The Best Horror Movies of 2025

Despite the huge success of films like Sinners and Weapons, making 2025 a financially strong year for horror, I don’t think it was a particularly good year for the genre overall. While those two films broke records and might even overcome the Oscars’ usual preference for other genres, there simply weren’t as many truly great horror movies as we’ve seen in other years. For every film that lived up to expectations, there were several that didn’t – remember the high hopes for Wolf Man and Him? Plus, some well-made and visually impressive films, like 28 Years Later, Bring Her Back, and the new Frankenstein, just didn’t connect with me personally.

I’m starting by acknowledging the disappointments of the past year in horror releases, which helps explain what isn’t on this list and provides background for what is. Instead of focusing on films that failed to impress, I’ve highlighted the horror movies that truly stood out. You’ll find a range here – some are daring and original, pushing the boundaries of the genre, while others are simply enjoyable surprises. But what they all have in common is that they left a lasting impression, giving me something new to ponder or fear – which is particularly noteworthy considering how much real-world horror we’ve all been facing.

17. Good Boy

The horror film Good Boy has a unique premise – it’s told from a dog’s point of view – and it could easily feel like a simple novelty. However, director Ben Leonberg’s first feature is much more than that, largely thanks to a remarkable performance from his own dog, Indy, a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. Indy convincingly portrays a wide range of emotions as he witnesses his owner, Todd (Shane Jensen), being affected by sinister forces while isolated in a cabin. This is a credit to Leonberg’s directing talent – he skillfully imbues meaning into the actions of an animal who, naturally, doesn’t understand what’s happening – and his dedication. Filmed over three years, Good Boy required Leonberg to capture countless hours of footage to get enough usable material from a dog with no formal training. The final result is compelling: even though the main storyline can sometimes feel unclear, we’re drawn in by the genuine emotional impact of Indy’s experience.

16. Clown in a Cornfield

A new wave of young adult horror films, like the Fear Street trilogy on Netflix, blends typical teen storylines with the intense violence found in adult horror. Eli Craig’s Clown in a Cornfield, based on the novel by Adam Cesare, is a great example. It combines a familiar high school romance with plenty of gore. The story follows Quinn, who moves to the small town of Kettle Springs and learns about the local legend of Frendo the Clown, a mascot who became a serial killer. This slasher film lives up to its title, featuring multiple clowns attacking and killing young people. While it might not be truly frightening, it’s surprisingly funny. The humor works because the movie is self-aware and willing to break expectations—there’s even a memorable joke involving an old rotary phone. Clown in a Cornfield embraces its roots as a YA novel, and even manages to twist the predictable love triangle in an interesting way.

15. The Ugly Stepsister

It doesn’t take much to turn Cinderella into a horror story. The original tale is actually quite dark and violent – Disney simply softened it for a wider audience. The Ugly Stepsister brings those darker elements back, including the gruesome act of the stepsisters mutilating their feet to try and fit the glass slipper. Director Emilie Blichfeldt also adds disturbing historical beauty practices – both real and rumored – creating a feminist horror film similar to last year’s The Substance. Lea Myren plays Elvira, who competes with her stepsister Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss) for the attention of Prince Julian (Isac Calmroth). As the competition intensifies, Elvira endures painful, primitive plastic surgery and a dangerous weight-loss plan involving a tapeworm. The Ugly Stepsister makes a clear point about the damaging effects of unrealistic beauty standards. Like The Substance, it’s a challenging film to watch, culminating in a truly unsettling ending.

14. Until Dawn

While fans of the original 2015 video game might not be thrilled, I found Until Dawn to be a fun and inventive horror film. The story follows Clover (Ella Rubin) and her friends as they search for Clover’s missing sister in the deserted town of Glore Valley, only to become stuck in a time loop. Each night brings a different terrifying threat – from classic slashers and zombies to gruesome body horror. Like Clown in a Cornfield, it feels geared towards a young adult audience, but the focus isn’t really on the teen drama. Instead, the movie delights in creatively and repeatedly killing off its characters. The film touches on Clover’s personal struggles, but smartly uses trauma as a source of dark humor. Ultimately, Until Dawn is surprisingly light and breezy, a quality that would benefit many other horror movies today.

13. Tinsman Road

These days, trauma is common in horror movies, but grief might be even more central – which makes sense, considering how often death appears in the genre. However, films can sometimes get lost in symbolism, letting emotional weight overshadow the scares. That’s not a problem with Tinsman Road, the newest found-footage film by Robbie Banfitch (who also directed 2023’s The Outwaters). This movie is deeply focused on loss, and grief actually adds to the horror instead of taking away from it. Banfitch plays Robbie Lyle, a young man trying to solve the mystery of his sister’s disappearance. As Robbie investigates, it’s often unclear whether the story is a supernatural haunting or a real-life crime. The fear in Tinsman Road comes not just from what Robbie discovers, but from the realization that even finding answers won’t bring him peace.

