Look out! The 21 best horror movies on Netflix

28 Years Later (2025)

Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later proves the franchise still has a lot to say. Released 18 years after 28 Weeks Later (2007), the third installment in the postapocalyptic horror series is set on one of the British Isles, where a community has flourished, isolated from the more evolved versions of the infected that still terrorize the region. The film follows 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams), who must contend with his mother’s growing illness and his father’s inability to help her.

Writer Alex Garland and director Boyle reunite for the first time since 28 Days Later (2002), and their collaboration meditates on British culture and isolationism in a post-Brexit, COVID-impacted world. —Ilana Gordon

Where to watch 28 Years Later: Netflix

EW grade: A–

Director: Danny Boyle

Cast: Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jack O’Connell, Alfie Williams, Ralph Fiennes

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026)

The fourth film in the franchise — and the second within the 28 Years Later trilogy — The Bone Temple briefly departs from the dangers of the infected to consider the perils of the survivors. Humanity has been tested in the years since the Rage Virus took hold, and in this, Spike (Alfie Williams) is adopted into a gang of survivors led by Satanist Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), where he finds that his human companions are more of a threat to his safety than the infected. Meanwhile, Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) builds trust with an Alpha Infected named Samson, and begins to understand the way the virus manifests. —I.G.

Where to watch 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple: Netflix

Director: Nia DaCosta

Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Jack O’Connell, Alfie Williams, Erin Kellyman, Chi Lewis-Parry

The Black Phone (2021)

The ‘70s were the heyday of serial killers, and the villain from The Black Phone would fit right in with the John Wayne Gacys and Ted Bundys of the world. Set in 1978, The Black Phone focuses on a Denver suburb that is being targeted by “the Grabber” (Ethan Hawke), a serial child abductor and murderer.

After 13-year-old Finney Blake is kidnapped, his sister Gwen starts having psychic dreams about his abduction and location. Meanwhile, Finney finds himself locked in a room with only a broken pay phone that keeps ringing with calls from the Grabber’s former victims who hope to help him escape. A horror film distinguished by its supernatural elements, The Black Phone is a terrifying return to horror for Hawke (following his tantalizing turns in 2012’s Sinister and 2013’s The Purge), made even more nightmarish by his masked face and frequent giggling. —I.G. 

Where to watch The Black Phone: Netflix

EW grade: B

Director: Scott Derrickson 

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, James Ransone

Creep (2014)

In this found-footage two-hander, a young videographer named Aaron (Patrick Brice) is hired by Josef (Mark Duplass) to record a day of his life. Josef explains that he has an inoperable brain tumor and wants to leave something behind for his soon-to-be-born son, but his eccentric behavior becomes increasingly concerning, and Aaron needs to decide whether to continue filming — assuming Josef will let him leave. 

Creep’s continued success depends on whether Josef can keep finding fresh ways to be unnerving, and he does. (Things get even creepier in 2017’s Creep 2 — also on Netflix — which documents another video project gone terribly wrong.) —Danny Horn

Where to watch Creep: Netflix

Director: Patrick Brice

Cast: Mark Duplass, Patrick Brice

El Conde (2023)

Director Pablo Larraín sinks his teeth into Chile’s most notorious villain, Gen. Augusto Pinochet, a figure who frequented some of his past works like Tony Manero (2008), Post Mortem (2010), and No (2012). But instead of merely depicting Pinochet’s military dictatorship that terrorized and killed thousands, Larraín offers an alternative history that sees him as a 250-year-old vampire who’s grown tired of immortality after the countless atrocities he’s committed. 

Shot in breathtaking, Oscar-nominated black and white cinematography, El Conde is a gothic, politically rich vampire odyssey that renders fascists as literal life-drainers, forcing its heartless protagonist to sit forever with his horrific legacy. —James Mercadante

Where to watch El Conde: Netflix

Director: Pablo Larraín

Cast: Jaime Vadell, Gloria Münchmeyer, Alfredo Castro, Paula Luchsinger

Evil Dead (2013)

Evil Dead (1981) put director Sam Raimi on the map, and more than three decades later, the movie lives on through the Raimi-produced remake. Newcomer Fede Álvarez stays true to Raimi’s original concept — five friends in a remote cabin trying to fight off demonic possession — but gleefully exploits the film through guts, gore, and jump scares galore.

