandy. She’s based on the Upper West Side.

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