Horror classics from the 20s to the 40s.
by alexanderdavies-99382 | created - 13 Feb 2019 | updated - 22 Apr 2023 | PublicThe Horror genre began in style, during the early 1920s. Europe in particular, played a considerable role in putting the genre on the cinematic map. Hollywood soon followed.
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1. Doctor X (1932)
Unrated | 76 min | Comedy, Crime, Horror
A wisecracking New York reporter intrudes on a research scientist's quest to unmask The Moon Killer.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Lee Tracy, Preston Foster
Votes: 4,266 | Gross: $0.88M
Superb and quite graphic for the times.
2. Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)
Passed | 77 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
The disappearance of people and corpses leads a reporter to a wax museum and a sinister sculptor.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Glenda Farrell, Frank McHugh
Votes: 6,831
A classic film that rivals the early "Universal" horrors.
3. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
Passed | 98 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
Dr. Jekyll faces horrible consequences when he lets his dark side run wild with a potion that transforms him into the animalistic Mr. Hyde.
Director: Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Rose Hobart, Holmes Herbert
Votes: 15,813 | Gross: $2.79M
4. Island of Lost Souls (1932)
Passed | 70 min | Film-Noir, Horror, Sci-Fi
A mad doctor conducts ghastly genetic experiments on a remote island in the South Seas, much to the fear and disgust of the shipwrecked sailor who finds himself trapped there.
Director: Erle C. Kenton | Stars: Charles Laughton, Bela Lugosi, Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams
Votes: 10,909
Sadistic, creepy and memorable.
5. Murders in the Zoo (1933)
Passed | 62 min | Crime, Horror
A monomaniacal zoologist is pathologically jealous of his beautiful but unfaithful wife Evelyn and will not stop short of murder to keep her.
Director: A. Edward Sutherland | Stars: Charles Ruggles, Lionel Atwill, Gail Patrick, Randolph Scott
Votes: 1,783
6. The Magician (I) (1926)
Passed | 83 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A magician/alchemist, seeking to create life, finds that he needs the "blood of a virgin" to continue his experiments. He sends out his dwarf assistant to pick out the right girl.
Director: Rex Ingram | Stars: Alice Terry, Paul Wegener, Firmin Gémier, Iván Petrovich
Votes: 865
7. Freaks (1932)
Not Rated | 64 min | Drama, Horror
A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.
Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Roscoe Ates
Votes: 50,630 | Gross: $0.63M
Highly controversial, banned in the U.K for many years.
8. Mark of the Vampire (1935)
Passed | 60 min | Horror, Mystery
When a nobleman is murdered, a professor of the occult blames vampires, but not all is what it seems.
Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill
Votes: 5,583
A remake of "London after Midnight."
9. Mad Love (1935)
Passed | 68 min | Horror, Romance, Sci-Fi
In Paris, a demented surgeon's obsession with a British actress leads him to secretly replace her concert-pianist husband's mangled hands with those of a guillotined murderer with a gift for knife-throwing.
Director: Karl Freund | Stars: Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive, Ted Healy
Votes: 5,878 | Gross: $0.37M
10. Nosferatu (1922)
Not Rated | 94 min | Fantasy, Horror
Vampire Count Orlok expresses interest in a new residence and real estate agent Hutter's wife.
Director: F.W. Murnau | Stars: Max Schreck, Alexander Granach, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schröder
Votes: 105,494
A vampire movie that is actually frightening.
11. The Walking Dead (1936)
Passed | 66 min | Crime, Drama, Horror
After hapless pianist and ex-con John Elman is framed for murder, he is resurrected by a scientist after his execution.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Boris Karloff, Ricardo Cortez, Edmund Gwenn, Marguerite Churchill
Votes: 3,062
12. The Black Room (1935)
Passed | 68 min | Horror
Ignoring an ancient prophecy, evil brother Gregor seeks to maintain his feudal power on his his Tyrolean estate by murdering and impersonating his benevolent younger twin.
