The Best Modern Horror Movies on HBO Max Right Now (November 2026)

Availability last updated November 1, 2026. Streaming libraries change monthly, so this list gets updated regularly. Whether you want slow-burn dread or the scariest movies on HBO Max right now, start here.

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If you only keep one streaming service for horror, HBO Max makes a strong case. It’s home to two of my top three horror movies of the 2020s so far. These are the best modern horror movies on HBO Max right now, all released from 2010 on and pulled straight from my rankings of the best horror movies of the 2020s and the best horror movies of the 2010s. You’ll find favorites like Weapons, Sinners and Hereditary, plus a handful of deeper cuts worth adding to your watchlist. Every pick is streaming in the U.S. right now, and I’ll keep the list updated as titles come and go. For the latest releases, see my roundup of new horror movies.

WEAPONS (2025)

🍅93%Critics🍿85%Audience⭐7.4IMDb

Seventeen children in one class walk out of their homes at 2:17am, arms back, and never come home, told through the people left behind. A clear step up in craft, and Cregger may just be the horror prince the 2020s were promised.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max · Read the full review

SINNERS (2025)

🍅97%Critics🍿96%Audience⭐7.5IMDb

Twin brothers open a juke joint in Jim Crow Mississippi and the music they make there calls something older than the Klan outside. The real thrill is how it makes its deeper ideas textual rather than ornamental. Ryan Coogler’s vampire musical stars Michael B. Jordan as twin brothers opening a juke joint in 1932 Mississippi, and its centerpiece performance sequence is pure movie magic.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max · Read the full review

THE CONJURING (2013)

🍅86%Critics🍿83%Audience⭐7.5IMDb

The possession subgenre is terrifying again in James Wan’s haunted house-exorcism hybrid. Rated R by virtue of being deemed “too scary” and for good reason. Good luck sleeping after this one. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga anchor the scares with genuine warmth.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max · Read the full review · Every Conjuring Universe Movie, Ranked

EVIL DEAD RISE (2023)

🍅85%Critics🍿76%Audience⭐6.5IMDb

The Book of the Dead turns up in an LA apartment building’s parking garage and a mother of three opens it. Not only is there an elevator full of blood, characters come flooding out with it. I could watch one of these every decade.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max · Read the full review

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS (2011)

🍅92%Critics🍿74%Audience⭐7.0IMDb

Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard deconstruct the horror genre in goofy style and changed the game in doing so. Partially responsible for the arthouse horror resurgence. Merman kill FTW. Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon’s meta-horror deconstructs every genre cliché, and its final act is an all-you-can-scream buffet of monsters.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max

COMPANION (2025)

🍅93%Critics🍿88%Audience⭐6.9IMDb

A weekend at a lake house where one guest turns out to be a rented robot girlfriend with an adjustable personality setting. Always thought the fembot movie would be hornier.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max

UNDERTONE (2025)

🍅74%Critics🍿50%Audience⭐5.9IMDb

Ian Tuason’s debut builds an all-encompassing nightmare out of what you can hear coming and can’t see. As immersive as it is bone chilling, with truly elite sound design. It’s a sound-driven chiller that proves how much dread a good audio mix can build.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max · Read the full review

US (2019)

🍅93%Critics🍿62%Audience⭐6.8IMDb

Jordan Peele’s sophomore feature offered more social-horrors in this chilling bizarro-world fable about dangerous doppelgängers. Lupita N’yongo went tragically ignored around the awards circuit for her outstanding dual role here.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max · Read the full review

FINAL DESTINATION BLOODLINES (2025)

🍅92%Critics🍿86%Audience⭐6.7IMDb

Death’s master plan gets a family-tree twist when a college student learns her grandmother cheated fate decades ago. The franchise’s Rube Goldberg kills are back and sillier than ever, and Tony Todd’s final turn as William Bludworth gives it unexpected heart.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max

BRING HER BACK (2025)

🍅89%Critics🍿79%Audience⭐7.1IMDb

Unrelentingly bleak in its exploration of grief’s demolishing power, this deeply feel-bad genre excursion is a challenging watch. But for unfazed genre fans, there’s real dramatic purpose roiling beneath its horrific surface. Evil Sally Hawkins is a gift.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max · Read the full review

THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT (2021)

🤢56%Critics🍿83%Audience⭐6.2IMDb

The Warrens take the franchise out of the haunted house and into a courtroom, arguing demonic possession as a murder defense. It forcibly tries to shake you even if Chaves isn’t as competent a director.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max · Read the full review · Every Conjuring Universe Movie, Ranked