12. I Know What You Did Last Summer

Critics and audiences generally didn’t love the recent I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot, and its poor ratings and box office numbers reflect that. However, for those who weren’t huge fans of the original franchise, the 2025 installment was a welcome change – it was funny, self-aware, and delightfully silly. It doesn’t reach the same level as the newer Scream films, which isn’t a surprise, considering the two series have always been different. I Know What You Did Last Summer lacked the biting satire of Scream, so expectations were lower. Still, the new sequel takes at least one interesting risk that Scream never did, showing a willingness to try something new. Plus, the film features a talented cast – including Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, and Sarah Pidgeon – who could all become future scream-queen stars.

11. Keeper

It’s natural for a filmmaker as consistently working as Osgood Perkins to face some criticism. His second film of 2025, Keeper, received more negative reviews than his previous works, The Monkey and 2024’s Longlegs. However, the issue isn’t that his creativity is fading, but rather that his movies aren’t designed to appeal to everyone. Perkins seems focused on avoiding repetition, so viewers hoping for something similar to Longlegs or The Monkey might be let down. Keeper actually feels more aligned with his earlier, slower-paced and more thoughtful films like The Blackcoat’s Daughter and I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House. The story follows Liz (Tatiana Maslany) who joins her boyfriend, Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland), a doctor, for a trip to his family’s remote cabin. While it’s no surprise that things aren’t as they seem, the discoveries Liz makes are genuinely surprising and feature some of the most unsettling and creative character designs I’ve seen in a long time.

10. Dangerous Animals

It’s been half a century since the original Jaws thrilled audiences, and since then, we’ve seen countless shark movies – most of which simply don’t measure up to Spielberg’s classic. Australian director Sean Byrne deserves credit for bringing a fresh perspective to the genre with Dangerous Animals. The film follows Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), a wanderer kidnapped by Tucker (Jai Courtney), a serial killer who films himself feeding victims to sharks. This unique approach – a psychopath using a shark as a weapon – is clever, and Courtney delivers a wonderfully over-the-top performance as the killer. While the film could use more scenes focused on the shark itself – likely due to its $2 million budget – Courtney’s acting is the main draw. Harrison also shines as the resourceful final girl, making the climactic confrontation between her and the killer just as intense as any shark attack.

9. Together

In Michael Shanks’s film Together, Alison Brie and Dave Franco, who are married in real life, explore the unsettling depths of an unhealthy relationship. Their characters, Millie and Tim, find themselves physically stuck together after drinking water from a mysterious cave. While the movie features some shocking and uncomfortable body horror – like needing a saw to separate their arms or forcefully pulling apart after intimacy – the real horror lies in how the couple loses their independence. Like many films with similar themes, Together isn’t very subtle, but that’s okay. The film’s strong visuals and relatable story about losing yourself in a relationship make it emotionally powerful and disturbing.

8. The Monkey

Osgood Perkins’s second film on this list, and one of the many adaptations of Stephen King’s work coming out in 2025, The Monkey is a deliberately over-the-top horror movie focused on incredibly gruesome deaths. The story follows Hal (Theo James) as he tries to shield his son, Petey (Colin O’Brien), and the world from a cursed toy monkey that kills with each wind of its key. However, the movie’s main appeal is its darkly comedic and shockingly violent nature—Perkins finds humor in the brutality inflicted on his characters. In fact, “overkill” doesn’t even begin to describe it. Beneath all the gore, though, the film surprisingly explores themes of loss and the acceptance of death, forcing Hal to grapple with its unpredictable nature. For Perkins, who experienced personal tragedy with the loss of both parents, The Monkey is his most playful yet deeply personal film, offering a darkly humorous take on death’s inevitability.

7. The Plague

Charlie Polinger’s first film, The Plague, isn’t a straightforward horror movie, but it certainly feels like one – and it’s genuinely one of the most disturbing things I’ve seen all year. Everett Blunck, who was fantastic in Griffin in Summer, plays Ben, a 12-year-old facing brutal bullying at a water-polo camp. There are shades of Lord of the Flies in the way the boys interact, but honestly, it reminded me more of Eighth Grade – that raw, painful honesty about what it’s like to grow up. The Plague amps up the intensity with some truly unsettling body horror, using it to explore the anxieties of adolescence and the desperate need to belong. The final act is relentlessly tense, and even if the visuals don’t get to you, the sound design absolutely will. It’s a film that will leave you profoundly thankful for your adult years.

