Horror (Classic) Pre-1960
by chantzyboy | created - 26 Feb 2021 | updated - 31 Jul 2021 | Public- Instant Watch Options
- Genres
- Movies or TV
- IMDb Rating
- In Theaters
- Release Year
- Keywords
1. Frankenstein (1931)
Passed | 70 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Dr Henry Frankenstein is obsessed with assembling a living being from parts of several exhumed corpses.
Director: James Whale | Stars: Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff, John Boles
Votes: 79,633
2. Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Not Rated | 75 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Mary Shelley reveals the main characters of her novel survived: Baron Henry Frankenstein, goaded by an even madder scientist, builds his monster a mate.
Director: James Whale | Stars: Boris Karloff, Elsa Lanchester, Colin Clive, Valerie Hobson
Votes: 53,205 | Gross: $4.36M
3. Son of Frankenstein (1939)
Approved | 99 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Returning to the ancestral castle long after the death of the monster, the son of Dr. Frankenstein meets a mad shepherd who is hiding the comatose creature. To clear the family name, he revives the creature and tries to rehabilitate him.
Director: Rowland V. Lee | Stars: Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill
Votes: 11,682
4. The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)
Passed | 67 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Dr. Frankenstein's plans to replace the brain of his monster are hijacked by his scheming and malevolent assistant Ygor.
Director: Erle C. Kenton | Stars: Cedric Hardwicke, Lon Chaney Jr., Ralph Bellamy, Lionel Atwill
Votes: 7,087
5. House of Frankenstein (1944)
Passed | 71 min | Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi
A deranged scientist escapes from prison and recruits Dracula, Frankenstein's monster and the Wolf Man to get revenge on his behalf.
Director: Erle C. Kenton | Stars: Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr., J. Carrol Naish, John Carradine
Votes: 7,710
6. 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: 105,319
7. Horror of Dracula (1958)
Not Rated | 82 min | Drama, Horror
When Jonathan Harker rouses the ire of Count Dracula for accepting a job at the vampire's castle under false pretenses, his friend Dr. Van Helsing pursues the predatory villain.
Director: Terence Fisher | Stars: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling
Votes: 27,945
8. House of Dracula (1945)
Approved | 67 min | Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi
The Wolf Man and Count Dracula beg Dr. Edelman to cure them of their killing instincts but Dracula schemes to seduce the doctor's nurse.
Director: Erle C. Kenton | Stars: Onslow Stevens, John Carradine, Lon Chaney Jr., Martha O'Driscoll
Votes: 6,150
9. 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: 20,499
10. 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: 5,571
11. Dracula's Daughter (1936)
Unrated | 71 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
When Countess Marya Zaleska appears in London, mysterious events occur that lead Dr. Von Helsing to believe that the Countess must be a vampire.
Director: Lambert Hillyer | Stars: Otto Kruger, Gloria Holden, Marguerite Churchill, Edward Van Sloan
Votes: 7,991
12. Son of Dracula (1943)
Unrated | 80 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
When Katherine, a beautiful Southern girl obsessed with thoughts of eternal life, invites Count Alucard to come to her mansion in the U.S., she unleashes a Pandora's box of horror on unsuspecting relatives and neighbors.
Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Lon Chaney Jr., Robert Paige, Louise Allbritton, Evelyn Ankers
Votes: 6,189
13. The Black Cat (1934)
Not Rated | 65 min | Crime, Horror, Romance
American honeymooners in Hungary become trapped in the home of a Satan-worshipping priest when the bride is taken there for medical help following a road accident.
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer | Stars: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, David Manners, Julie Bishop
Votes: 12,971 | Gross: $0.51M
14. 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: 25,963 | Gross: $4.00M
15. 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: 7,168
16. 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: 6,825
17. The Invisible Man Returns (1940)
Passed | 81 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
The owner of a coal mining operation, falsely imprisoned for fratricide, takes a drug to make him invisible, despite its side effect: gradual madness.
Director: Joe May | Stars: Cedric Hardwicke, Vincent Price, Nan Grey, John Sutton
Votes: 5,285
18. The Man Who Laughs (1928)
Not Rated | 110 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
When a proud noble refuses to kiss the hand of the despotic King James in 1690, he is cruelly executed and his son surgically disfigured.