Director: Roy William Neill | Stars: Boris Karloff, Marian Marsh, Robert Allen, Thurston Hall
Votes: 2,255
13. The Man They Could Not Hang (1939)
Unrated | 64 min | Crime, Horror, Sci-Fi
When Dr. Savaard's experiment in cryonics is interrupted by the short-sighted authorities, his volunteer dies, and he is condemned to death. He vows vengeance if he can survive his own hanging.
Director: Nick Grinde | Stars: Boris Karloff, Lorna Gray, Robert Wilcox, Roger Pryor
Votes: 1,965
14. The Man with Nine Lives (1940)
Approved | 74 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A medical researcher visits the deserted home of a pioneer in cryogenic science who disappeared 10 years earlier and finds him frozen in ice but still alive.
Director: Nick Grinde | Stars: Boris Karloff, Roger Pryor, Jo Ann Sayers, Stanley Brown
Votes: 1,107
15. Before I Hang (1940)
Passed | 62 min | Crime, Horror, Sci-Fi
A physician on death row for a mercy killing is allowed to experiment on a serum using a criminals' blood, but secretly tests it on himself. He gets a pardon, but finds out he's become a Jekyll-&-Hyde.
Director: Nick Grinde | Stars: Boris Karloff, Evelyn Keyes, Bruce Bennett, Edward Van Sloan
Votes: 1,416
16. The Devil Commands (1941)
Approved | 65 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
Scientist becomes obsessed with the idea of communicating with his dead wife.
Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: Boris Karloff, Anne Revere, Amanda Duff, Richard Fiske
Votes: 1,440
The best out of the Karloff "Columbia" films.
17. The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942)
Passed | 66 min | Comedy, Horror
A young divorcee tries to convert a historic house into a hotel despite its oddball inhabitants and dead bodies in the cellar.
Director: Lew Landers | Stars: Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Maxie Rosenbloom, Larry Parks
Votes: 1,263
18. Isle of the Dead (1945)
Not Rated | 71 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
On a Greek island during the 1912 war, several people are trapped by quarantine for the plague. If that isn't enough worry, one of the people, a superstitious old peasant woman, suspects ... See full summary »
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Boris Karloff, Ellen Drew, Marc Cramer, Katherine Emery
Votes: 5,265
19. The Body Snatcher (1945)
Approved | 78 min | Horror, Thriller
A ruthless doctor and his young prize student find themselves continually harassed by their murderous supplier of illegal cadavers.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Henry Daniell, Edith Atwater
Votes: 10,192
The best horror film by Val Lewton.
20. Bedlam (1946)
Approved | 79 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
Nell Bowen, the protégé of Lord Mortimer, wants to help change the conditions of notorious St. Mary's of Bethlehem Asylum (Bedlam). Though she tries to reform Bedlam, the cruel Master Sims ... See full summary »
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Boris Karloff, Anna Lee, Billy House, Richard Fraser
Votes: 4,378
21. Cat People (1942)
Not Rated | 73 min | Fantasy, Horror, Thriller
An American man marries a Serbian immigrant who fears that she will turn into the cat person of her homeland's fables if they are intimate together.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Simone Simon, Tom Conway, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph
Votes: 26,004 | Gross: $4.00M
22. The Curse of the Cat People (1944)
Passed | 70 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
The young, friendless daughter of Oliver and Alice Reed befriends her father's dead first wife and an aging, reclusive actress.
Directors: Gunther von Fritsch, Robert Wise | Stars: Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph, Ann Carter
Votes: 7,178
23. The Ghost Ship (1943)
Passed | 69 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Third Officer Tom Merriam accuses Captain Will Stone of being a homicidal maniac, but no one believes him.
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Richard Dix, Russell Wade, Edith Barrett, Ben Bard
Votes: 3,790
24. I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
Passed | 69 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A nurse is hired to care for the wife of a sugar plantation owner, who has been acting strangely, on a Caribbean island.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Frances Dee, Tom Conway, James Ellison, Edith Barrett
Votes: 13,667
25. The Seventh Victim (1943)
Approved | 71 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A woman in search of her missing sister uncovers a Satanic cult in New York's Greenwich Village and finds that they could have something to do with her sibling's random disappearance.
