The 30 Best Horror Movies on Shudder

This article is regularly updated as titles leave and enter Shudder. *New titles are indicated with an asterisk.

Horror fans know there’s only one streaming service that they need to have — Shudder. Launched in 2016 and operated by AMC Networks, Shudder is one of the most smartly curated and densely stocked catalogs of any streaming service. Non-horror fans might write it off as something they don’t need, but Shudder really could appeal to anyone. It reveals how much variety there is within the word “horror,” and it’s being constantly updated with some of the best original film offerings of any streamer. Don’t miss out. And start with these 30 films now on the service, really just a taste of the hundreds of movies and original programs offered by Shudder, starting with this month’s critic’s pick.

This Month’s Critic’s Pick

*Audition

Year: 1999
Runtime: 1h 55m
Director: Takashi Miike

Takashi Miike may have made over 100 movies, but Audition is the best of them all. His thriller/horror adaptation of Ryu Murakami’s book is not only terrifying, but it proved that the Miike known more for unbridled insanity could also work in a more psychological, terrifying register. It’s the story of a widower who finds himself dating the wrong person, and it’s a masterful slow burn as the film builds to one of the most unsettling climaxes of all time.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe

Year: 2016
Runtime: 1h 26m
Director: Andre Ovredal

The director of The Last Voyage of the Demeter broke through with his one-setting gem, which takes place in one of the most inherently terrifying places in the normal world: a funeral home. A father (Brian Cox of Logan Roy fame) and his son (Emile Hirsch) are preparing the body of a Jane Doe for burial when, well, things start to get weird. Clever and creepy, this is a great horror movie just in time for spooky season.

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

Year: 1970
Runtime: 1h 26m
Director: Dario Argento

One of the most essential filmmakers in the history of the horror genre is the man most associated with the term ‘giallo,’ the Italian maestro Dario Argento. His directorial debut is a banger, a fantastic thriller about an American writer who sees a brutal attack in an art gallery by a figure dressed in black. It may have been his first film, but Argento’s style was already in top form.

birth/rebirth

Year: 2023
Runtime: 1h 39m
Director: Laura Moss

This mesmerizing riff on Frankenstein is one of the best horror films of 2023. Judy Reyes stars as a nurse whose daughter dies at the age of five, only to be brought back to life by a morgue technician (an unforgettable Marin Ireland) who has been experimenting with a daring new process. How fare would you go to bring a child back from the dead? What lines would you cross? birth/rebirth is a brilliant, unforgettable piece of work.

Black Christmas

Year: 1974
Runtime: 1h 38m
Director: Bob Clark

Forty-five years after the release of the original, a remake was dropped (also on Shudder), but it’s best to just stick with the influential 1974 film. Something to keep in mind is that this slasher classic about a group of sorority sisters hunted on Christmas (including Margot Kidder and Olivia Hussey) predates Halloween and Friday the 13th. In other words, it’s really one of the first slasher pics, a movie that shaped dozens of films to come.

Carnival of Souls

Year: 1962
Runtime: 1h 18m
Director: Herk Harvey

One of the best horror movies ever made, Herk Harvey’s 1962 film is an early cult classic, a film made for almost no money that became an influential masterpiece. Candace Hilligoss plays a woman who starts having terrifying visions after surviving a car accident. These visions lead her to an abandoned carnival. You can see this film’s DNA in hundreds of horror movies to follow, but it’s still wonderfully creepy when judged on its own terms.

The Changeling

Year: 1980
Runtime: 1h 47m
Director: Peter Medak

Peter Medak’s 1980 ghost story was promoted largely for its scares, but it’s a bit tame now in that department, more valuable as an example of how great George C. Scott was every single time he got in front of a camera. Scott plays a man grieving the loss of his wife and daughter who moves to Seattle and discovers his new house is haunted. It’s interesting to watch this movie now and consider how much it visually influenced the world of films like The Conjuring and Annabelle. It’s a clear inspiration.

Color Out of Space

Year: 2020
Runtime: 1h 50m
Director: Richard Stanley

Richard Stanley co-wrote and directed an adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft short story of the same name, marking his first time behind the camera since the disastrous 1996 production of The Island of Dr. Moreau. Color Out of Space went much better. Nicolas Cage plays the patriarch of a family that moves to a remote farm, at which a glowing meteor seems to crash in the front yard. And then things get really weird in a way that only a Lovecraft movie can.

*Dead Calm

Year: 1989
Runtime: 1h 35m
Director: Phillip Noyce

A young Nicole Kidman starred in one of her breakthrough roles in this excellent thriller from Phillip Noyce. Based on the 1963 novel of the same name, it’s the story of a married couple (Kidman & Sam Neill), who are isolated at sea when they across a stranded stranger (Billy Zane), who hides a few deadly secrets.

