Horror fans were given plenty of dreadful delights in 2025, with virtually every genre imaginable earning a thrilling entry. Whether you’re into killer robots, ghosts, creepy kids, or anxiety-fueled chronicles of everyday life, 2025 had something for you. Not only were the types of stories we were told diverse, but the inspiration for all these movies came from a number of places, as we were given entirely original, new ideas, modern adaptations of centuries-old stories, or sequels to long-dormant franchises.
Even though big-budget spectacles and superhero tentpoles earn most of the attention from moviegoers every year, the horror genre proved once again how reliably it can bring in serious dollars, along with driving conversations long after audiences have left the theater. Here are our picks for the horror movies that stuck with us all year, whether we wanted them to or not.
10
‘The Ugly Stepsister’
There aren’t many fairy tales as well-known or beloved as that of Cinderella, as she manages to escape her abusive family to find the life she always dreamed of. The Ugly Stepsister posits, what if one of Cinderella’s stepsisters was just misunderstood? The Ugly Stepsister isn’t a direct adaptation of Cinderella, as it manages to circumvent expectations at various turns, though it hits all the key points of the beloved story, making you entirely recontextualize everything you thought you knew about the source material.
What makes the movie such a standout isn’t just the fact that it tells a more tortured tale than what audiences might be expecting, and rather it’s the depictions of how desperate “ugly” stepsister Elvira (Lea Myren) is to transform herself into a traditional mold of beauty in hopes of bringing her family out of poverty. From medieval nose jobs to tapeworms, there’s no length Elvira isn’t willing to go to in order to win the affection of the prince. A medieval body horror that explores the trauma one will endure to achieve beauty standards, The Ugly Stepsister features some of the more stomach-turning trauma of the year.
9
‘The Monkey’
It shouldn’t come as much surprise that when Osgood Perkins puts his own spin on a Stephen King story, you’re going to get something entirely original, which The Monkey fully proved. There’s an inherent challenge when it comes to adapting King, as he earned his well-deserved legacy as an icon of horror for good reason. If you’re too faithful, audiences will wonder what the point was, and if you deviate too much, die-hard fans will be disappointed.
Luckily, Perkins’ sense of humor made him the perfect person to bring “The Monkey” to life, as the source material has just enough absurdity to avoid feeling like a full-blown horror story, so by embracing his own sense of humor while also injecting buckets of blood into this tale of shocking deaths circling a toy monkey, we got a story that found the perfect balance of delivering something fresh while also being faithful. The inherent surprise of the bizarre deaths earned The Monkey a lot of comparisons to the Final Destination series, but this experience felt like a better Final Destination than the actual Final Destination sequel that hit theaters just months later.
8
‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’
Some of the best horror movies are the ones that refuse to be defined by one genre, and writer/director Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is one of the most excruciatingly painful cinematic experiences of the year, yet the one that avoids virtually every trope of the horror genre. On paper, the story of mother Linda (Rose Byrne) merely trying to get through her life while coping with her daughter’s feeding disorder and facing one setback after another might seem like a drama or even darkly black comedy, though anyone who has actually seen this movie can attest to just how anxiety-inducing every single sequence is.
Byrne’s performance is one of the most gripping of the year, of any genre, as the anxiety she experiences is visceral. While a movie like 2023’s Beau Is Afraid similarly explored a story of a character stuck in a perpetual panic attack, that film’s heightened nature allowed for more humor to shine through, with If I Had Legs I’d Kick You‘s more grounded approach to anxiety denying us many of those cathartic laughs. Bronstein’s film is an experiment in just how many things can go wrong at every opportunity, causing Linda to live through a waking nightmare, and if that isn’t horror, we don’t know what is.
7
‘Companion’
Dating back to movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, audiences have been given stories about operating systems that are meant to help us becoming corrupted and setting their sights on destruction, a tradition continued in things like The Terminator, The Matrix, and M3GAN. Even in our current reality, we’re reminded of the dangers of AI and how easily it can be manipulated, to the point that “robot turning evil” is one of the least inspired premises in the contemporary horror landscape. Companion instead turns that idea on its head, showcasing how a well-intentioned operating system just doing its job could be victimized by humanity.
