Essential Horrors
by firefynjy | created - 23 Mar 2021 | updated - 23 Mar 2021 | PublicThe best of horror, art-horror and horror related films, highly recommended.
- Instant Watch Options
- Genres
- Movies or TV
- IMDb Rating
- In Theaters
- Release Year
- Keywords
1. The Tenant (1976)
R | 126 min | Drama, Thriller
A bureaucrat rents a Paris apartment where he finds himself drawn into a rabbit hole of dangerous paranoia.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Roman Polanski, Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas, Jo Van Fleet
Votes: 47,642 | Gross: $1.92M
2. House (1977)
Not Rated | 88 min | Comedy, Horror
A schoolgirl and six of her classmates travel to her aunt's country home, which turns out to be haunted.
Director: Nobuhiko Ôbayashi | Stars: Kimiko Ikegami, Miki Jinbo, Kumiko Ôba, Ai Matsubara
Votes: 33,753
3. Reflections (1987)
102 min | Drama, Horror, Romance
Piano teacher is deeply traumatised by the events of his childhood, as well as by political oppression in his youth. Decades later, all those traumas lead to carnage.
Director: Goran Markovic | Stars: Mustafa Nadarevic, Anica Dobra, Milorad Mandic-Manda, Bogdan Diklic
Votes: 1,318
4. Hour of the Wolf (1968)
Not Rated | 88 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
While vacationing on a remote German island with his younger pregnant wife, an artist has an emotional breakdown while confronting his repressed desires.
Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann, Gertrud Fridh, Georg Rydeberg
Votes: 22,583
5. Gospodin oformitel (1987)
109 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A famous artist strives to find the secret to eternal life through the beautiful mannequins he creates.
Director: Oleg Teptsov | Stars: Viktor Avilov, Anna Demyanenko, Mikhail Kozakov, Ivan Krasko
Votes: 1,084
6. A Page of Madness (1926)
Not Rated | 70 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
A man takes a job at an asylum with hopes of freeing his imprisoned wife.
Director: Teinosuke Kinugasa | Stars: Masuo Inoue, Ayako Iijima, Yoshie Nakagawa, Hiroshi Nemoto
Votes: 4,574
7. Perfect Blue (1997)
R | 81 min | Animation, Crime, Drama
A pop singer gives up her career to become an actress, but she slowly goes insane when she starts being stalked by an obsessed fan and what seems to be a ghost of her past.
Director: Satoshi Kon | Stars: Junko Iwao, Rica Matsumoto, Shinpachi Tsuji, Masaaki Ôkura
Votes: 95,672 | Gross: $0.78M
8. Peeping Tom (1960)
Not Rated | 101 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
A young man murders women, using a movie camera to film their dying expressions of terror.
Director: Michael Powell | Stars: Karlheinz Böhm, Anna Massey, Moira Shearer, Maxine Audley
Votes: 39,291 | Gross: $0.08M
9. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)
Not Rated | 101 min | Drama, Horror, Romance
In the Iranian ghost-town Bad City, a place that reeks of death and loneliness, the townspeople are unaware they are being stalked by a lonesome vampire.
Director: Ana Lily Amirpour | Stars: Sheila Vand, Arash Marandi, Marshall Manesh, Mozhan Navabi
Votes: 38,657
10. In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
R | 95 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
An insurance investigator begins discovering that the impact a horror writer's books have on his fans is more than inspirational.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Sam Neill, Jürgen Prochnow, Julie Carmen, David Warner
Votes: 79,380 | Gross: $8.95M
11. Possession (1981)
R | 124 min | Drama, Horror
A woman starts exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior after asking her husband for a divorce. Suspicions of infidelity soon give way to something much more sinister.
Director: Andrzej Zulawski | Stars: Isabelle Adjani, Sam Neill, Margit Carstensen, Heinz Bennent
Votes: 42,921 | Gross: $1.11M
12. The Haunting (1963)
G | 112 min | Horror
Hill House has stood for about 90 years and appears haunted: its inhabitants have always met strange, tragic ends. Now Dr. John Markway has assembled a team of people who he thinks will prove whether or not the house is haunted.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Russ Tamblyn
Votes: 42,505 | Gross: $2.62M
13. Theater of Blood (1973)
R | 104 min | Comedy, Drama, Horror
A Shakespearean actor takes poetic revenge on the critics who denied him recognition.
Director: Douglas Hickox | Stars: Vincent Price, Diana Rigg, Ian Hendry, Harry Andrews
Votes: 12,285
14. The Perfume of the Lady in Black (1974)
R | 103 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
Sylvia, an industrial scientist, is troubled by strange hallucinations related to the tragic suicide of her mother.
Director: Francesco Barilli | Stars: Mimsy Farmer, Maurizio Bonuglia, Mario Scaccia, Jho Jhenkins
Votes: 2,998
15. Thesis (1996)
R | 125 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
While doing a thesis about violence, Ángela finds a snuff video where a girl is tortured until death. Soon she discovers that the girl was a former student in her faculty...
