'Jaws' poster. CREDIT: Press

These are the scariest horror movies ever, according to critics

The top 20 includes classics from across the last century of cinema

by · NME

Horror movies provoke conversation and debate like no other genre, but which are the most highly-rated scary films in history?

Review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes has collated the world’s critical consensus and amassed a list of the most acclaimed films in the genre’s century-plus history, in a list that has also factored in the audience-driven ‘Popcornmeter’ into its equation.

In a list bulging with 24-carat classics, the prestigious top spot is taken by Steven Spielberg’s 1975 monster hit Jaws. Based on the Peter Benchley novel, it terrified a generation of film-goers enough that people were scared to go swimming at the beach for years after its release.

Roy Scheider’s police chief Martin Brody enlists the help of Robert Shaw’s shark hunter to hunt down a man-eating Great White that has been picking off holiday makers on the beach of Amity Island. It became the prototypical summer blockbuster movie, and became the highest grossing film of all time, only to be surpassed by Star Wars two years later.

At second place is the Swedish vampire film Let The Right One In, with its 98 per cent critics score and 90 per cent audience score. Tomas Alfredson, who went on to helm Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, oversaw the film about a bullied 12-year-old boy who develops a close friendship with a mysterious girl in Stockholm in the early 1980s.

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NME declared the film to be the “best vampire movie of all time” at the time of its 2009 UK release.

Rounding out the top three is Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi horror franchise-spawner Alien, with a hefty 93 per cent critics and 94 per cent audience score. The film made a star of Sigourney Weaver and drew strength from the legendary creature designs of H.R. Giger and the word of mouth shock of the John Hurt chest-burster sequence.

The rest of the list shows off the many generations of horror classics, from the vintage silent era (Nosferatu, The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari), through to contemporary standouts such as Jordan Peele’s Get Out and the Japanese indie comedy zombie film One Cut Of The Dead.

Peruse the full top 20 below, including classics from the slasher, zombie, serial killer and monster movie subgenres.

Rotten Tomatoes’ list of the top 20 horror films of all time is:

  1. Jaws (1975)
  2. Let The Right One In (2008)
  3. Alien (1979)
  4. Get Out (2017)
  5. Psycho (1960)
  6. The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)
  7. One Cut Of The Dead (2017)
  8. King Kong (1933)
  9. Aliens (1986)
  10. A Quiet Place (2018)
  11. Halloween (1978)
  12. What We Do In The Shadows (2014)
  13. Diabolique (1955)
  14. Shaun Of The Dead (2004)
  15. The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari (1919)
  16. Nosferatu (1922)
  17. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
  18. The Wailing (2016)
  19. Bride Of Frankenstein (1935)
  20. Eyes Without A Face (1960)