The 20 Best Horror Movies on Amazon Prime Video

This list is regularly updated as movies rotate on and off of Prime Video. *New additions are indicated with an asterisk.

Who wants to be scared tonight? While there are fantastic streaming services dedicated to horror nuts, there’s also a wealth of genre hits and indie darlings on Prime Video. In fact, they have one of the most diverse arrays of horror hits, including films by vets like David Cronenberg and Paul W.S. Anderson, alongside newer films from indie studios. This regularly updated list will keep Prime Video subscribers in the know on what are the best horror movies they can watch right now. Turn the lights off and lock the doors.

*Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Year: 1992
Runtime: 2h 7m
Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 epic retelling of the classic novel is one of the most lavish and ambitious Hollywood productions of its era. Gary Oldman gives one of his best performances as the title character, but it’s Coppola’s incredible craftsmanship and unforgettable design that make this movie an underrated horror classic.

Candyman

Year: 2021
Runtime: 1h 31m
Director: Nia DaCosta

Too many people easily dismissed the Nia DaCosta remake of the 1992 classic about a boogeyman who terrorizes a Chicago community. Yes, it’s imperfect in its messaging, but it’s a spectacularly well-made film, including some excellent sound design and chilling compositions. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II stars in this film that was co-written by the insanely talented Jordan Peele.

Carnival of Souls

Year: 1962
Runtime: 1h 20m
Director: Herk Harvey

An independent filmmaker who had made his career doing industry safety videos just happened to direct one of the most essential horror flicks of all time in this absolute classic. Candace Hilligoss stars as Mary Henry, a woman who barely survives a car accident and starts seeing ghostly, zombie-like figures in the new city she’s trying to call home. As the figures draw her to an abandoned carnival, some of the best horror imagery of the 1960s surfaces in a film that didn’t get much attention on its release but has gone on to be recognized as a genre masterpiece.

From Beyond

Year: 1986
Runtime: 1h 21m
Director: Stuart Gordon

Gordon’s other H.P. Lovecraft adaptation may be more legendary but this one is nearly as good. How do you even begin to explain this truly insane movie? It’s about a couple of scientists who develop a device that can allow people to see the unseen. When you mess with the other side, you risk the kind of chaos unleashed in this truly insane cinematic nightmare.

Hell House LLC

Year: 2015
Runtime: 1h 23m
Director: Stephen Cognetti

We’re all tired of found footage movies but this flick can be one of the exceptions. So popular that it spawned a franchise (there have already been two sequels), this is the story of a documentary crew that captures the creation of a Halloween haunted house that becomes all too real, ultimately killing 15 ticket buyers and staff. Structured both in a “what happened that night” and in-the-moment found footage doc, this is a truly clever indie horror film.

Hellraiser

Year: 1987
Runtime: 1h 34m
Director: Clive Barker

The horror author Clive Barker directed this adaptation of his own novella The Hellbound Heart and made genre movie history. Introducing the world to the iconic Pinhead, who would go on to appear in so many sequels, the original film here is still the best, the tale of a puzzle box that basically opens a portal to Hell. The sequels have kind of lost the thread, but the original is still incredibly powerful. It’s one of the few films from the ‘80s that would still shatter audiences if it were released today.

High Tension

Year: 2005
Runtime: 1h 29m
Director: Alexandre Aja

This movie is bonkers. Directed by Alexandre Aja (and sometimes called Switchblade Romance) it stars Cecile de France and Maiwenn as two young woman who go to a secluded farmhouse, where they’re attached by a serial killer. The twist ending to this brutal film will likely either make it or break it for you. Note: Shudder also added a few other French Horror Wave films, including Inside and Martyrs — both essential for horror fans, neither for the faint of heart.

The Host

Year: 2007
Runtime: 1h 59m
Director: Bong Joon-ho

The success of Parasite brought an entirely new, larger audience to the work of Bong Joon-ho, and they probably loved this riveting genre piece about a giant monster living in the Han River. Parasite star Song Kang-ho plays the patriarch of a family that’s forced into action when the creature kidnaps his daughter. When it was released, it became the highest-grossing South Korean film of all time.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Year: 1978
Runtime: 1h 55m
Director: Philip Kaufman

There’s a reason that Hollywood keeps returning to Jack Finney’s novel The Body Snatchers—it strikes at a common fear that our neighbors and loved ones aren’t who they were yesterday. The best film version of Finney’s tale is the ‘70s one with Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Veronica Cartwright, Jeff Goldblum, and Leonard Nimoy. A riveting unpacking of ‘70s paranoia, this is a truly terrifying movie.

