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
Silence of the Lambs isn’t Horror, in my opinion. It’s more thriller/suspense/ crime
I agree with Tony, Silence of the Lambs is a thriller. Also, King Kong (2005) is in no way a horror movie.
same with jaws. Its a drama/thriller
Joe…I worked on this page for almost 10 months…I would say 80% of the books, lists, I read and referenced, had Silence of the Lambs as a not only a horror movie but the best horror movie. Statistically it is the best…..but I understand your point.
Hey Colton….gotta agree to disagree…Jaws scared me and all my friends. So many people do not go in the ocean because of this movie. I tried to get my 12 year old to watch this one….it terrified her….could not sleep for a week (we live by the Atlantic Ocean)…and I was in the wife doghouse for days for letting her watch about half of the movie. So that is generations it has scared….which in my mind and many others….makes it a horror movie.
During it’s original run almost over 80 years ago King Kong terrified audiences. Scenes had to be cut out of the movie (the spider sequence) because people could not handle the movie. Today we view it as tame back then it was terror. That being said…I agree with you….but the months I researched this page….many lists had Kong in the horror movie….and in the end…I left it on the list.
Hey Joe….just realized you were talking about King Kong (2005)….I can tell you that the movie scared the hell out of my now 23 year old Marine son….when he took him to see it in theaters…OMG..13 years ago.
Happy Halloween Everyone!
Currently watching Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas, haven’t yet decided what to watch later. Maybe The Exorcist, or how about Bram Stoker’s Dracula? Romero’s Dawn of the Dead would be a good choice, and to end the night – Night of the Demon (1957), perfect. 🙂
HI BRUCE Steve knows that whilst he is an avid horror movie fan [and I see this page originated some years ago at HIS request] I find boring those ones with repetitive gore and slashing. However there have been numerous flicks in the genre that I’ve liked down the years and here is just a small selection of the many ones listed in your chart that have pleased me the most.
House of Wax –Ah Vincent!
The Bruce from 20,000 fathoms – they don’t come any bigger than that Beast!
Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1956 – par excellence.
An American Werewolf in Manchester – that’s the place for him all right!
The Thing [1982] – Surprised you rated the 1951 version more highly.
Manhunter [1986] 1st Hannibal Lecter film. I’ve watched it more than “Lambs”.
Whatever Happened to Baby Joel? – a real scary guy when he grew up!
The Bad Seed- a real sleeper in 1956 [$191 mil adjusted] Well chosen Sir.
Dressed to Kill – Sir Maurice goes Psycho.
Traditionally you will Split hairs [and the pun IS intended] to get a Willis movie onto your pages and as you know I’m a great admirer of Brucie’s 6th Sense and his work in it. However I am not sure that I would regard that one as a horror film but more like a brilliant ghost story [and indeed IMDB classes it as simply a “mystery thriller”].
However there’s no great sin in your having the poetic license to apply a very broad definition as to what constitutes a horror flick but within that context I would have had Apocalypse Now near the top of the chart. Many who have experienced the horrors of war first hand have had more nightmares about them than you, Steve or I have probably suffered after seeing “Bela” staring out of the screen at us with mad eyes.
After all Francis’ Vietnam masterpiece closes with the mad Col Kurtz proclaiming by voice-over in that renowned clear Brando diction the now famous movie line “The horror! The horror!”
However that’s just me being over-fussy about definitions and over all your table is a very enjoyable comprehensive huge-fun chart, painstakingly researched as usual, that I was pleased to be reacquainted with as Halloween approaches.
So “Voted Up!” Though you know you are spoiling up and we’ll expect a Christmas special when the time comes. It will be great to see Die Hard on a list again! [Sorry about that but “There’s a little devil leaping in my laughing Irish eyes.”]
Must go though as there’s a knock at the door. Mike Myers usually calls with us at this time of year. He loves seeing the surprise on my grandchildren’ faces when he says “Trick or Treat!”
Hey Bob
1. Thanks for sharing your favorites…of those favorites…seen all of them….and liked all of them
2. As for The Sixth Sense…I agree with you….it is not my idea of a horror movie….but in lots of lists….it is considered one of the few Horror movies to earn a Best Picture nomination….I would put Silence of the Lambs in the same group.
3. In the end…I think less people have issue with it being included than people who would be mad it was not included. Was watching a video this weekend…and the question was…What was the scariest movie you ever saw….The Sixth Sense got mentioned three times.