6. Influencers

Just like the first film, revealing too much of the plot would spoil the experience. Kurtis David Harder’s latest movie is another suspenseful ride centered around CW (Cassandra Naud), a serial killer who particularly dislikes people obsessed with social media. In Influencers, CW and her girlfriend, Diane (Lisa Delamar), are on a romantic getaway when an influencer named Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) unexpectedly joins them. This sets the stage for a thrilling follow-up that builds on the first film with even more twists and turns, and a higher number of victims. Cassandra Naud remains the strongest part of this series, bringing depth to a character who is both villainous and sympathetic, often within the same scene. The clever script, also by Harder, deserves praise for keeping the characters’ motivations and thoughts mysterious while seamlessly blending thriller and horror elements.

5. V/H/S/Halloween

Since its start in 2012, the V/H/S series has become a yearly tradition for horror fans, with new installments released every October on Shudder. While past films have been a bit uneven in quality, this year’s V/H/S/Halloween is consistently strong. Several shorts really stand out, including the darkly funny “Fun Size” by Casper Kelly, the chilling “Kidprint” by Alex Ross Perry, and the impressively made “Home Haunt” from Micheline Pitt-Norman and R.H. Norman. Overall, V/H/S/Halloween delivers the series’ trademark disturbing and unsettling content, but with a level of quality that’s been missing in recent years.

4. Presence

Similar to Osgood Perkins, Steven Soderbergh was incredibly busy in 2023, releasing both Presence and Black Bag in theaters (and premiering The Christophers at TIFF – he somehow even finds time to watch Below Deck!). Of these films, only Presence truly fits as a horror movie. While some might see it as a drama with supernatural touches, it’s fundamentally a haunted house story, uniquely filmed from the ghost’s point of view. It even has a bit of the playful, low-budget feel that screenwriter David Koepp brought to films like Stir of Echoes and Secret Window. Like many modern ghost stories, Presence deals with themes of grief, but Soderbergh’s distinctive filmmaking style makes it feel particularly compelling. Strong performances, especially from Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan as struggling parents, further elevate the film.

3. Final Destination: Bloodlines

Most horror series lose their appeal by the sixth movie, and it’s even rarer for a later installment to be a standout. But the Final Destination franchise is different. Unlike typical horror series with self-contained stories, Final Destination builds on a central concept: a new group of people trying to escape Death’s elaborate plans. The new film, Final Destination: Bloodlines, makes a few changes – like a longer opening that goes back to the 1960s – but smartly focuses on what fans want: creatively gruesome and over-the-top deaths. Like another recent entry, The Monkey, Bloodlines prioritizes inventive ways to die over deep character development. However, it also manages to be a surprisingly thoughtful exploration of mortality. The film’s most moving moment comes from Tony Todd, a series veteran, who delivered his final lines knowing he was facing his own end – a touching goodbye to both the Final Destination series and life itself.

2. Sinners

I mentioned 2025 wasn’t a standout year for horror, but that’s with the understanding that it gave us two truly excellent and successful films. Specifically, Sinners is a strong candidate for the best film of the year. It’s a bold and unique horror movie that uses a vampire story reminiscent of From Dusk Till Dawn to thoughtfully explore issues of racial oppression and cultural appropriation. Given the current restrictions on creative expression – both from political leaders and the rise of AI-generated content – Sinners’ fearless originality feels particularly important. This level of innovation is exactly what we’ve come to expect from director Ryan Coogler, who consistently pushes boundaries, as he did with Creed and Black Panther. Michael B. Jordan, who starred in those films, delivers a remarkable performance as twins Smoke and Stack, war veterans who use stolen funds to start a nightclub. His dual role is likely to earn him an Oscar nomination, and he’s not the only cast member with a strong chance at recognition. Wunmi Mosaku, Hailee Steinfeld, Delroy Lindo, and Miles Caton are just a few of the talented actors who contribute to Coogler’s ambitious and compelling film.

1. Weapons

Unlike some horror films that try to say something deeper, Zach Cregger’s Weapons keeps things simple. It’s not that the movie lacks intelligence, but rather that it deliberately avoids heavy symbolism. The story follows a teacher (Julia Garner) and a father (Josh Brolin) as they investigate the strange disappearance of 17 children who vanished overnight. The explanation for what happened is surprisingly direct, even though it involves fantastical elements. Essentially, Weapons is a dark and twisted fairy tale. What makes it truly special isn’t shocking twists, but Cregger’s skillful direction, a playful sense of dark humor, and the way the story is told from different viewpoints. And then there’s Amy Madigan, who delivers a truly unforgettable performance as Aunt Gladys – with incredible makeup effects! – creating a villain that will stay with you long after the credits roll. Her work deserves all the praise it’s receiving, and it elevates Weapons to the top of this year’s horror films, making it a truly haunting experience.

2025-12-10 20:13