THE LIGHTHOUSE (2019)

🍅90%Critics🍿72%Audience⭐7.3IMDb

Hark! Two stinky seamen (Willem Dafoe, Robert Pattison) find themselves trapped with each other’s unwelcome company on a far-flung Maine island in this mythological mirage of madness. Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe go mad on a remote island in Robert Eggers’ black-and-white nightmare, shot in a boxy frame that makes everything feel claustrophobic.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max · Read the full review · Every Robert Eggers Movie, Ranked

EVIL DEAD BURN (2026)

🍅70%Critics🍿74%Audience⭐6.2IMDb

Vaniček takes the Book of the Dead somewhere new and keeps the franchise’s nothing-is-sacred mentality intact, spiking the screen with viscera. Nasty, simple, brutally effective, and carrying the demented baton. Sébastien Vaniček takes the Deadite mayhem somewhere new while keeping the franchise’s signature mix of splatter and pitch-black humor.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max · Read the full review

BACKROOMS (2026)

🍅86%Critics🍿74%Audience⭐6.7IMDb

A kid noclips out of reality into endless yellow office corridors, expanded from Kane Parsons’ web series with an A24 budget and no restraints. Frustrating if you want tidy mythology, and uniquely distressing if you submit to its wavelength.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max · Read the full review

IT COMES AT NIGHT (2017)

🍅88%Critics🍿44%Audience⭐6.2IMDb

A devastating virus has forced survivors to make do on the fringes in this cold, mythological character study that asks if the interests of two families can align – or must be pitted against one another. A searingly intelligent psychological slow-burn.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max

LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY (2026)

🤢45%Critics⭐6.1IMDb

An Evil Dead-ification of The Mummy story, it’s long but never dull and has enough nastiness to power its runtime. This one didn’t get a fair shake.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max

THE CONJURING 2 (2016)

🍅80%Critics🍿82%Audience⭐7.3IMDb

The second outing with the Warrens didn’t quite reach the same heights but spines tingled nonetheless, especially when little Janet Hodgson contorted herself into crawl spaces. *Shudders* James Wan takes the Warrens to London for the Enfield haunting, and the demonic nun introduced here was scary enough to earn her own spinoff.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max · Read the full review · Every Conjuring Universe Movie, Ranked

IT (2017)

🍅85%Critics🍿84%Audience⭐7.3IMDb

Pennywise hits the big screens in the most bankable horror movie ever made in this monstrously popular adaptation of the Steven King novel. It works best when focused on the relationships between its young cast, though the dancing clown bit is sure to provide apt nightmare fuel.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max · Read the full review

THE LONG WALK (2025)

🍅88%Critics🍿85%Audience⭐6.6IMDb

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. Francis Lawrence adapts Stephen King’s dystopian endurance contest, and Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson give it a beating, deeply human heart.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max

STOKER (2013)

🍅70%Critics🍿60%Audience⭐6.7IMDb

The stately English-language gothic melodrama from Korean guru Park Chan-Wook circles the psychosexual tension between an uncle and niece who never knew each other existed. It gets…weird. Park Chan-wook’s English-language debut is a lush, perverse family thriller with Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman, and Matthew Goode.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max · Read the full review

THE LURE (2015)

🍅89%Critics🍿71%Audience⭐6.2IMDb

A mermaid musical that’s part sexy, part dangerous, and fully European. Forgive the music – Lady Gaga wasn’t involved.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max · Read the full review

THEY WILL KILL YOU (2026)

🍅66%Critics🍿76%Audience⭐6.3IMDb

A housekeeper’s first night at a swanky Manhattan high-rise turns into a fight for her life against a cult that wants her as its sacrifice. Kill Bill with a twist of Ready or Not, and the production design is straight up Scooby Doo meets Wes Anderson.▶︎ Watch on HBO Max

Want more? See the full ranking of the best horror movies of the 2020s.

Critics and Audience scores from Rotten Tomatoes; ratings from IMDb. Scores as of November 2026.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the scariest movie on HBO Max right now?

If you want pure terror, start with Undertone, followed by Hereditary and The Conjuring. Undertone is the scariest movie I’ve seen in years, and it does it almost entirely through sound.

What are the best horror movies on HBO Max?

By my ranking, the best modern horror movies on HBO Max right now are Weapons (2025), Sinners (2025) and Us (2019).

How often is this list updated?

Every couple of weeks. I re-check HBO Max’s catalog regularly, adding new arrivals and removing anything that has left the service.

What are the best non-horror movies on HBO Max?

For my picks across every genre, see The Best Movies on HBO Max Right Now.

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