Director: Alejandro Amenábar | Stars: Ana Torrent, Fele Martínez, Eduardo Noriega, Xabier Elorriaga
Votes: 42,492
16. Candyman (1992)
R | 99 min | Horror, Thriller
The Candyman, a murderous soul with a hook for a hand, is accidentally summoned to reality by a skeptic grad student researching the monster's myth.
Director: Bernard Rose | Stars: Virginia Madsen, Xander Berkeley, Tony Todd, Kasi Lemmons
Votes: 100,201 | Gross: $25.79M
17. Black Cat (1968)
Not Rated | 99 min | Drama, Horror
Two women are raped and killed by samurai soldiers. Soon they reappear as vengeful ghosts who seduce and brutally murder the passing samurai.
Director: Kaneto Shindô | Stars: Kichiemon Nakamura, Nobuko Otowa, Kei Satô, Rokkô Toura
Votes: 8,586
18. The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971)
R | 97 min | Horror
In early 18th century England, the children of a village slowly convert into a coven of devil worshipers.
Director: Piers Haggard | Stars: Patrick Wymark, Linda Hayden, Barry Andrews, Michele Dotrice
Votes: 7,532
19. Repulsion (1965)
Not Rated | 105 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
A sex-repulsed woman who disapproves of her sister's boyfriend sinks into depression and has horrific visions of rape and violence.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser, Yvonne Furneaux
Votes: 57,293
20. Videodrome (1983)
R | 87 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A programmer at a Toronto TV station that specializes in adult entertainment searches for the producers of a dangerous and bizarre broadcast.
Director: David Cronenberg | Stars: James Woods, Debbie Harry, Sonja Smits, Peter Dvorsky
Votes: 103,063 | Gross: $2.12M
21. The Innocents (1961)
Not Rated | 100 min | Horror
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: 33,077 | Gross: $2.62M
22. Under the Shadow (2016)
PG-13 | 84 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
As a mother and daughter struggle to cope with the terrors of the post-revolution, war-torn Tehran of the 1980s, a mysterious evil begins to haunt their home.
Director: Babak Anvari | Stars: Narges Rashidi, Avin Manshadi, Bobby Naderi, Arash Marandi
Votes: 30,134 | Gross: $0.03M
23. Phenomena (1985)
R | 116 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
A young girl who has an amazing ability to communicate with insects is transferred to an exclusive Swiss boarding school, where her unusual capability might help solve a string of murders.
Director: Dario Argento | Stars: Jennifer Connelly, Donald Pleasence, Daria Nicolodi, Dalila Di Lazzaro
Votes: 30,071
24. The Fog (1980)
R | 89 min | Horror, Thriller
An unearthly fog rolls into a small coastal town exactly 100 years after a ship mysteriously sank in its waters.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh, John Houseman
Votes: 83,051 | Gross: $21.38M
25. Kwaidan (1964)
Not Rated | 183 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A collection of four Japanese folk tales with supernatural themes.
Director: Masaki Kobayashi | Stars: Rentarô Mikuni, Michiyo Aratama, Misako Watanabe, Kenjirô Ishiyama
Votes: 20,007
26. The Wailing (2016)
TV-MA | 156 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
Soon after a stranger arrives in a little village, a mysterious sickness starts spreading. A policeman, drawn into the incident, is forced to solve the mystery in order to save his daughter.
Director: Na Hong-jin | Stars: Jun Kunimura, Hwang Jung-min, Kwak Do-won, Chun Woo-hee
Votes: 82,094
27. Gongofer (1992)
98 min | Comedy, Horror, Mystery
Group of Cossacks are coming to Moscow to buy an ox. Moscow turns out to be a devilish hole crowded with witches. Some local witch seduces Kol'ka Smagin (one of the Cossacks) and robs him ... See full summary »
Director: Bakhyt Kilibayev | Stars: Viktor Stepanov, Ivan Martynov, Yekaterina Kmit, Mariya Vinogradova
Votes: 468
28. The Keep (1983)
R | 96 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Nazis are forced to turn to a Jewish historian for help in battling the ancient demon they have inadvertently freed from its prison.
Director: Michael Mann | Stars: Scott Glenn, Ian McKellen, Alberta Watson, Jürgen Prochnow
Votes: 14,316 | Gross: $3.76M
29. Next of Kin (1982)
Not Rated | 89 min | Horror, Mystery
In a rest home for elderly people, a daughter reads her mother's diary. Soon events that are mentioned in the mother's diary begin to happen to the daughter.
Director: Tony Williams | Stars: Jacki Kerin, John Jarratt, Alex Scott, Gerda Nicolson
Votes: 4,237
30. Spring (I) (2014)
Not Rated | 109 min | Horror, Romance, Sci-Fi
A young man in a personal tailspin flees from US to Italy, where he sparks up a romance with a woman harboring a dark, primordial secret.
Directors: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead | Stars: Lou Taylor Pucci, Nadia Hilker, Francesco Carnelutti, Nick Nevern
Votes: 31,413 | Gross: $0.05M
31. Dust Devil (1992)
R | 87 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A woman on the run from her abusive husband encounters a mysterious hitch-hiker.