*It Follows

Year: 2015
Runtime: 1h 40m
Director: David Robert Mitchell

Horror favorite Maika Monroe stars in this 2014 indie horror breakthrough hit as a young woman who discovers that her recent sexual activity has cursed her with a supernatural force that will chase her until she passes it along to someone else. Stylish and striking, the movie felt like nothing else on the American horror market in 2014, helping usher in the era of what is now called “elevated horror.” Whatever you call it, It Follows is still an unforgettable genre flick.

Pearl

Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 42m
Director: Ti West

Mere months after the release of X, Ti West dropped a prequel in the form of this unforgettable horror flick that will now be the centerpiece of a trilogy with the Summer 2024 release of MaXXXine. Mia Goth is phenomenal as the title character, now captured in the early part of the 20th century as she tries to be a movie star but ends up a serial killer instead. It’s a fearless performance, topped by one of the genre’s best monologues.

*The Silence of the Lambs

Year: 1991
Runtime: 1h 53m
Director: Jonathan Demme

Movies don’t get much better than Jonathan Demme’s adaptation of Thomas Harris’ chilling thriller about Clarice Starling and Dr. Hannibal Lecter. With career-defining performances from Jodie Foster and Sir Anthony Hopkins, this movie still absolutely slays a quarter-century after it was released. It’s fascinating to see its DNA in so many modern genre films. Nothing about it is dated, which isn’t something that can be said about many films that are over three decades old.

Smile

Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 55m
Director: Parker Finn

Paramount has been regularly funneling some of their biggest theatrical hits to their streaming service for a small window of time before they roll over to Prime too. That was the case with Parker Finn’s debut feature film that was in theaters just last summer and made a fortune worldwide (over $200 million). One of the biggest commercial and critical horror hits of 2022, Smile is about a therapist who discovers something supernatural stalking her patients. It will get under your skin.

*Suspiria

Year: 1977
Runtime: 1h 33m
Director: Dario Argento

The Luca Guadagnino remake is also on Prime, but the Argento original is the one to watch. One of the most important and influential of all the Giallo films, it stars Jessica Harper as a ballet student who goes overseas to study and discovers that her new school is populated by witches.

*The Thing

Year: 1982
Runtime: 1h 45m
Director: John Carpenter

John Carpenter directed one of the greatest horror movies of all time in 1982’s The Thing, a sci-fi masterpiece about a group of American researchers at a remote base in Antarctica when, well, they’re visited by something. The real problem is that their alien visitor can take the form of anyone around them, leading to a great cinematic depiction of paranoia and distrust.

Totally Killer

Year: 2023
Runtime: 1h 45m
Director: Nahnatchka Khan

What if Scream and Back to the Future had a baby? It would look a lot like this Prime Original thriller about a young woman (a fun Kiernan Shipka) who travels back in time and joins forces with the teenage version of her mother to stop a serial killer. Quirky and clever, it works as a mystery, slasher film, and an ‘80s comedy.

*Warm Bodies

Year: 2013
Runtime: 1h 32m
Director: Jonathan Levine

Nicholas Hoult has become one of the more consistently interesting actors of his generation and this remains one of his most delightful early performances. The star of The Great plays, well, a dead guy. Named only “R,” this zombie discovers that you don’t need a beating heart to fall in love when he meets Julie, played by a charming Teresa Palmer. A zom-rom-com, this one certainly isn’t like anything else on Prime.

*Willow Creek

Year: 2013
Runtime: 1h 19m
Director: Bobcat Goldthwait

Yes, the comedian and Police Academy star is also a killer director, including helming one of the best found footage horror movies of all time in this clever werewolf flick. It’s proof of how much can be done with forced POV and killer sound design.

*The Witch

Year: 2016
Runtime: 1h 32m
Director: Robert Eggers

Robert Eggers’ Sundance hit is a master class in sound design and limited perspective. Using testimony from the Salem Witch Trials, the concept of Eggers’ script is beautifully simple – what if one of those trials was about a legitimate witch? The sound of branches hitting each other from the wind, the sound of footsteps on the leafy ground: This is a movie that understands that horror is often sensory more than purely conveyed through storytelling.

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