4. In the Cogerson household….I got in trouble with WoC for showing the little ones The Sixth Sense….or at least some of The Sixth Sense….they freaked out and did not sleep for a week.
5. As for Apocalypse Now….I have heard it saying the “horror” of war…but other than your comment…have I ever heard it mentioned as a horror movie.
6. Good point about war veterans. Back in my House of Video days…we had a Vietnam veteran….who could not even look at the VHS (that’s how long ago) cover of Hamburglar Hill. He had been in that brutal battle.
7. Good to see Michael making it overseas…if Jason can make it to deep space….making it to Ireland should be a piece of cake…lol.
Good stuff as always.
HI BRUCE
Thanks for the explanations.
It’s always hair splitting to categorise some movies. Though as I regard 6th Sense as a “ghost story” I have to say that 1961’s The Innocents starring Deborah Kerr was one of the scariest movies that I’ve ever seen.
You rate it slightly higher than 6th Sense in the table above 83% to 81% though it had nowhere near the same box office clout, a meagre $41 million against $516 million domestically [and well over a billion worldwide in today’s money] for the Willis flick.
Ironically IMDB which refuses to regard 6th Sense as horror classifies The Innocents as being in that genre. However I suppose you site moderators/list compilers can’t please everybody and get total agreement with your choices and decisions. Great the way you have charts like this one full updated by the way.
Some co-stars and technicians including Francis might well contend that the real “horror” connected with Apocalypse Now were the antics of Bud himself! Any hugely enjoyable Halloween feast in your table for a movie buff.
I’m interested in eventually seeing the new Halloween, there’s no rush but I can’t work up much enthusiasm for The Nun.
Jamie Lee Curtis is quite rightly thrilled with the success of Halloween 2018.
This was her tweet last week –
“OK. I’m going for one BOAST post. Biggest horror movie opening with a female lead.
Biggest movie opening with a female lead over 55.
Second biggest October movie opening ever.
Biggest Halloween opening ever “
Hey Steve…Halloween is a massive hit….which probably means a sequel every other year for the next decade or so. The Nun got horrible reviews by the critics and audiences…shocked it did not die after the first weekend….seems word of mouth should have derailed that movie. Kudos to The Nun for overcoming those reviews….I just did not see that coming. I like your JLC boast…proud proud day seeing you talking about box office records. Good stuff as always.
FYI…For years I kept putting off writing this page….and then last year WoC put this together….now this year I forgot all about the page…which is a perfect for this time of year….so only 4 days from Halloween..I finally bother to dust this one off…and share it in a few places. So what happens….it zips right to the front….and almost single handily gives us a great view day. Wow…this site…might get popular….if I was not running it…lol.
Hi Bruce
Very cool page.
However, when you filter on Adj. B.O., you see the lowest grossing movies of 412 entries.
“Showing 1 to 100 of 412 entries (filtered from 20,531 total entries)”
Hey Søren……Hmmmm…..well….that was confusing at first. Our Horror movie page has over 400 movies. On this page….the default setting (the table you see) was the UMR Top 100. When you change the sorting setting….the database sorts through all 400 plus movies in the file….so the first time you hit the box office column….it pulled the bottom 100 box office horror movies….if you hit the sort button again…it will pull the top 100 box office horror movies…..the same thing happens if you sort by reviews, Oscars and UMR Score…..so you can actually get lots of Top 100 lists…and lots of Bottom 100 lists. If you sort by UMR score…you can get back the original rankings. At first..I was like….we need to fix it….but now that I understand how it is working….it seems like a pretty cool addition…confusing for sure…but pretty cool. Good catch!
Hey Søren…the best example of this is 2018’s The Nun. The Nun did not crack the Top 100 UMR Horror movies…just missing by 6 spots….as it reached 106th. So on the default setting….you do not see The Nun at all. If you sort by box office….up pops The Nun in 78th place….as it is the 78th biggest horror movie in our database. Tricky table…but lots of information for those that explore…it is like an UMR Easter Egg. It would be cool to say we did it on purpose…but this is a happy accident…lol.
Accidentally UMR Easter Egg? I like it.
Hey Steve…..it would be even cooler if we had done this on purpose….but maybe WoC (Wife of Cogerson) did just that….lol.