Director: Paul Leni | Stars: Mary Philbin, Conrad Veidt, Julius Molnar, Olga Baclanova
Votes: 8,057
19. The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)
Not Rated | 78 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
Professor Bernard Quatermass' manned rocket ship returns to Earth, but two of the astronauts are missing and the survivor seems ill and unable to communicate.
Director: Val Guest | Stars: Brian Donlevy, Jack Warner, Richard Wordsworth, Margia Dean
Votes: 7,175
20. The Ghoul (1933)
Approved | 77 min | Action, Drama, Horror
An Egyptologist returns from the dead to take revenge on those who have violated his tomb.
Director: T. Hayes Hunter | Stars: Boris Karloff, Cedric Hardwicke, Ernest Thesiger, Dorothy Hyson
Votes: 3,243
21. Tarantula (1955)
Approved | 80 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A spider escapes from an isolated Arizona desert laboratory experimenting in gigantism and grows to tremendous size as it wreaks havoc on the local inhabitants.
Director: Jack Arnold | Stars: John Agar, Mara Corday, Leo G. Carroll, Nestor Paiva
Votes: 10,764 | Gross: $1.10M
22. The Bad Seed (1956)
Approved | 129 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
Rhoda Penmark seems like your average, sweet eight-year-old girl. After her rival at school dies in mysterious circumstances at the school picnic, her mother starts to suspect that Rhoda was responsible.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack, Gage Clarke, Jesse White
Votes: 15,751
23. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A self-proclaimed preacher marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real dad hid the $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.
Director: Charles Laughton | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, James Gleason
Votes: 97,232 | Gross: $0.65M
24. Godzilla: King of the Monsters! (1956)
Not Rated | 80 min | Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
A 400-foot (122-meter) dinosaur-like beast, awoken from undersea hibernation off the Japanese coast by atomic-bomb testing, attacks Tokyo.
Directors: Ishirô Honda, Terry O. Morse | Stars: Raymond Burr, Takashi Shimura, Momoko Kôchi, Akira Takarada
Votes: 8,807
25. The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
Not Rated | 110 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A corrupt young man somehow keeps his youthful beauty, but a special painting gradually reveals his inner ugliness to all.
Director: Albert Lewin | Stars: George Sanders, Hurd Hatfield, Donna Reed, Angela Lansbury
Votes: 14,435
26. Curse of the Demon (1957)
Approved | 96 min | Fantasy, Horror, Mystery
American professor John Holden arrives in London for a parapsychology conference, only to find himself investigating the mysterious actions of Devil-worshipper Julian Karswell.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham
Votes: 15,494
27. 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: 10,893
28. The Old Dark House (1932)
Passed | 72 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Seeking shelter from a storm, five travelers are in for a bizarre and terrifying night when they stumble upon the Femm family estate.
Director: James Whale | Stars: Boris Karloff, Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton, Gloria Stuart
Votes: 13,091 | Gross: $0.03M
29. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)
Passed | 80 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson investigate the legend of a supernatural hound, a beast that may be stalking a young heir on the fog-shrouded moorland that makes up his estate.
Director: Sidney Lanfield | Stars: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Richard Greene, Wendy Barrie
Votes: 11,677
30. The Brain Eaters (1958)
Approved | 61 min | Sci-Fi, Horror
The inhabitants of a small Illinois town begin disappearing after a strange cone is found sticking out of the ground nearby.
Director: Bruno VeSota | Stars: Ed Nelson, Alan Jay Factor, Cornelius Keefe, Joanna Lee
Votes: 1,804
31. Curse of the Faceless Man (1958)
Unrated | 67 min | Adventure, Horror, Sci-Fi
Calcified Pompeii gladiator kidnaps a scientist's girlfriend in modern-day Naples, Italy.
