The 175+ Greatest Horror Films of the 2020s (So Far)

107. BUDDY (2026)

A children’s TV mascot in a big foam suit turns out to be exactly as wrong as every kid always suspected. Warps familiar cheeriness into something genuinely brutal. Fun, unique, well worth it.

106. HOKUM (2026)

Damian McCarthy returns to Irish folk horror, recruiting Adam Scott for his first proper venture into the genre to tell a witches-and-ghosts tale that’s rich with atmosphere, if short on novelty (ironic for a horror movie about an author).

105. IMMACULATE (2024)

An American novice joins an Italian convent and turns up pregnant, which the order treats as a miracle and a scheme. Didn’t expect it to be so camp. Probably just a wild coincidence that it and The First Omen followed the rollback of reproductive rights. MAGA!

104. ONSLAUGHT (2026)

Ninety minutes of grindhouse throwback that exists to make you feel something and then let you get on with your life. A nasty little crowd-pleaser. Had Wingard pushed the blood and lunacy further, it might have been unforgettable.

103. ODDITY (2024)

A blind antique dealer moves a life-size wooden man into her dead twin’s house and waits. Doles out breadcrumbs at a healthy pace, and McCarthy’s sinister streak will delight anyone craving a scare.

102. A CLASSIC HORROR STORY (2021)

Five strangers in an Italian rideshare crash into a clearing arranged like a folk-horror set, because it is one.

101. THE LONG WALK (2025)

An adaptation of the first novel Stephen King ever wrote, The Long Walk has a simple premise: walk or die. But it’s populated by mostly interesting characters and a captivating turn from David Jonsson.

100. LOVE LIES BLEEDING (2024)

A gym manager falls for a bodybuilder passing through, and her father’s gun range turns out to be the local crime economy. Steroid rage, white trash aesthetics, memorably bad haircuts. A bloody queer affair.

99. RUN (2020)

A homeschooled wheelchair user starts reading the labels on the pills her mother gives her. Misery by way of Mommy Dead and Dearest.

98. AMULET (2020)

A homeless ex-soldier takes a room in a rotting London house with a dying mother upstairs and a daughter who keeps apologizing. An atmospheric slow burn fastened to a real whopper of an ending. Certain things didn’t snap into place until the drive home.

97. LA LLORONA (2020)

A Guatemalan general acquitted of genocide is trapped in his own home by protesters outside and a weeping indigenous ghost within. Proves how much of a curse that other La Llorona movie was to the mythology.

96. HUNTER HUNTER (2020)

A fur-trapping family in the Manitoba woods hunts a wolf and brings home a wounded stranger instead. French New Extremity by way of the American backwoods, winding to the most disturbing imaginable conclusion. Need shower ASAP.

95. SCARE ME (2020)

Two writers stuck in a blackout cabin tell each other horror stories, acted out with nothing but voices and shadows. For Fred the scariest thing is being outclassed by a better storyteller. A lady storyteller.

94. NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU (2023)

A shunned young woman fights a home invasion by grey aliens across a film with almost no dialogue at all.

93. FRANKENSTEIN (2025)

A gorgeous retelling of a classic tale about the monsters that dwell within us, Del Toro’s take on Frankenstein features a standout turn from Jacob Elordi.

92. SYNCHRONIC (2020)

A New Orleans paramedic with a terminal diagnosis works a run of impossible deaths caused by a designer drug that unsticks you in time.

91. SEW TORN (2024)

A seamstress finds a suitcase of cash and two dying bikers on a Swiss roadside, and the film runs her three possible choices in full. Choose your own adventure where every road ends badly.

90. VIOLATION (2020)

A woman assaulted by her sister’s husband during a lake weekend takes her revenge, and the film makes you sit in every minute of the aftermath. Grounded entirely in consequence, and still the best of Sundance’s narrative midnighters.

89. BONES AND ALL (2022)

Not quite the inspired mash-up a romantic cannibal road trip movie promises, but Bones and All features a strong cast (Mark Rylance is especially great) and striking production elements.

88. SCREAM (2022)

A new Ghostface targets the relatives of the originals while the film coins the word “requel” for what it’s doing. Razor-sharp, bloody glorious, and most importantly a hell of a lot of fun.

87. LAMB (2021)

Icelandic sheep farmers deliver a lamb with a human body and raise it as the daughter they lost, until its mother comes to collect. Strange and singular, and I remain unconvinced it adds up to the menacing profundity intended.

86. FRESH (2022)

A dating-app match sweeps a woman off to a weekend house, then reveals he sells human meat to wealthy clients and she is inventory. American Psycho and Martyrs on a meat-cute, giving new meaning to “eating butt.”

85. THE FEAST (2021)

A Welsh family hosts a dinner to sell drilling rights on sacred land, and the hired server is the land collecting. She gives off Under the Skin vibes, uncomfortable in her own body. Scrumptiously unnerving folk horror.

84. WEREWOLVES WITHIN (2021)

A forest ranger and a mail carrier lock a Vermont town’s worth of feuding neighbors in one inn while something outside eats the generators. Clue with lycanthropy.

83. 32 MALASANA STREET (2020)

A working-class family moves into a Madrid flat in 1976 and inherits the previous tenant. Slick, spooky Spanish supernatural thriller that takes the household as seriously as the scares.

82. HERETIC (2024)

Hugh Grant’s villain era is ripping.

81. HATCHING (2022)

A gymnast under her influencer mother’s thumb hides an egg in her room, and what hatches does what she won’t. An ooey gooey creature feature about maintaining the illusion of perfection. E.T. and Troma with great practical effects. Totally my bag.

80. A QUIET PLACE PART II (2020)

The Abbotts leave the farm with a newborn and a hearing aid that doubles as a weapon, and meet a survivor who has stopped helping people. It builds the emotional heart before throwing everything to chaos, knowing tension needs a vested interest first.

79. TERRIFIER 2 (2022)

Art returns for a final girl with a sword and a two-and-a-half hour runtime. One kill horrifying enough to justify the passing-out-and-vomiting headlines.

78. LAST NIGHT IN SOHO (2021)

A fashion student starts sleeping her way into 1965 Soho and watching a singer get destroyed by it. Style to spare, the costumes, the sets, the music, all in service of a fairly straightforward murder mystery. But with time travel. Kind of.

77. CHRISTMAS BLOODY CHRISTMAS (2022)

It’s Christmas Eve, and a foul-mouthed record store owner (Riley Dandy) just wants to get drunk and party, until the local toy store’s military-grade robot Santa goes haywire and starts carving through her small town. Joe Begos shoots it on grimy 16mm and drenches it in neon and synth, and Dandy makes for a charismatic, scrappy final girl. A loud, gory, gleefully mean holiday slasher.

76. SPUTNIK (2020)

A cosmonaut returns to a 1983 Soviet facility with something living in his throat that only comes out at night.

75. PRIMATE (2026)

Johannes Roberts’ brutal (and brutally effective) chimp-gone-bad horror joint champions unrelenting tension and jaw-dropping gore.

74. JAKOB’S WIFE (2021)

A minister’s wife of thirty years gets bitten, and vampirism is the best thing that ever happened to her marriage. Goretastic and laugh out loud hilarious, a ’90s throwback openly in love with Nosferatu.

73. THE DEEP HOUSE (2021)

Two dive-vlogging influencers descend into a flooded French village and find an intact house at the bottom of the reservoir. A standard haunted house riff, but devil-worshipping ghouls floating at you underwater really resonated with my fear triggers.

72. THE FIRST OMEN (2024)

A novice in 1971 Rome discovers her order is breeding the Antichrist to frighten the faithful back to church.