Tracing its roots back to the earliest days of the camera, horror has been intrinsically tied with film since the medium began in the late 19th century. Over the years, various film genres have come and gone, achieving mainstream attention for a decade or so before inevitably waning in popularity; but horror has continued to stand the test of time as a genre always in vogue, appealing to the interests of large audiences from decade to decade.
Like the viewers that so avidly consume horror films, horror is forever changing with the times and adapting to its audience’s interests, allowing it to grow and evolve in ways no other genre can. That being said, there are a number of films that helped shape the cinematic landscape of horror as we know it today. From silent German Expressionist films to ’30s monster movies to the groundbreaking psychological horror movies of the ’70s and ’80s, here are some of the best and most important horror films ever put to the screen.
Nosferatu
Hoping to move to a more populated city, the vampiric Count Orlok (Max Schreck) invites his estate agent (Gustav von Wangenheim) to his derelict castle in Transylvania to discuss the matter further. While there, the agent becomes unsettled by the count’s odd quirks and strange behavior, especially when Orlok expresses an interest in his wife (Greta Schröder).
Having failed to acquire the rights to Dracula, early film pioneer F.W. Murnau opted to craft his own unauthorized take on Bram Stoker’s immortal count. Working off his distinct creative vision, Murnau created a work as timeless as Stoker’s text with Nosferatu, the blueprint for every horror film that followed for the next several decades.
Currently streaming on Tubi and The Roku Channel
Dracula
Emigrating from his castle in the Carpathian Mountains to London, the Transylvanian Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi) preys upon the city’s populace, singling out a young man’s fiancée (Helen Chandler) as the main focus of his attention.
By the end of the 1930s, Universal had created an extensive universe filled with vampires, reanimated corpses, werewolves, and invisible men. After dipping into horror in the ’20s, 1931’s Dracula catapulted Universal Monsters into popular culture. Borrowing numerous filmmaking techniques from German Expressionism, Dracula helped define the vampire genre, with Lugosi’s portrayal still considered the archetypal vampire nearly a century later.
Not currently streaming, but available to rent via video-on-demand
Frankenstein
Believing he’s found the secret to creating life, the obsessive Dr. Frankenstein (Colin Clive) launches an ambitious experiment to construct a human being from the assembled remains of various cadavers. When the experiment proves a success, the doctor’s creature (Boris Karloff) escapes, forcing Frankenstein to confront the morality of his unnatural operation.
If Bela Lugosi excelled as the face of pure evil in Dracula, his acting counterpart Boris Karloff’s greatest strength was bringing out a more emotional component as the infamous Monster. Underneath layers of makeup, there’s a deep-seated naivety and childlike wonder in his performance that helped endear his creature to audiences’ hearts. Critics and film scholars continue to debate about Karloff’s greatest film, but there’s little chance of arguing that Frankenstein isn’t his definitively best display of acting.
Not currently streaming, but available to rent via video-on-demand
King Kong
Searching for a scenic location to shoot their next movie, a film crew lands on the mysterious Skull Island, coming into contact with hostile natives, prehistoric dinosaurs, and a massive gorilla known as Kong, who becomes entranced with the movie’s leading lady (Fay Wray).
One of the most important films of its era, King Kong was as larger-than-life a movie as its titular character. Utilizing stop-motion animation considered well ahead of its time, King Kong served as the direct predecessor to practically every kaiju movie that followed. Combining fantasy, horror, and romance into one single cohesive film, King Kong reigned supreme as the definitive monster film decades before Godzilla, Mothra, or Rodan were ever even conceived.
Not currently streaming, but available to rent via video-on-demand
The Invisible Man
Having successfully turned himself invisible, the brilliant scientist Jack Griffin (Claude Rains) searches for ways to reverse his experiment. Routinely failing to make himself visible again, Griffin’s mental state rapidly deteriorates, turning him into a homicidal maniac rampaging throughout the English countryside.