Suburgatory’s Jane Levy is the only name in the film, and she makes the most of her role as the heroin addicted Mia who has gone to the cabin in an attempt to get clean. Serving as an homage to the original while still finding new ways to scare, shock, and torment the characters trapped within, 2013’s Evil Dead is a remake done right. —I.G.

Where to watch Evil Dead: Netflix

EW grade: B+

Director: Fede Álvarez

Cast: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas, Elizabeth Blackmore

Fear Street Part I: 1994 (2021)

It’s a familiar setup — a group of clever, plucky suburban teens battling a hooded, skull-masked serial killer who returns from the dead — but this brisk adaptation of the R.L. Stine novel series offers more than just the obvious tropes. The Fear Street trilogy is a knowing mash-up of slasher films, ghost stories, and summer camp killers bound together by an ancient supernatural curse. 

The second chapter in the franchise flashes back to 1978, and the third film to 1666, exploring a detailed backstory. Plus, the lesbian romance at the heart of the trilogy provides a modern spin. —D.H.

Where to watch Fear Street Part I: 1994: Netflix

Director: Leigh Janiak

Cast: Kiana Madeira, Olivia Scott Welch, Benjamin Flores Jr., Julia Rehwald, Fred Hechinger

Frankenstein (2025)

If you thought you knew Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel Frankenstein, you haven’t seen Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of her story. Frankenstein — del Toro’s version — is faithful to Shelley’s book, but expands upon her world, giving Victor Frankenstein’s (Oscar Isaac) character a toxic relationship with his father, which is then replicated in his own relationship with his monster (Jacob Elordi). 

Dr. Frankenstein’s creature also gets his say in this version — del Toro splits his script in two, with the first half centered around the scientist’s story, and the second concentrated on the being he created. At 6 feet 5 inches tall, Elordi towers over the other actors and gives a surprisingly tender performance of a being capable of destruction, who really just wants to be loved by the man who made him. —I.G.

Where to watch Frankenstein: Netflix

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Cast: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz

Gerald’s Game (2017)

On vacation at a remote lake house, Gerald (Bruce Greenwood) plays a kinky sex game with his wife, Jessie (Carla Gugino), handcuffing her to the bed and then dropping dead of a heart attack. Shackled to the bedposts with no chance of rescue, Jessie has to figure out how to survive. 

Adapting a Stephen King novel long thought to be unfilmable, Gerald’s Game fleshes out the story by bringing Gerald back to life as a hallucination, giving Jessie someone to talk to as she confronts her inner demons. Stirring performances by Gugino and Greenwood make this film a compelling watch. —D.H.

Where to watch Gerald’s Game: Netflix

Director: Mike Flanagan

Cast: Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood, Carel Struycken

Green Room (2015)

Punk musicians square off against neo-Nazis in Green Room, a horror thriller about a murder that turns into a bloodbath. The punk band the Ain’t Rights are at the tail end of their tour of the Pacific Northwest when they find themselves booked at a skinhead bar. After the band witnesses the aftermath of a murder, the Nazis take them hostage; with only one way out of the green room, it’s up to the band to fight for their right to survive. 

Green Room’s premise is terrifying enough, but the film’s fear factor is taken up a notch thanks to Patrick Stewart’s performance as the primary villain. EW’s critic writes, “Stewart is way scarier when he’s neither barking nor biting but just purring controlled threats.” —I.G.

Where to watch Green Room: Netflix

EW grade: A–

Director: Jeremy Saulnier

Cast: Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, Callum Turner

His House (2020)

Hailing from Britain, His House is a folk horror movie so celebrated, it has a 100 percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners) and Sope Dirisu (Gangs of London) star as a refugee couple fleeing war in South Sudan who are given asylum in London, only to discover their assigned home is haunted by something evil.