Director: Edward L. Cahn | Stars: Richard Anderson, Elaine Edwards, Adele Mara, Luis Van Rooten
Votes: 1,241
32. Caltiki, the Immortal Monster (1959)
Approved | 77 min | Adventure, Horror, Sci-Fi
A team of archaeologists in Mexico encounter an amorphous, blob-like monster that appears to be connected with the collapse of the Mayan civilization.
Directors: Riccardo Freda, Mario Bava | Stars: John Merivale, Didi Sullivan, Gérard Herter, Giacomo Rossi Stuart
Votes: 1,617
33. The Uninvited (1944)
Passed | 99 min | Fantasy, Horror, Mystery
A composer and his sister discover that the reason they are able to purchase a beautiful gothic seacoast mansion very cheaply is the house's unsavory past.
Director: Lewis Allen | Stars: Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp, Cornelia Otis Skinner
Votes: 12,458
34. It Came from Outer Space (1953)
Approved | 81 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A spaceship from another world crashes in the Arizona desert and only an amateur stargazer and a schoolteacher suspect alien influence when the local townsfolk begin to act strangely.
Director: Jack Arnold | Stars: Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, Charles Drake, Joe Sawyer
Votes: 11,026
35. The Tingler (1959)
Not Rated | 82 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
An obsessed pathologist discovers and captures a parasitic creature that grows when fear grips its host.
Director: William Castle | Stars: Vincent Price, Judith Evelyn, Darryl Hickman, Patricia Cutts
Votes: 9,448
36. Curse of the Demon (1957)
Approved | 96 min | Fantasy, Horror, Mystery
American professor John Holden arrives in London for a parapsychology conference, only to find himself investigating the mysterious actions of Devil-worshipper Julian Karswell.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham
Votes: 15,494
37. Werewolf of London (1935)
Passed | 75 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
After botanist Wilfred Glendon travels to Tibet in search of a rare flower, the Mariphasa, he returns to a London haunted by murders that can only be the work of bloodthirsty werewolves.
Director: Stuart Walker | Stars: Henry Hull, Warner Oland, Valerie Hobson, Lester Matthews
Votes: 6,493
38. 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: 16,694
39. The Bad Seed (1956)
Approved | 129 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
Rhoda Penmark seems like your average, sweet eight-year-old girl. After her rival at school dies in mysterious circumstances at the school picnic, her mother starts to suspect that Rhoda was responsible.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack, Gage Clarke, Jesse White
Votes: 15,751
40. The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Passed | 93 min | Horror
A mad, disfigured composer seeks love with a lovely young opera singer.
Directors: Rupert Julian, Lon Chaney, Ernst Laemmle, Edward Sedgwick | Stars: Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, Arthur Edmund Carewe
Votes: 20,082 | Gross: $3.75M
41. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Approved | 80 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.
Director: Don Siegel | Stars: Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates, King Donovan
Votes: 54,691
42. House on Haunted Hill (1959)
Approved | 75 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
A millionaire offers $10,000 to five people who agree to be locked in a large, spooky, rented house overnight with him and his wife.
Director: William Castle | Stars: Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Richard Long, Alan Marshal
Votes: 30,800
43. The Mummy (1932)
Approved | 73 min | Fantasy, Horror
A resurrected Egyptian mummy searches Cairo for the girl he believes to be his long-lost princess.
Director: Karl Freund | Stars: Boris Karloff, Zita Johann, David Manners, Arthur Byron
Votes: 30,088
44. Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
G | 79 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A strange prehistoric beast lurks in the depths of the Amazonian jungle. A group of scientists try to capture the animal and bring it back to civilization for study.
Director: Jack Arnold | Stars: Richard Carlson, Julie Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno
Votes: 34,339 | Gross: $1.30M
45. Dante's Inferno (1911)
71 min | Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
Loosely adapted from Dante's Divine Comedy and inspired by the illustrations of Gustav Doré the original silent film has been restored and has a new score by Tangerine Dream.
Directors: Francesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan, Giuseppe de Liguoro | Stars: Salvatore Papa, Arturo Pirovano, Giuseppe de Liguoro, Pier Delle Vigne
Votes: 3,445
46. The Golem (1914)
60 min | Horror
An antiques dealer finds a golem, a clay statue that had been brought to life four centuries earlier by a Kabbalist rabbi to protect his people from persecution. The dealer resurrects the golem as a servant but it goes on a rampage.
