The 100 Best Horror Movies of All Time

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If cinema is like dreaming with our eyes open, then horror movies could rightly be viewed as waking nightmares: an opportunity to confront our unconscious fears directly — most often as entertainment, but sometimes with the express purpose of terrifying ourselves. On-screen frights take every form imaginable, from iconic boogeymen like Frankenstein and Freddy Krueger to real-world threats, be it psychosis, contagion or off-putting in-laws (“Get Out,” anyone?).

In compiling a list of the genre’s highest achievements, we considered it all, from highbrow to lo-fi, pure schlock to Hitchcock (whose “Psycho” topped our “Greatest Films” list, but not this one), reaching back to the advent of cinema. Well, maybe not quite the beginning. According to legend, 1895 audiences recoiled in fear when they saw the train pull into La Ciotat station in the Lumière brothers’ early actuality film. We don’t count that as horror, though it certainly demonstrated the medium’s capacity to startle people.

The question “What is horror?” echoed at the center of every discussion, with long hours spent arguing over where the boundaries lie for a genre that has launched many a career. How often has one of these waking nightmares upset you enough to resurface in your dreams? If we’ve done our job, you’ll want to join the debate.

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1. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

2. The Exorcist (1973)

3. Psycho (1960)

4. Jaws (1975)

5. Rosemary's Baby (1968)

6. Night of the Living Dead (1968)

7.Audition (1999)

8. Frankenstein (1931)

9. Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

10. Carrie (1976)

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