30 BEST HORROR MOVIES OF ALL TIME

by heronkendall-125-796451 | created - 01 Mar 2012 | updated - 21 Dec 2012 | Public
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1. Jaws (1975)

PG | 124 min | Adventure, Mystery, Thriller

87 Metascore

When a killer shark unleashes chaos on a beach community off Cape Cod, it's up to a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer to hunt the beast down.

Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary

Votes: 659,150 | Gross: $260.00M

2. The Exorcist (1973)

R | 122 min | Horror

83 Metascore

When a young girl is possessed by a mysterious entity, her mother seeks the help of two Catholic priests to save her life.

Director: William Friedkin | Stars: Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Linda Blair, Lee J. Cobb

Votes: 454,731 | Gross: $232.91M

3. The Shining (1980)

R | 146 min | Drama, Horror

68 Metascore

A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.

Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers

Votes: 1,105,971 | Gross: $44.02M

4. Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Approved | 137 min | Drama, Horror

96 Metascore

A young couple trying for a baby moves into an aging, ornate apartment building on Central Park West, where they find themselves surrounded by peculiar neighbors.

Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer

Votes: 235,016

5. The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

R | 107 min | Horror, Thriller

52 Metascore

A traveling family falls victim to a group of mutated cannibals in a desert far away from civilization.

Director: Alexandre Aja | Stars: Ted Levine, Kathleen Quinlan, Dan Byrd, Emilie de Ravin

Votes: 183,197 | Gross: $41.78M

6. The Innocents (1961)

Not Rated | 100 min | Horror

88 Metascore

A young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted.

Director: Jack Clayton | Stars: Deborah Kerr, Peter Wyngarde, Megs Jenkins, Michael Redgrave

Votes: 33,052 | Gross: $2.62M

7. Poltergeist (1982)

PG | 114 min | Horror, Thriller

79 Metascore

A family's home is haunted by a host of demonic ghosts.

Director: Tobe Hooper | Stars: JoBeth Williams, Heather O'Rourke, Craig T. Nelson, Beatrice Straight

Votes: 179,481 | Gross: $76.61M

8. Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)

R | 123 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror

62 Metascore

A vampire tells his epic life story: love, betrayal, loneliness, and hunger.

Director: Neil Jordan | Stars: Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Antonio Banderas, Kirsten Dunst

Votes: 347,273 | Gross: $105.26M

9. The Changeling (1980)

R | 107 min | Horror, Mystery

70 Metascore

After the death of his wife and daughter in a car crash, a music professor staying at a long-vacant Seattle mansion is dragged into a decades-old mystery by an inexplicable presence in the mansion's attic.

Director: Peter Medak | Stars: George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere, Melvyn Douglas, Jean Marsh

Votes: 39,980

10. Dawn of the Dead (2004)

R | 101 min | Action, Horror

59 Metascore

A nurse, a policeman, a young married couple, a salesman and other survivors of a worldwide plague that is producing aggressive, flesh-eating zombies, take refuge in a mega Midwestern shopping mall.

Director: Zack Snyder | Stars: Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Mekhi Phifer, Jake Weber

Votes: 272,328 | Gross: $59.02M

11. The Mist (2007)

R | 126 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

58 Metascore

A freak storm unleashes a species of bloodthirsty creatures on a small town, where a small band of citizens hole up in a supermarket and fight for their lives.

Director: Frank Darabont | Stars: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden, Andre Braugher

Votes: 340,138 | Gross: $25.59M

12. The Descent (2005)

R | 99 min | Adventure, Horror, Thriller

71 Metascore

A caving expedition goes horribly wrong, as the explorers become trapped and ultimately pursued by a strange breed of predators.

Director: Neil Marshall | Stars: Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder

Votes: 246,803 | Gross: $26.02M

13. Ringu (1998)

Not Rated | 96 min | Horror, Mystery

A reporter and her ex-husband investigate a cursed video tape that is rumored to kill the viewer seven days after watching it.

Director: Hideo Nakata | Stars: Nanako Matsushima, Miki Nakatani, Yûko Takeuchi, Hitomi Satô

Votes: 77,448

14. Audrey Rose (1977)

PG | 113 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror

A stranger attempts to convince a happily married couple that their daughter is actually his daughter reincarnated.

Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Marsha Mason, John Beck, Susan Swift

Votes: 6,683

15. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

PG | 115 min | Horror, Sci-Fi

75 Metascore

When strange seeds drift to earth from space, mysterious pods begin to grow and invade San Francisco, replicating the city's residents one body at a time.

Director: Philip Kaufman | Stars: Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright

Votes: 69,806 | Gross: $24.95M

16. Carrie (1976)

R | 98 min | Horror, Mystery

86 Metascore

Carrie White, a shy, friendless teenage girl who is sheltered by her domineering, religious mother, unleashes her telekinetic powers after being humiliated by her classmates at her senior prom.

Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, John Travolta

Votes: 206,568 | Gross: $33.80M

17. Psycho (1960)

R | 109 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller

97 Metascore

A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin

Votes: 717,961 | Gross: $32.00M

18. The Omen (1976)

R | 111 min | Horror, Mystery

62 Metascore

Mysterious deaths surround an American ambassador. Could the child that he is raising actually be the Antichrist? The Devil's own son?

Director: Richard Donner | Stars: Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, Harvey Stephens, David Warner

Votes: 132,328 | Gross: $4.27M

19. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

R | 83 min | Horror

90 Metascore

Five friends head out to rural Texas to visit the grave of a grandfather. On the way they stumble across what appears to be a deserted house, only to discover something sinister within. Something armed with a chainsaw.

Director: Tobe Hooper | Stars: Marilyn Burns, Edwin Neal, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain

Votes: 183,504 | Gross: $30.86M

20. Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

R | 128 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror

57 Metascore

The centuries old vampire Count Dracula comes to England to seduce his barrister Jonathan Harker's fiancée Mina Murray and inflict havoc in the foreign land.

Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu Reeves

Votes: 238,298 | Gross: $82.52M

21. 30 Days of Night (2007)

R | 113 min | Action, Horror, Thriller

53 Metascore

After an Alaskan town is plunged into darkness for a month, it is attacked by a bloodthirsty gang of vampires.

Director: David Slade | Stars: Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston, Ben Foster

Votes: 189,323 | Gross: $39.57M

22. Saw (2004)

R | 103 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller

46 Metascore

Two strangers awaken in a room with no recollection of how they got there, and soon discover they're pawns in a deadly game perpetrated by a notorious serial killer.

Director: James Wan | Stars: Cary Elwes, Leigh Whannell, Danny Glover, Ken Leung

Votes: 466,497 | Gross: $56.00M

23. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

R | 91 min | Horror

76 Metascore

Teenager Nancy Thompson must uncover the dark truth concealed by her parents after she and her friends become targets of the spirit of a serial killer with a bladed glove in their dreams, in which if they die, it kills them in real life.

Director: Wes Craven | Stars: Heather Langenkamp, Johnny Depp, Robert Englund, John Saxon

Votes: 262,335 | Gross: $25.50M

24. The Thing (1982)

R | 109 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi

57 Metascore

A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.

Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Keith David, Richard Masur

Votes: 466,348 | Gross: $13.78M

25. Hard Candy (2005)

R | 104 min | Drama, Thriller

58 Metascore

Hayley's a smart, charming teenage girl. Jeff's a handsome, smooth fashion photographer. An Internet chat, a coffee shop meet-up, an impromptu fashion shoot back at Jeff's place. Jeff thinks it's his lucky night. He's in for a surprise.

Director: David Slade | Stars: Patrick Wilson, Elliot Page, Sandra Oh, Odessa Rae

Votes: 168,038 | Gross: $1.01M

26. Halloween (1978)

R | 91 min | Horror, Thriller

90 Metascore

Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.

Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tony Moran, Nancy Kyes

Votes: 306,667 | Gross: $47.00M

27. Misery (1990)

R | 107 min | Drama, Thriller

75 Metascore

After a famous author is rescued from a car crash by a fan of his novels, he comes to realize that the care he is receiving is only the beginning of a nightmare of captivity and abuse.

Director: Rob Reiner | Stars: James Caan, Kathy Bates, Richard Farnsworth, Frances Sternhagen

Votes: 235,423 | Gross: $61.28M

28. The Others (2001)

PG-13 | 104 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller

74 Metascore

In 1945, immediately following the end of Second World War, a woman who lives with her two photosensitive children on her darkened old family estate in the Channel Islands becomes convinced that the home is haunted.

Director: Alejandro Amenábar | Stars: Nicole Kidman, Christopher Eccleston, Fionnula Flanagan, Alakina Mann

Votes: 393,079 | Gross: $96.52M

29. The Sixth Sense (1999)

PG-13 | 107 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

64 Metascore

Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist, starts treating a young boy, Cole, who encounters dead people and convinces him to help them. In turn, Cole helps Malcolm reconcile with his estranged wife.

Director: M. Night Shyamalan | Stars: Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams

Votes: 1,050,836 | Gross: $293.51M

30. Alien (1979)

R | 117 min | Horror, Sci-Fi

89 Metascore

The crew of a commercial spacecraft encounters a deadly lifeform after investigating a mysterious transmission of unknown origin.

Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Veronica Cartwright

Votes: 949,893 | Gross: $78.90M



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