Directors: Paul Wegener, Henrik Galeen | Stars: Paul Wegener, Henrik Galeen, Lyda Salmonova, Rudolf Blümner
Votes: 1,242
47. 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: 8,529
48. 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: 2,307
49. The Unholy Three (1925)
Passed | 86 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A sideshow ventriloquist, a midget, and a strongman form a conspiracy known as "The Unholy Three" and commit a series of robberies.
Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Lon Chaney, Mae Busch, Matt Moore, Victor McLaglen
Votes: 2,208 | Gross: $0.70M
50. 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: 16,608
51. 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: 4,562
52. The Unknown (1927)
Unrated | 68 min | Drama, Horror, Romance
A criminal on the run hides in a circus and seeks to possess the daughter of the ringmaster at any cost.
Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Lon Chaney, Norman Kerry, Joan Crawford, Nick De Ruiz
Votes: 9,134 | Gross: $0.41M
53. London After Midnight (1927)
Passed | 69 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
The abandoned home of a wealthy man who supposedly committed suicide five years earlier is taken over by ghoulish figures - could they be vampires?
Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Lon Chaney, Marceline Day, Henry B. Walthall, Percy Williams
Votes: 1,461 | Gross: $0.52M
54. The Most Dangerous Game (1932)
PG-13 | 63 min | Action, Adventure, Horror
A psychotic big game hunter deliberately strands a luxury yacht on a remote island, where he begins to hunt its passengers for sport.
Directors: Irving Pichel, Ernest B. Schoedsack | Stars: Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Leslie Banks, Robert Armstrong
Votes: 13,998 | Gross: $0.97M
55. 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: 5,866 | Gross: $0.37M
56. 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: 4,943
57. The Cat and the Canary (1939)
Approved | 72 min | Comedy, Horror, Mystery
When an eccentric family meets in their uncle's remote, decaying mansion on the tenth anniversary of his death for the reading of his will, murder and madness follow.
Director: Elliott Nugent | Stars: Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, John Beal, Douglass Montgomery
Votes: 3,762
58. The Lodger (1944)
Passed | 84 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
A landlady suspects that her new lodger is Jack the Ripper.
Director: John Brahm | Stars: Laird Cregar, Merle Oberon, George Sanders, Cedric Hardwicke
Votes: 4,098
59. 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: 10,185
60. Dead of Night (1945)
Approved | 77 min | Drama, Horror
Guests invited to a weekend in the country share their supernatural stories, beginning with Walter Craig, who senses impending doom as his half-remembered recurring dream turns into reality.
Directors: Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer | Stars: Mervyn Johns, Michael Redgrave, Roland Culver, Mary Merrall
Votes: 14,200
61. The Queen of Spades (1949)
95 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
An army officer becomes obsessed with learning the secret to a card game for which an elderly countess sold her soul years earlier.
Director: Thorold Dickinson | Stars: Anton Walbrook, Edith Evans, Yvonne Mitchell, Ronald Howard
Votes: 2,392
62. Quatermass 2 (1957)
Approved | 85 min | Sci-Fi, Horror
Professor Quatermass, trying to gather support for his Lunar colonisation project, is intrigued by mysterious traces that have been showing up.
Director: Val Guest | Stars: Brian Donlevy, John Longden, Sidney James, Bryan Forbes
Votes: 4,650
63. Jack the Ripper (1959)
Not Rated | 84 min | Crime, Drama, History
A serial killer is murdering women in the Whitechapel district of London. An American policeman is brought in to help Scotland Yard solve the case.
Directors: Robert S. Baker, Monty Berman | Stars: Lee Patterson, Eddie Byrne, Betty McDowall, Ewen Solon
Votes: 964
64. The Mummy (1959)
Unrated | 88 min | Adventure, Horror
In 1895, British archaeologists find and open the tomb of Egyptian Princess Ananka with nefarious consequences.
Director: Terence Fisher | Stars: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Yvonne Furneaux, Eddie Byrne
Votes: 10,982
Tell Your Friends