Complex ideas about trauma, guilt, loss, desperation, and cultural assimilation are cleverly embedded in the story’s DNA, but director Remi Weekes — in a powerful feature film debut — still manages to place a premium on the movie’s horror elements. A haunted house story reframed through the immigrant experience, His House has everything going for it. —I.G.

Where to watch His House: Netflix

Director: Remi Weekes

Cast: Wunmi Mosaku, Sope Dirisu, Matt Smith

I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)

You can’t escape the sins of your past in I Know What You Did Last Summer. A horror film with a serious hook — both literal and metaphorical — the success of the project helped enable a resurgence of slasher movies in the ‘90s. Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, and Freddie Prinze Jr. star as recent high school graduates with a deadly secret.

That secret stays between them until the four reunite the following summer in their hometown. Soon, intimidating messages indicate that someone else knows what happened a year ago and will stop at nothing to seek retribution. EW’s critic writes that the movie “knows how to assault you as crudely — and efficiently — as its vengeful slasher.” —I.G.

Where to watch I Know What You Did Last Summer: Netflix

Director: Jim Gillespie

Cast: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Freddie Prinze Jr., Johnny Galecki

Influencer (2022)

There are movies that use social media as a device, and then there’s Influencer. This twisty horror thriller is set in Thailand, where Madison (Emily Tennant), a social media personality, is posting her way through a solo vacation because her boyfriend didn’t come along. She befriends a free spirit named CW (Cassandra Naud), who escorts her through the country’s hidden gems — until Madison’s passport is stolen, and her trip takes a bleak turn.

To complicate matters, another influencer named Jessica (Sara Canning) enters the picture, and Madison’s absent boyfriend and social media manager, Ryan (Rory J. Saper), makes an appearance. If social media is a highlight reel, Influencer reminds us that life behind the photo dumps is often much darker. —I.G.

Where to watch Influencer: Netflix

Director: Kurtis David Harder

Cast: Emily Tennant, Cassandra Naud, Rory J. Saper, Sara Canning

Nope (2022)

For his third feature horror project, Jordan Peele wrote and directed Nope, a supernatural movie set on a ranch outside Los Angeles. Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer play OJ and Em Haywood, siblings who inherit their family’s business of wrangling horses for Hollywood projects after their father is killed by debris falling from a UFO.

Determined to cash in and save their estate, the Haywoods decide to take a photo of the otherworldly object to sell as proof of its existence. Executed in Peele’s signature style, which straddles the line between social satire and genre love letter, Nope lassos the viewers’ suspended disbelief while also interrogating the place where entertainment and exploitation intersect. —I.G.

Where to watch Nope: Netflix

EW grade: B+

Director: Jordan Peele

Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Michael Wincott, Brandon Perea

Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)

Critics didn’t love Ouija (2014), but they responded much more positively to its prequel, Ouija: Origin of Evil. A period piece set in 1967, the film provides a light tie to the original, while prioritizing telling a complete — and completely terrifying — story about grief, the refusal to move on, and the dangers of exploitation.

Elizabeth Reaser stars as Alice, a widow who works as a spiritual medium, with help from her two young daughters. But when Alice decides to include a Ouija board as part of her services, her family suffers the consequences. Ouija: Origin of Evil manages to bring the series back from the dead, and EW ranked the film eighth on our list of the best Blumhouse horror movies. —I.G.

Where to watch Ouija: Origin of Evil: Netflix

Director: Mike Flanagan

Cast: Elizabeth Reaser, Lulu Wilson, Annalise Basso, Henry Thomas

Psycho (1960)

As one of Alfred Hitchcock’s finest films, Psycho broke cinematic and cultural barriers when it premiered in 1960. Considered the genesis of the slasher film genre, Psycho follows Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a Phoenix secretary and embezzler, whose crimes lead her to check into a remote motel run by Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), an eccentric proprietor with a strange relationship with his mother.

Pushing the acceptability limits in the areas of sexuality and violence, Hitchcock’s work on Psycho paved the way for other influential directors within the genre, and inspired three sequels, a 1998 remake helmed by Gus Van Sant, and Bates Motel, a series that aired for five seasons on A&E. Chosen for preservation in the National Film Registry, Psycho is a genre-defining horror thriller directed by a cinematic pioneer. —I.G. 