The Dark and the Wicked

Year: 2020
Runtime: 1h 35m
Director: Bryan Bertino

Released during the first year of the pandemic, Bertino’s indie horror movie may be the most underrated on this list given how much it got buried by real-world problems. Marin Ireland and Michael Abbott Jr. play siblings who return to their remote family farm in Texas to discover that something is wrong with mom and dad. As their father’s health worsens, strange things start happening around the farm, culminating in a final act of terrifying visceral power.

Deep Red

Year: 1976
Runtime: 1h 44m
Director: Dario Argento

There’s a reason that so many horror directors bow at the altar of Dario Argento, the king of the giallo film. Also known as The Hatchet Murders, Deep Red is one of his masterpieces, a great starting point if you’re just getting into Argento’s career. The story of a pianist (David Hemmings) who gets caught up in the investigation into a serial killer contains some of Argento’s most unforgettable set pieces. The superb score by Goblin doesn’t hurt.

The Devil’s Bath

Year: 2024
Runtime: 2h 1m
Director: Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala

Set in a remote region of the 18th century in Austria, the latest from the directors of Goodnight Mommy and The Lodge is a bleak, unsparing piece of horror filmmaking. It’s about a woman (Anja Plaschg) who is so beaten down by the life and world around her that she considers the unthinkable, murdering her child. At the time, suicide would keep perpetrators from the pearly gates, whereas murder could be forgiven. Yeah, this is dark stuff.

Halloween

Year: 1978
Runtime: 1h 30m
Director: John Carpenter

Maybe you’ve heard of it? It seems unlikely that anyone subscribing to a service called Shudder hasn’t seen John Carpenter’s game-changing masterpiece, but maybe it’s been a few years for you and you’re considering a revisit. You really should go back to Haddonfield and see where the saga of Michael Myers began. It’s the rare horror movie that can send chills up your spine every time you see it.

Hellbender

Year: 2002
Runtime: 1h 26m
Director: John Adams, Zelda Adams, Toby Poser

The Adams family rules. A New York family of filmmakers, they write, direct, shoot, edit, and star in their films, including the excellent The Deeper You Dig, also on Shudder. Their latest stars Zelda Adams, the daughter of the filmmaking crew, as a teenager who has been isolated from society but discovers that they have a connection to witchcraft that could destroy everyone. An original coming-of-age tale, it’s further evidence that everyone should know the Adams movies.

Hellraiser

Year: 1987
Runtime: 1h 33m
Director: Clive Barker

Clive Barker’s debut directorial effort, working from his own screenplay, may be the best cinematic example of a writer translating his vision from the page to the screen. Shakespearean in its examination of family betrayals and unchecked evil, this is a movie that works just as well today as it did thirty years ago. Note: You can also check out the underrated Hellbound: Hellraiser II on Shudder and make it a double feature. Lock the doors first. None of the other sequels are on Shudder right now, but that’s probably for the best.

Host

Year: 2020
Runtime: 56m
Director: Rob Savage

Rob Savage directed the first major pandemic-produced horror film, a movie about a séance gone wrong over Zoom, which was filmed while the COVID-19 outbreak shut down the world. Directing the project via Zoom himself, Savage produced a surprisingly effective piece of work. And it only runs 56 minutes!

In a Violent Nature

Year: 2024
Runtime: 1h 34m
Director: Chris Nash

Imagine watching Friday the 13th from Jason’s POV and then you’ll have some idea of what it’s like to experience one of the most buzzed about horror films of 2024. A sort of “Slasher ASMR,” it’s filled with a lot of noises of killing machine Johnny walking through the woods, punctuated by some of the most memorably brutal quality kills of all time.

The Innkeepers

Year: 2011
Runtime: 1h 41m
Director: Ti West

The director of X and Pearl delivered his most underrated work in this early 2010s ghost story about a pair of employees (Sara Paxton & Pat Healy) working the final stretch of open days for a haunted hotel. Trying to document the supernatural hauntings at the Yankee Pedlar before it closes leads to a wonderful slow burn that pays off with an unforgettable final act.

Late Night With the Devil

Year: 2024
Runtime: 1h 33m
Directors: Colin Cairnes, Cameron Cairnes

A theatrical hit for IFC, the latest horror gem from the Cairnes landed on Shudder while it was still in some theaters. The wonderfully talented David Dastmalchian plays a ‘70s talk show host who has devised an unforgettable show for Halloween night, including a possessed girl as a guest. To say things go wrong would be an understatement. Stylish, funny, and original, this is one of the best horror films of 2024.