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Kim Hunter, Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell
Votes: 7,578
26. The Leopard Man (1943)
Approved | 66 min | Film-Noir, Horror, Thriller
A seemingly-tame leopard used for a publicity stunt escapes and kills a young girl, spreading panic throughout a sleepy New Mexico town.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Dennis O'Keefe, Margo, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell
Votes: 5,962
27. The Beast with Five Fingers (1946)
Passed | 88 min | Horror, Mystery, Romance
In a turn-of-the-century Renaissance Italian mansion, its tyrannical owner, a wheelchair-bound one-handed pianist with a strong belief in the occult is murdered.
Director: Robert Florey | Stars: Robert Alda, Andrea King, Peter Lorre, Victor Francen
Votes: 3,011
28. The Return of the Vampire (1943)
Not Rated | 69 min | Drama, Horror
When an errant bomb unearths the coffin of a vampire during the London Blitz, a gravedigger unknowingly reanimates the monster by removing the stake from his heart
Director: Lew Landers | Stars: Bela Lugosi, Frieda Inescort, Nina Foch, Roland Varno
Votes: 2,745 | Gross: $1.09M
29. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Not Rated | 67 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Hypnotist Dr. Caligari uses a somnambulist, Cesare, to commit murders.
Director: Robert Wiene | Stars: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher, Lil Dagover
Votes: 70,085
30. The Return of Doctor X (1939)
Passed | 62 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A hotshot reporter and a young doctor team up to investigate a series of grisly murders and a mysterious sample of synthetic blood.
Director: Vincent Sherman | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Rosemary Lane, Wayne Morris, Dennis Morgan
Votes: 2,558
31. The Devil-Doll (1936)
Passed | 78 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
An escaped convict uses miniaturized humans to wreak vengeance on those who framed him.
Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Frank Lawton, Rafaela Ottiano
Votes: 4,959
32. The Undying Monster (1942)
Not Rated | 63 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
Surviving members of an aristocratic English family are threatened by a legendary monster when they venture out on chilly, foggy nights.
Director: John Brahm | Stars: James Ellison, Heather Angel, John Howard, Bramwell Fletcher
Votes: 1,538
33. The Mad Monster (1942)
Approved | 77 min | Drama, Horror, Romance
A mad scientist changes his simple-minded handyman into a werewolf in order to prove his supposedly crazy scientific theories - and exact revenge.
Director: Sam Newfield | Stars: Johnny Downs, George Zucco, Anne Nagel, Glenn Strange
Votes: 1,941
34. Dead Men Walk (1943)
Approved | 64 min | Drama, Horror
The twin of a kindly small-town physician returns from the grave for vengeance against his brother, who secretly killed him because the twin served Satan.
Director: Sam Newfield | Stars: George Zucco, Mary Carlisle, Nedrick Young, Dwight Frye
Votes: 1,684
35. The Black Raven (1943)
Approved | 61 min | Horror, Mystery
A group of strangers are brought together in an old, dark house and must contend with two murders and $50,000 in stolen money.
Director: Sam Newfield | Stars: George Zucco, Wanda McKay, Noel Madison, Robert Livingston
Votes: 830
36. The Flying Serpent (1946)
Approved | 59 min | Horror
The demented archaeologist Dr. Andrew Forbes discovers a living, breathing serpent-creature known to the Aztecs as Quetzalcoatl, the Killer Bird God. Tragically, he causes his wife's death ... See full summary »
Director: Sam Newfield | Stars: George Zucco, Ralph Lewis, Hope Kramer, Eddie Acuff
Votes: 561
37. Fog Island (1945)
Approved | 72 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
An inventor recently released from prison invites a group of former business associates to a holiday in his island home, intending to exact revenge on them.