Director: Richard Stanley | Stars: Robert John Burke, Chelsea Field, Zakes Mokae, John Matshikiza
Votes: 5,948
32. Inferno (1980)
R | 106 min | Horror
An American student investigates the disappearance of his sister and the death of a friend, both connected from New York to Rome by an old alchemy book.
Director: Dario Argento | Stars: Leigh McCloskey, Irene Miracle, Eleonora Giorgi, Daria Nicolodi
Votes: 24,028
33. Suspiria (1977)
R | 92 min | Horror
An American newcomer to a prestigious German ballet academy comes to realize that the school is a front for something sinister amid a series of grisly murders.
Director: Dario Argento | Stars: Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci, Miguel Bosé
Votes: 105,505
34. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)
Not Rated | 77 min | Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
Surreal tale in which love, fear, sex, and religion merge into one fantastic world. Based on a classical Czech novel of the same title.
Director: Jaromil Jires | Stars: Jaroslava Schallerová, Helena Anýzová, Petr Kopriva, Jirí Prýmek
Votes: 11,238
35. 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: 70,087
36. The Shining (1980)
R | 146 min | Drama, Horror
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: 1,107,433 | Gross: $44.02M
37. Inland Empire (2006)
R | 180 min | Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
As an actress begins to adopt the persona of her character in a film, her world becomes nightmarish and surreal.
Director: David Lynch | Stars: Karolina Gruszka, Krzysztof Majchrzak, Grace Zabriskie, Laura Dern
Votes: 62,213 | Gross: $0.75M
38. Lost Highway (1997)
R | 134 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Anonymous videotapes presage a musician's murder conviction, and a gangster's girlfriend leads a mechanic astray.
Director: David Lynch | Stars: Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, John Roselius, Louis Eppolito
Votes: 153,279 | Gross: $3.80M
39. The Vanishing (1988)
Not Rated | 107 min | Mystery, Thriller
Rex and Saskia, a young couple in love, are on vacation. They stop at a busy service station and Saskia is abducted. After three years and no sign of Saskia, Rex begins receiving letters from the abductor.
Director: George Sluizer | Stars: Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets, Johanna ter Steege, Gwen Eckhaus
Votes: 44,285
40. The Last Wave (1977)
PG | 106 min | Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
A Sydney lawyer defends five Aboriginal Persons in a ritualized taboo murder and in the process learns disturbing things about himself and premonitions.
Director: Peter Weir | Stars: Richard Chamberlain, Olivia Hamnett, David Gulpilil, Frederick Parslow
Votes: 11,037
41. November (2017)
115 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
In a poor Estonian village, a group of peasants use magic and folk remedies to survive the winter, and a young woman tries to get a young man to love her.
Director: Rainer Sarnet | Stars: Rea Lest, Jörgen Liik, Arvo Kukumägi, Heino Kalm
Votes: 6,039 | Gross: $0.02M
42. Tumbbad (2018)
Not Rated | 104 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A mythological story about a goddess who created the entire universe. The plot revolves around the consequences when humans build a temple for her first-born.
Directors: Rahi Anil Barve, Anand Gandhi, Adesh Prasad | Stars: Sohum Shah, Jyoti Malshe, Anita Date-Kelkar, Ronjini Chakraborty
Votes: 58,996
43. Jacob's Ladder (I) (1990)
R | 113 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
Mourning his dead child, a haunted Vietnam War veteran attempts to uncover his past while suffering from a severe case of dissociation. To do so, he must decipher reality and life from his own dreams, delusions, and perceptions of death.
Director: Adrian Lyne | Stars: Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Peña, Danny Aiello, Matt Craven
Votes: 117,951 | Gross: $26.12M
44. Carnival of Souls (1962)
Approved | 78 min | Horror, Mystery
After a traumatic accident, a woman becomes drawn to a mysterious abandoned carnival.
Director: Herk Harvey | Stars: Candace Hilligoss, Frances Feist, Sidney Berger, Art Ellison
Votes: 27,833
45. The Third Part of the Night (1971)
107 min | Drama, Horror, War
Set during the occupation of Poland during World War II. Some German soldiers slaughter a woman, her son, and mother-in-law. The husband and his father escape by being in the forest. The ... See full summary »
Director: Andrzej Zulawski | Stars: Malgorzata Braunek, Leszek Teleszynski, Jan Nowicki, Jerzy Golinski
Votes: 2,703
46. Eraserhead (1977)
Not Rated | 89 min | Fantasy, Horror
Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.
Director: David Lynch | Stars: Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Allen Joseph, Jeanne Bates
Votes: 127,559 | Gross: $7.00M
47. Nadja (1994)
R | 93 min | Drama, Horror
This ultra-hip, post-modern vampire tale is set in contemporary New York City. Members of a dysfunctional family of vampires are trying to come to terms with each other, in the wake of ... See full summary »
Director: Michael Almereyda | Stars: Elina Löwensohn, Peter Fonda, Nic Ratner, Karl Geary
Votes: 3,457 | Gross: $0.45M
Tell Your Friends