Luz

Year: 2019
Runtime: 1h 11m
Director: Tilman Singer

Cuckoo mastermind Tilman Singer writes and directs this film that feels more like a lost flick from the ‘70s era of European horror than something that came out in 2019. It’s truly impossible to describe a film that plays out like a hallucination more than a literal story. There’s a police station, a possession, and then a deconstruction of the very genre. You won’t forget it.

Mandy

Year: 2018
Runtime: 2h 1m
Director: Panos Cosmatos

Panos Cosmatos gave Nicolas Cage one of the best roles of his career in this film that already feels like a cult classic. For about an hour, Mandy is a slow burn about a man who goes through a living hell when a cult kidnaps and murders his wife (Andrea Riseborough). And then for the second hour, it’s a crazy movie that’s just washed in blood and features a chainsaw fight. You can’t adequately describe it in words, so you just need to see it.

Night of the Living Dead

Year: 1968
Runtime: 1h 35m
Director: George A. Romero

When a young man named George A. Romero got some buddies together to make a movie in Pittsburgh that had almost no budget, they couldn’t have possibly known that they were about to change movie history. Watching this classic a half-century after its release, one is struck by how much it holds up today, tackling issues and reshaping horror movie language in a way that will never grow old.

The Rental

Year: 2020
Runtime: 1h 28m
Director: Dave Franco

Airbnbs are weird, man. The general discomfort of staying in someone else’s house gets the horror treatment in this tense horror film, the directorial debut of Dave Franco. Two couples head off to a rental house, and sense that something’s not quite right about their chosen location. What starts as a relationship drama becomes something very different in a film that suggests Franco may have a rich life behind the camera.

Resurrection

Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 44m
Director: Andrew Semans

Rebecca Hall is riveting as Margaret, a successful businesswoman who has buried the trauma from an abusive ex-partner (Tim Roth) until he unexpectedly resurfaces in her world. Andrew Semans’s critical smash is exclusively on Shudder, and it’s the kind of truly bonkers thriller that you need to see before someone tells you to. Get on the increasingly crowded bandwagon for this future cult classic now.

*Revenge

Year: 2018
Runtime: 1h 48m
Director: Coralie Fargeat

Horror has too long been a man’s game, so we should celebrate when a great film by a female director lands on Shudder, especially one by the director of one of the most popular horror films of 2024, The Substance. Matilda Lutz plays a woman who is raped and nearly murdered by a trio of monsters. You will cheer her bloody, vicious vengeance.

Ringu

Year: 1998
Runtime: 1h 35m
Director: Hideo Nakata

This is on the Mt. Rushmore of J-Horror, a film that really shook the entire the world. Most people know the tale by now: a cursed video tape will kill its viewer after seven days unless they can get someone else to watch it first. It’s an incredibly effective film, building in tension until its final reveal, one of the most terrifying moments in horror history.

Saloum

Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 24m
Director: Jean Luc Herbulot

Culturally resonant and thrilling, this Toronto 2021 film is a Shudder exclusive now. It starts as a thriller as a group of mercenaries work to extricate a drug lord from Guinea-Bissau and take him to Dakar, Senegal. Along the way, they’re forced to land in a remote village, where, well, things happen. Riveting and original, Saloum is one of the best genre films of 2022.

Speak No Evil

Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 37m
Director: Christian Tafdrup

Stop being so nice to people. That’s arguably the theme of this shocking 2022 genre hit, now exclusively on Shudder. Two couples who became friends on vacation meet up again and discover they have less in common than they first thought. As micro-aggressions become macro-aggressions, this Haneke-inspired film seems to be encouraging people to stand up when they sense something is wrong, or risk never being able to stand again. The final scenes are so shocking that viewers should be warned that this is not for the faint of heart.

Tigers Are Not Afraid

Year: 2019
Runtime: 1h 23m
Director: Issa López

There aren’t enough films on Shudder that aren’t from the United States or Asia. This Mexican offering from Issa Lopez is an exception, and it’s a good one — a tender, empathetic tale of the orphans of the Mexican Drug War with stylistic echoes of one of its biggest fans, Guillermo del Toro.

Watcher

Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 31m
Director: Chloe Okuno

One of the best films of 2022, this Shudder exclusive stars Maika Monroe (It Follows) as a woman who has moved to Romania with her husband Francis (Karl Glusman). Without much to do and unable to speak the language, she starts to get paranoid that someone is watching her from across the courtyard. Stylish and riveting, Watcher is a must-see.

When Evil Lurks

Year: 2023
Runtime: 1h 39m
Director: Demian Rugna

This is one of the most messed-up movies on Shudder, and that’s really saying something. An Argentinian horror film that dropped on Shudder shortly after its Toronto Film Festival premiere and theatrical release, it’s the story of two brothers who discover that there’s a demonic entity living on the edge of their village. When it gets accidentally released, things get really bad. Gorey and strange in equal measure, this one takes no prisoners.

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