Want to know the best Horror Movies? How about the worst Horror Movies? Curious about Horror Movies box office grosses or which Horror Movies movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Horror Movies movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information…and a lot more.
This page looks at the Top 100 Horror Movies….statistically speaking. What does that mean? We looked at box office grosses, reviews from critics & audiences and award recognition and put them in our witches cauldron. We mixed all the stats together and came up with our Top 100 Horror Movies. Our top ranked Horror Movie….was a box office hit, was loved by critics and audiences and even managed to win the Best Picture Oscar®. The following table shows all the stats involved that helped us reach our rankings. Obviously they are way more Horror Movies out there. Is your favorite Horror Movie missing?….just commented at the bottom and we will research and see if your suggestion can crack our Top 100 Horror Movies. To see all 600+ Horror Movies we researched…check out this link. UMR Horror Movies
Drivel Part: Years ago we got a request from Steve Lensman to do a Horror Movie UMR page. The last four or five Octobers we have thought we should do that Horror Movie page and every year before we knew it…Halloween would be over! Well today, WoC (Wife of Cogerson) was working on the database and pulling in information on 1000s of movies. When I saw that she was pulling in information on Thrillers….I casually mentioned…..”You should do that with Horror Movies…Steve has been asking for that page for years”. Well….three hours later….WoC had an UMR page with almost 400 Horror movies. So for the first time ever…..UMR has a page that was not completed by Cogerson….nope this baby belongs to WoC. So let me be the first to say it….GREAT JOB WoC!
Horror Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.
- Sort Horror Movies by the stars of the movies
- Sort Horror Movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses based on actual ticket sells (in millions)
- Sort Horror Movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Horror Movies by how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Horror Movie received.
- Sort Horror Movies movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
*** During our update we lost our easy to find search box. Well WoC did some work and found a new way to search through this massive table. In the second row….first column…you will see “Movie (Year)”. You can type in a search word here and it will search the table.
Breakdown by decades:
- 1920s……3 movies
- 1930s……9 movies
- 1940s……3 movies
- 1950s……8 movies
- 1960s……7 movies
- 1970s…..14 movies
- 1980s…..12 movies
- 1990s…..15 movies
- 2000s…..14 movies
- 2010s…..14 movies
I’m new to this site, and what a doozy of a list to start with!
Quite probably the most interesting ‘best of horror’ list I’ve seen, really fun to see how the statistics play out, and how what is popular absolutely does not always chime with what has the most vocal fans.
Anyway, it’s official! Aliens is better than Alien, and the 2005 King Kong is better than the 1933 King Kong! – two opinions I don’t hold personally, but one can’t argue with the numbers – just part of why numbers are so much fun.
Hey Alex
1. Glad you found our movie site.
2. Even gladder that you like this statistical look at horror movies.
3. Your kind words about the page are greatly appreciated. We call this the statistically best horror movies….obviously lists are made to be argued with….so seeing you like our rankings…makes us feel pretty damn good.
4. I personally think Aliens is a far better movie…I re-watch Aliens all the time….Alien…is the grand daddy…but I find it to be pretty slowly paced these days….still a classic….but not one I feel the need to re-watch.
5. The original King Kong got ignored by the Oscar voters…which gave it an edge…..but in this case…I have to personally say King Kong (1933) is the better of the two.
6. The numbers being fun….is the reason for this website…..that is an excellent way to say it….thanks again for some great feedback.
LOVE the inclusion of The Bad Seed (1956)….but #22 is WAY too high.
The story itself, is AMAZINGLY subversive, especially given the year it was released…..this type of ‘content’ is something that MAYBE could have been released in the late 60’s, or the 1970’s, but the fact that it got released in the ultra-conservative 1950’s, is a COMPLETE mind-blower!
Unfortunately, because of this (the conservative era of it’s release), the producers of the film ended up ‘chickening out’ with the (original) play’s ending (SPOILER ALERT! In the play, the mother dies, and the ‘bad seed’ (her daughter), lives), and instead, killed off the little girl at film’s end, seen as ‘punishment’ for her evil deeds depicted over the course of the movie.
For that reason, and the fact that the film is WAY too long (with better editing, this could have been a MUCH more fluid, and possibly even taut, film), one that is slow to develop (and even (arguably) deadly dull at a few points), this movie just should not be rated as high as it is.
Just my opinion.
Hey Mark…..glad you liked the inclusion of The Bad Seed. You gotta give The Bad Seed more credit…..it was huge success….got good reviews and even picked up 4 Oscar nominations…..all stout statistics.