Just as Universal’s cinematic universe was getting bogged down by sequels and crossovers, the company delivered an original horror film with The Invisible Man that was on par with Frankenstein or Dracula. As the eponymous character, Rains relies on an air of sophistication, illustrating Griffin’s subdued desperation to cure his condition and his unbridled insanity in the face of failure. He may not be the first monster to come to mind when viewers think of Universal’s repertoire, but Rains’ unnerving cackle as he strips away his facial bandages is enough to chill even the most hardcore horror buffs today.
Not currently streaming, but available to rent via video-on-demand
Bride of Frankenstein
Having survived the villagers’ attempts to kill him, Frankenstein’s Monster (Boris Karloff) returns to stalk his creator (Colin Clive), coercing Frankenstein into building a female bride (Elsa Lanchester) to be his companion.
Distancing itself slightly from the horror-centric approach of Frankenstein, 1933’s Bride of Frankenstein may surpass the initial film in terms of its eloquence and fantastical nature. Further exploring the Monster’s growing humanity and desire to escape his loneliness, Karloff makes incredible use of his character’s now-vocal performance, once again demonstrating how vulnerable — and downright tragic — the Monster truly is.
Not currently streaming, but available to rent via video-on-demand
Creature from the Black Lagoon
On a research expedition to the jungles of South America, a team of scientists discovers an amphibious humanoid creature who soon develops an uncanny interest in a female member of the group (Julie Adams).
One of the final films released during Universal’s heyday, Creature from the Black Lagoon was also the last memorable horror film that can be categorized under the Universal Classic Monsters’ bannerhead. An exotic cross between King Kong and Frankenstein, Creature from the Black Lagoon set the standard for virtually every creature feature for the next decade. For as many films tried to measure up to it, few came close to matching the emotional undertones and eerie warmth of Black Lagoon, as seen in such memorable scenes as the Gill-man swimming beneath Adams’ heroine.
Not currently streaming, but available to rent via video-on-demand
The Night of the Hunter
Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) is a fanatical, misogynistic serial killer and con man masquerading as a preacher in the Southern U.S. amidst the Great Depression. Winding up in prison, Powell learns that his cellmate has hidden a substantial fortune somewhere on his property, and that only his two young children know exactly where it is.
Directed by acting giant Charles Laughton, The Night of the Hunter is a brilliant blend of several conflicting genres. One part Southern Gothic, one part children’s fable, the film possesses a dreamy atmosphere largely unseen in American cinema at the time. Uniquely complex in its lighting and cinematography, Mitchum’s Powell is the worldly personification of malevolence, a wolf in sheep’s clothing able to be charming one moment and unequivocally terrifying in the next.
Currently streaming on Prime Video
Psycho
Stealing $40,000 from her boss, a real estate secretary (Janet Leigh) goes on the lam, eventually stopping to spend the night at a motel run by an eccentric young man (Anthony Perkins) and his mysterious mother.
By 1960, Alfred Hitchcock was synonymous with the thriller genre, having entranced audiences with his sophisticated, hypnotic films like Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, and so many others. When it came time to film Psycho, however, Hitchcock opted for a change of pace, wading deeper into the horror genre than he ever had before. The results were unpredictable, unnerving, and shocking even by Hitchcock’s standards, leaving audiences who’d seen the film aghast and speechless. Containing filmmaking techniques that still hold up to this day, Hitchcock set the mold for every slasher that came a decade later with Psycho, a spiritual forebear to everything from Halloween to Scream.
Currently streaming on Peacock
The Birds
Happening across a flirtatious lawyer (Rod Taylor), a wealthy socialite (Tippi Hedren) follows the man back to a quaint town on the California coast. There, the local community experiences increasingly aggressive behavior from the native bird population, culminating in coordinated attacks on the town’s residents.
Perhaps the last truly great film of Hitchcock’s career, The Birds turned out to be every bit as horrifying as his previous psychological horror film Psycho, if not more so. Based on Daphne du Maurier’s story of taking one of the world’s most common animals and turning them into thoughtless, unfeeling, tireless killing machines, The Birds was one of Hitch’s ultimate achievements in horror. In it, he’s able to make the audience cringe with fear simply by showing crows gathering on an empty playground, bracing in anticipation at the sound of the telltale avian caws shortly before an attack.
