Horror films 267 films

Horror is the one genre honest about what it wants from us. It wants us frightened, so the question we put to every film here is simple: were we, and for how long? A jump scare earns a flinch and is forgotten by the car park. The films we score highly make us care about someone first, then make us watch what happens to them, which is why our best-rated horror is about a marriage, a mother or a ship's crew, with the monster arriving second. The shelf leans heavily towards the 2020s, where the genre has been busiest and not always most patient.

Start with Jaws (93), whose people matter as much as its shark; Alien (92), which makes confinement frightening before the shocks arrive; and Don't Look Now (90), where the fear grows out of grief. After those, The Wicker Man and Get Out show how funny a horror film can be without letting us off.