Director: Terry O. Morse | Stars: George Zucco, Lionel Atwill, Jerome Cowan, Sharon Douglas
Votes: 984
38. Voodoo Man (1944)
Approved | 62 min | Crime, Drama, Horror
Dr. Richard Marlowe uses a combination of voodoo and hypnosis in an attempt to revive his dead wife by transferring the life essences of several hapless young girls he has kidnapped and imprisoned in the dungeon beneath his mansion.
Director: William Beaudine | Stars: Bela Lugosi, John Carradine, George Zucco, Wanda McKay
Votes: 1,187
39. Scared to Death (1946)
Approved | 65 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
From a slab in the morgue, a dead young woman tells the bizarre tale of how she got there, through a maze of murder involving a hypnotist, a midget and a mysterious figure in a green mask.
Director: Christy Cabanne | Stars: Bela Lugosi, George Zucco, Molly Lamont, Nat Pendleton
Votes: 1,773
40. The Corpse Vanishes (1942)
Passed | 64 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A scientist, aided by an old hag and her two sons, kills virginal brides, steals their bodies, and extracts gland fluid to keep his ancient wife alive and young.
Director: Wallace Fox | Stars: Bela Lugosi, Luana Walters, Tristram Coffin, Elizabeth Russell
Votes: 3,514
41. The Vampire Bat (1933)
Passed | 65 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
When corpses drained of blood begin to show up in a European village, vampirism is suspected to be responsible.
Director: Frank R. Strayer | Stars: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Melvyn Douglas, Maude Eburne
Votes: 3,050
An effective little horror production.
42. The Golem (1920)
Unrated | 91 min | Fantasy, Horror
In 16th-century Prague, a rabbi creates the Golem - a giant creature made of clay. Using sorcery, he brings the creature to life in order to protect the Jews of Prague from persecution.
Directors: Paul Wegener, Carl Boese | Stars: Paul Wegener, Albert Steinrück, Ernst Deutsch, Lyda Salmonova
Votes: 8,544
43. Vampyr (1932)
Not Rated | 75 min | Fantasy, Horror
A drifter obsessed with the supernatural stumbles upon an inn where a severely ill adolescent girl is slowly becoming a vampire.
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer | Stars: Julian West, Maurice Schutz, Rena Mandel, Sybille Schmitz
Votes: 20,528
44. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (I) (1920)
Unrated | 69 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Dr. Henry Jekyll experiments with scientific means of revealing the hidden, dark side of man and releases a murderer from within himself.
Director: John S. Robertson | Stars: John Barrymore, Martha Mansfield, Brandon Hurst, Charles Lane
Votes: 6,047
45. The Last Warning (1928)
89 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A producer decides to reopen a theater, that had been closed five years previously when one of the actors was murdered during a performance, by staging a production of the same play with the remaining members of the original cast.
Director: Paul Leni | Stars: Laura La Plante, Montagu Love, Roy D'Arcy, Margaret Livingston
Votes: 809
46. The Hands of Orlac (1924)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
A world-famous pianist loses both hands in an accident. When new hands are grafted on, he doesn't know they once belonged to a murderer.
Director: Robert Wiene | Stars: Conrad Veidt, Alexandra Sorina, Fritz Strassny, Paul Askonas
Votes: 3,385
47. Waxworks (1924)
Not Rated | 107 min | Fantasy, Horror
A wax museum hires a writer to give the sculptures stories. The writer imagines himself and the museum owner's daughter in the stories.
Directors: Leo Birinsky, Paul Leni | Stars: Emil Jannings, Conrad Veidt, Werner Krauss, William Dieterle
Votes: 2,311
48. Häxan (1922)
Not Rated | 91 min | Documentary, Fantasy, Horror
Fictionalized documentary showing the evolution of witchcraft, from its pagan roots to its confusion with hysteria in Eastern Europe.
Director: Benjamin Christensen | Stars: Benjamin Christensen, Elisabeth Christensen, Maren Pedersen, Clara Pontoppidan
Votes: 16,738
49. The Phantom Carriage (1921)
Not Rated | 107 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
On New Year's Eve, the driver of a ghostly carriage forces a drunken man to reflect on his selfish, wasted life.
