The Greatest Horror Movies of All-Time; Is ‘The Exorcist' King?

Do you like scary movies? Of course you do. Halloween is upon us, and with countless horror lists popping up online, it’s the perfect time to share some recommendations — both from myself and our readers.

There’s an assortment of lists out there for the occasion. Variety and Slant name Texas Chainsaw Massacre the greatest horror film of all time. Empire Magazine and IGN favor The Shining. IndieWire champions Possession, while The Guardian hails Psycho. Meanwhile, Paste, Time Out, Bloody Disgusting, The Telegraph, Parade, and Rolling Stone seem to agree: the crown goes to The Exorcist.

And really, it’s got to be “The Exorcist.” Friedkin’s classic was one of the first films to tackle exorcisms, gore, and psychological terror with such intensity. Beneath the shocking imagery, it’s a story about a young girl’s loss of innocence — and it still leaves one in a state of perpetual horror. A nightmare vision delivered with Friedkin’s keen eye for realism. A match made in hell.

If anything, the best horror films are the ones grounded in realism. The more authentic it feels, the more terrifying it becomes. You need to believe that what you’re seeing could actually happen in our world. That what if this were real? feeling is what separates truly great horror from the rest. That’s why, for example, more than 50 years later, Tobe Hooper’s “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” still resonates. Shot on a shoestring budget, the film’s events—however deranged and disturbing—feel frighteningly plausible.

Hitchcock’s “Psycho” remains endlessly rewatchable. I’ve seen it at least half a dozen times, all on the big screen, and it somehow gets better with every revisit. It shattered taboos in its depiction of violence and sexuality—yes, a simple bra on a bed was once shocking, and even a toilet flushing raised eyebrows—and it boldly upended narrative convention by killing off its apparent protagonist midway through the film. Bernard Herrmann’s piercing score is now legendary, a masterclass in how an unrestrained, experimental approach to sound can create the most chilling kind of terror.

The following twenty movies are the most seminal examples in my book. This is my Mount Rushmore of horror.

1. The Exorcist (William Friedkin)

2. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick)

3. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock)

4. Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski)

5. Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero)

6. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper)

7. Don’t Look Now (Nicolas Roeg)

8. The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sánchez)

9. The Thing (John Carpenter)

10. The Omen (Richard Donner)

11. Carrie (Brian De Palma)

12. Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau)

13. Alien (Ridley Scott)

14. The Fly (David Cronenberg)

15. Diabolique (Henri-Georges Clouzot)

16. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (Robert Aldrich)

17. Audition (Takashi Miike)

18. The Haunting (Robert Wise)

19. Halloween (John Carpenter)

20. The Others (Alejandro Amenábar)

The crown jewel of this list, though, is probably Kubrick’s “The Shining.” Initially met with lukewarm reviews nearly 45 years ago, it’s now considered a masterwork. Who can forget Danny Torrance whispering “REDRUM,” or Jack Nicholson’s terrifying “Here’s Johnny!” as he hacks through a bathroom door? The Shining doesn’t just bend the rules of horror — it refuses to follow any rules at all. Jack’s descent into madness is still hypnotic, and terrifying to this day.

Perhaps the most “controversial” pick here is “The Blair Witch Project,” but audiences in 1999, which included myself, were genuinely terrified. Myrick and Sánchez’s groundbreaking film didn’t just scare viewers — it launched the “found footage” movement, influencing over a decade of horror (Paranormal Activity, REC, Cloverfield) and even crossing into drama (End of Watch, Chronicle). It was never done more terrifying than in ‘Blair Witch,’ aided by its $60,000 budget, which only made the drama look so real.

So, what do you think? Is “The Exorcist” truly the greatest horror film ever made, or has time crowned a new champion of fear? Maybe it’s “The Shining,” ‘Texas Chainsaw,’ “Psycho,” or something entirely unexpected that still keeps you up at night. I’d love to hear your picks — the movies that crawled under your skin, lingered in your mind, and made you sleep with the lights on. The best horror stories don’t just scare us — they stay with us.