Where to watch Psycho: Netflix

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cast: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam

The Sixth Sense (1999)

M. Night Shyamalan’s first mainstream feature project is also his best movie, at least according to EW’s rankings of the director’s films. The movie by which all of the director’s subsequent projects have been judged, The Sixth Sense scored six Oscar nods for its story of 9-year-old Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), a troubled child who is taken to psychologist Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), who must reckon with the boy’s claims that he can see and interact with dead people.

The film — and its much-lauded twist — have informed decades worth of horror and thriller projects since, with EW’s critic congratulating Shyamalan’s ability to create a “coolly askew visual style, investing everyday sights — doorknobs, staircases — with unexplained menace.” —I.G. 

Where to watch The Sixth Sense: Netflix

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Cast: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams, Haley Joel Osment

The Strangers (2008)

A low-budget psychological horror film that made a killing at the box office, The Strangers is a cult classic that meditates on the randomness of violence. Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman star as Kristen and James, a couple who intends to spend the night in James’ rural summer home from his 1970s childhood. Their plans take a turn for the deadly when three masked strangers arrive out of nowhere, intent on terrorizing them.

The film was so compelling that upon its release, Stephen King wrote a piece for EW analyzing why intimate films like The Strangers are more successful than their big-budget counterparts. “Horror,” he wrote, “is the scene in The Strangers where Liv Tyler tries to hide beneath the bed…and discovers she can’t fit there.“ —I.G.

Where to watch The Strangers: Netflix

Director: Bryan Bertino

Cast: Liv Tyler, Scott Speedman

Under the Shadow (2016)

Living in Tehran during the 1980s Iran-Iraq War, Shideh (Narges Rashidi) and her young daughter (Avin Manshadi) are under constant threat from missile strikes — and from the terrifying djinn that appears to be haunting their apartment. While her husband and neighbors urge Shideh to take her daughter to safety, the spirit taunts her, questioning whether she’s a respectable woman and a good mother. 

Complex and thought-provoking, Under the Shadow makes a unique addition to the horror canon. EW’s critic calls the movie “a skilled, chilling feature debut that might follow you around a while after seeing it.” —D.H.

Where to watch Under the Shadow: Netflix

EW grade: B+

Director: Babak Anvari

Cast: Narges Rashidi, Avin Manshadi, Bobby Naderi

Verónica (2017)

In Madrid, 15-year-old Verónica (Sandra Escacena) has a dead father, an absent mother, and three young siblings whom she cares for on her own. In an attempt to contact her dad, she and two friends play with an Ouija board. She cuts her hand and drips blood on the board — an obvious no-no among Ouija enthusiasts — causing something demonic to emerge and attach itself to her.

Dark forces start to attack, and Verónica’s descent into madness is all the more upsetting because it threatens her adorable little brother and sisters. Verónica notably wraps up with an explanation of the true story that inspired the film. —D.H.

Where to watch Verónica: Netflix

Director: Paco Plaza

Cast: Sandra Escacena, Claudia Placer, Bruna González, Iván Chavero, Ana Torrent

Your Monster (2024)

A horror romantic comedy that riffs on Beauty and the Beast, Your Monster is a genre mash-up that is sure to delight. Laura (Melissa Barrera) has just been broken up with by her long-term boyfriend, Jacob (Edmund Donovan). Forced to move back home, Laura discovers a monster (Tommy Dewey) squatting in her childhood bedroom. He agrees to give her two weeks to get her life together, and so begins the relationship between a woman trying to move on and the monster who lives in her closet.

Much of the film centers around a musical theater production involving Jacob, Laura, and the woman Laura believes Jacob is romantically interested in, so the film has some songs. But the movie primarily exists as a showcase for Barrera, one of the most exciting actors in this new class of Scream Queens. —I.G.

Where to watch Your Monster: Netflix

Director: Caroline Lindy

Cast: Melissa Barrera, Tommy Dewey, Edmund Donovan, Kayla Foster, Meghann Fahy