Director: Victor Sjöström | Stars: Victor Sjöström, Hilda Borgström, Tore Svennberg, Astrid Holm
Votes: 14,093
50. The Student of Prague (1913)
Approved | 85 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Balduin, a student of Prague, leaves his roystering companions in the beer garden, when he finds he has reached the end of his resources. He is scarcely seated in a quiet corner when a ... See full summary »
Directors: Hanns Heinz Ewers, Stellan Rye | Stars: Paul Wegener, Grete Berger, Lyda Salmonova, John Gottowt
Votes: 2,400
51. The Student of Prague (1926)
110 min | Drama, Horror
For Balduin, going out to beer parties with his fellow students and fighting out disputes at the tip of the sword have lost their charms. He wants to find love; but how would he, a ... See full summary »
Director: Henrik Galeen | Stars: Conrad Veidt, Elizza La Porta, Fritz Alberti, Ágnes Eszterházy
Votes: 768
52. Faust (1926)
Not Rated | 107 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
The demon Mephisto wagers with God that he can corrupt a mortal man's soul.
Director: F.W. Murnau | Stars: Gösta Ekman, Emil Jannings, Camilla Horn, Frida Richard
Votes: 16,633
53. The Haunted Castle (1921)
Not Rated | 69 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
In the castle Vogeloed, a few aristocrats are awaiting baroness Safferstätt. But first count Oetsch invites himself.. Everyone thinks he murdered his brother, baroness Safferstat's first ... See full summary »
Director: F.W. Murnau | Stars: Arnold Korff, Lulu Kyser-Korff, Lothar Mehnert, Paul Hartmann
Votes: 2,064
54. Genuine: The Tragedy of a Vampire (1920)
88 min | Horror
Genuine is an ancient and cruel divinity, who seduces men and induce them to kill as a proof of love.
Director: Robert Wiene | Stars: Fern Andra, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, Ernst Gronau, Harald Paulsen
Votes: 1,130
55. Warning Shadows (1923)
Unrated | 90 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A wealthy man invites the local wealthy bachelors over for a puppet show about men who covet another man's wife. The puppeteer is actually a witch and gives the men nightmares about what could happen if they date the lady of the house.
Director: Arthur Robison | Stars: Fritz Kortner, Ruth Weyher, Gustav von Wangenheim, Eugen Rex
Votes: 1,126
56. Cagliostro - Liebe und Leben eines großen Abenteurers (1929)
58 min | Horror, Thriller
Cagliostro, an Italian adventurer rises through the French aristocracy on account of his magical tricks, medical knowledge and ability to foretell the future. When he falls from grace after... See full summary »
Director: Richard Oswald | Stars: Hans Stüwe, Renée Héribel, Alfred Abel, Ivan Koval-Samborsky
Votes: 143
57. The Head of Janus (1920)
107 min | Horror
Two opposing characters are hidden in the person of the inconspicuous London gentleman.Dr.Warren and Janus
Director: F.W. Murnau | Stars: Conrad Veidt, Magnus Stifter, Margarete Schlegel, Willy Kaiser-Heyl
Votes: 166
58. The Living Dead (1932)
89 min | Comedy, Sci-Fi, Horror
A crazed scientist murders his wife, walls her up, then flees. A reporter sets out to track him down.
Director: Richard Oswald | Stars: Paul Wegener, Maria Koppenhöfer, Blandine Ebinger, Eugen Klöpfer
Votes: 146
59. The Hunchback and the Dancer (1920)
50 min | Horror
Wilton, a hunchback, who was always scorned and ridiculed by women, returns from Java a rich man after having discovered a diamond mine. He romances Gina, who is on the rebound from a ... See full summary »
Director: F.W. Murnau | Stars: Sascha Gura, John Gottowt, Paul Biensfeldt, Anna von Palen
Votes: 86
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