Love the mini-review of The Bad Seed…..I have seen it once but it was a long time ago. I agree back then movies were so watered down. I appreciate your visit and comment.
FLATLINERS (1990), one of the best 100 horror movies of all time? NO.
Is it an interesting story, with some good, to very good elements? Yes.
Is it anywhere near being one of the greatest horror movies of all time. Again, NO.
Hey Mark….I agree with you about Flatliners…..it’s 59% critic audience rating is one of the lowest of the Top 100 movies. This page looks at the best “Statistically”…..and then the fact that Flatliners did so well at the box office….and got an Oscar nomination…..put it in the Top 100. Good feedback.
Hello Bruce,
For me I saw most of these films and most of them are not horror films but classical or great films like Cat People, where the actress was French, Simone Simon , The Birds, Jaws and so many…
I like very much all the Scream, Alien, even a film like Baby Jane, but for me it is just a battle between two old classical stars …and the winner is….
I love some films like Rosemary , Wolf, Sleepy Hollow with its mystic situation…but I don’t find a film I saw just one time in French it is “La nuit des Morts vivants” but I don’t know the title in English, and I don’t won’t to go to Internet to find out it because every time I do that , I lost my comment….twice to night…
A very good page
Hello Pierre,
La nuit des Morts vivants should be Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Greetings from Germany 🙂
Hey Lupino….thanks for giving Pierre the answer he was looking for….you are the man!
Bonsoir lupino,
Thank you and it is a little fun because I did not even think that it was exactly the translation.
Anyway now this film is in the page and By the way we have a so hot weekend in France now in October that I have the good feeling to be in vacation again.
Merci and bonne soirée ?
Pierre
Hey Pierre……that movie is now on the page…..not sure how long it will stay on the Top 100….as new horror movies seem to come out every week….just this week Happy Death Day got off to a great start.
Bonsoir Pierre,
yes, sometimes even the little french I know can be useful 😉
I can imagine how hot it must have been in France, for even here in Germany, after days and days of rain, wind and cold temperatures, the summer has returned- and what a difference a blue sky can make!
Glad you weather is getting better Lupino…..in the states we are preparing for winter…..so seeing sun might be a challenge for the next 4 months.
Hey Pierre….thanks for checking out our Horror Movie page…..it was a long time coming…but this is a good start….seems like I am constantly adding movies to this page. As “La nuit des Morts vivants” there was a glitch…and for some reason it was not included….but it is now on the table…and has a spot in the Top 100. The granddad of all zombie movies sits in 93rd place…..not sure how long it will stay in the Top 100….but it is there currently.
I think Horror….has a wide meaning…so some of the ones you like….are in the Horror genre and lots of other genres….good to see the classics have held their power for you…today…it seems a horror movie is almost restricted to “slasher movies”…..but this list has lots of terror in it…..as well as some of the better slasher movies. Good feedback.
Hi
A great list of movies. I’ve seen about 80 of them. I think one of the scariest movies for me was The Ring and The Thing. I think the old Universal ones, while not scary, were very atmospheric. Top of the list has to be Bride of Frankenstein followed by Frankenstein. As a kid I adored Bela Lugosi’s Dracula. Now it looks very dated, although the first half was very good. It really goes downhill when the Count goes to London.
Of the more modern, Rosemary’s Baby would be the most effective. Of course, Psycho. Interesting that they redone the movie in color scene by scene, but it didn’t have the same touch of Hitchcock.
As a teenager I remember watching a season of Vincent Price movies. The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven and best of all Masque of the Red Death. I think of all the horror stars, Vincent Price had the most incredible voice. Lugosi was pin holed and could never really escape Dracula. Karloff was the ultimate Frankenstein monster.
A great list, thanks.
Hey Chris….thanks for checking out our horror movie page. We are right there together with having watched 80 of these movies. The Thing is still a scary movie to watch…..even though I have seen it many many times. I made my oldest watch it when he was about 12….it scared him to death….but now he loves it….and can’t wait to show it to his kid.
The movies that scared me the most as a kid..were Halloween and Phantasm…..Phantasm did not crack the Top 100….but boy did it scare me as a kid. You are right the Universal Classics are not scary anymore..but they are still excellent. I am sure back in the 1930s they gave lots of people nightmares.
When WoC (Wife of Cogerson) was putting this page together…at one point she said…”Should I just include every Vincent Price movie?” His voice made his horror movies even better.
The Psycho remake was awful. Which was amazing since it was a shot by shot remake. Nobody can be Hitchcock besides Sir Alfred Hitchcock….lol. Thanks for the comment.