Currently streaming on Peacock
Night of the Living Dead
When corpses begin rising from the grave to attack and devour living people, a group of strangers hides out at a remote farm, defending themselves from the relentless waves of the undead.
Made on a shoestring budget and shot using a largely inexperienced cast and crew, George A. Romero managed to take a centuries-old folkloric creature and turn it into something startlingly new. Introducing many of the archetypes one associates with zombies today, Romero ignited a cultural phenomenon that took the world by storm. An instant hit on the midnight circuit, dozens of zombie films followed, but not even Romero himself came close to replicating the critical influence of Night of the Living Dead.
Currently streaming on HBO Max, Peacock, Tubi, Prime Video, and The Roku Channel
Rosemary’s Baby
Moving into a New York apartment building with a sinister past, aspiring actor Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes) and his wife Rosemary (Mia Farrow) plan on settling down and starting a family together. Upon getting pregnant, Rosemary slowly begins to suspect their kindhearted elderly neighbors (Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer) are secretly occultists who have plans to abduct her child for their own twisted purposes.
Before Midsommar, before Get Out, before even The Shining, there was Rosemary’s Baby. A landmark entry in psychological horror, Rosemary’s Baby proved that you didn’t need to rely on explicit violence to terrify your audience. Continuously building an atmosphere of suspense and ambiguity would leave audiences just as bewildered, confused, and uncertain as the film’s lead character.
Currently streaming on Paramount+
The Exorcist
While working on a movie in Washington, D.C., a film actor (Ellen Burstyn) believes her teenage daughter (Linda Blair) has become possessed by a paranormal entity. Unsure of what to do and urgently needing help, the girl’s mother reaches out to two Catholic priests (Jason Miller and Max von Sydow), who plan on performing an exorcism to banish the entity from the girl’s body.
What Night of the Living Dead did for zombie movies, The Exorcist did for demonic possession films. Attempting to offend its viewers more than simply scare them, The Exorcist has been looked upon as much a source of controversy as it has a subject of praise. Yet for all its criticism, it’s responsible for revolutionizing the horror genre, serving as the highest-earning horror film for just over four decades, proving the appeal horror can have for mainstream audiences.
Not currently streaming, but available to rent via video-on-demand
Jaws
As the Fourth of July approaches, an idyllic summer town in New England is terrorized by a massive, man-eating great white shark. Pressured by the mayor (Murray Hamilton) to do something, the town’s sheriff (Roy Scheider) teams with an oceanographer (Richard Dreyfuss) and a grizzled fisherman (Robert Shaw) to hunt the shark down.
Embarking on a torturous film shoot where nearly everything and anything went wrong, a young Steven Spielberg couldn’t have known he was producing one of the biggest critical and financial smash hits of all time when he was filming Jaws. Often imitated but never duplicated, Spielberg’s clear artistic talents ultimately triumphed over the multitude of roadblocks he faced, from chaotic weather on-location to a malfunctioning mechanical shark that barely worked.
Not currently streaming, but available to rent via video-on-demand
The Shining
Accepting a job as winter caretaker at the isolated Overlook Hotel in the Rocky Mountains, a writer (Jack Nicholson), his wife (Shelley Duvall), and their young son (Danny Lloyd) encounter ghostly apparitions as their stay at the hotel draws on.
Directed by Stanley Kubrick (one of the most influential filmmakers of all time), what The Shining lacks in faithfulness to its source material, it more than makes up for in its sheer originality. Loosely taken from Stephen King’s best-selling novel, Kubrick helped push the boundaries of psychological horror further, veering into almost surreal territory when it came to his exploration of the supernatural. Leaving much of the movie’s plot open to interpretation, Kubrick showed that it’s often the unknown and unseen that can scare us on a more profound level than what we can understand.
Not currently streaming, but available to rent via video-on-demand