Iris (Sophie Thatcher) is a robot designed to love Josh (Jack Quaid), and she carries out her protocol perfectly. When Josh’s friends know there’s a way they can exploit Iris’s programming, a twisted journey kicks off that keeps the audience on their toes. The talents of Thatcher and Quaid are what really make the movie work, often feeling like a straightforward rom-com, making the more horrendous pivots of the narrative hit that much harder, causing us to question the true root of Companion‘s villainy.
6
‘Good Boy’
The concept of Good Boy is so simple and straightforward that it’s hard to think that no one’s ever delivered it before: what if a haunted house story was told through the perspective of a dog who’s seemingly aware of otherworldly threats that humans can’t see? Directed by Ben Leonberg and starring his dog Indy, what could have been a short film or merely a proof of concept is instead a touching and empathetic journey that’ll have you hugging your furry best friend a lot tighter.
As any dog lover will tell you, seeing a dog in any kind of peril can cause you to immediately shut off a movie, and while Leonberg and his wife and producing partner Kari Fischer could have exploited their pooch for superficial dread, they instead made Indy a star whose subtle changes of expression say more than what many other actors could convey. Of course, the audience knows that Indy was never in any genuine peril and likely never even saw anything close to frightening, as the clever editing and story structure allowed the filmmakers to piece together a series of specific reactions and behaviors to craft a narrative. Good Boy is reminiscent of the original Paranormal Activity in that you don’t need a massive budget or major stars to tell a good story, you just need the right hook and some patience to put it all together (and having a dog as cute as Indy doesn’t hurt).
5
‘The Long Walk’
The Monkey wasn’t the only Stephen King adaptation to make an impact this year, as Hunger Games veteran Francis Lawrence traded the spectacular combat of one dystopia for the harrowing, exhausting world of The Long Walk. King was inspired to write the story when he saw young men his age heading off to the Vietnam War, all in the name of patriotism, with every soldier thinking that they’d surely survive the ordeal. More than 50 years later, the symbolic impact of boys being promised riches for merely refusing to stop walking was just as effective today.
Even though the overall tone of the movie was more about the camaraderie between the boys and the ways in which they banded together in hopes of pushing each other further, knowing 49 out of 50 would be shot on the spot, so we weren’t given the same type of scares as in things like Sinner or 28 Days Later. However, the depictions of authoritarianism and the arbitrary nature of who survives and who doesn’t, knowing the person next to you could be killed without warning, made The Long Walk eerily more realistic than almost any other genre movie this year.
4
’28 Years Later’
Coming nearly 20 years after the last entry in the franchise, the fact that 28 Years Later even happened is a shock, especially since original director Danny Boyle and original writer Alex Garland both returned for the project. This isn’t the first legacy sequel to bring back beloved filmmakers, but while this pair could have brought the series back to its roots to repeat what made 28 Days Later a success, they gave us something completely different from what we were expecting.
Sure, 28 Years Later had rage-infected “zombies” and chase sequences full of terror, though it was the ways in which this sequel offered insight into the nature of death and how it is viewed by various communities that really made the movie transcend a traditional zombie movie. The more existential and philosophical elements of the story might not have resonated with horror fans just looking for blood and gore, and that’s exactly why 28 Years Later feels like such a success for the genre; Boyle and Garland didn’t give us the story we thought we wanted and instead gave us the story we never knew we needed.
3
‘Frankenstein’
Guillermo del Toro has regularly told tales of misunderstood monsters throughout his career, which culminated in him bringing a seminal monster to life for his Frankenstein. When we say “monster,” we don’t necessarily mean Jacob Elordi’s Creature, as a key component of the marketing campaign and of the film itself is how Oscar Isaac’s Victor Frankenstein is far more monstrous than the corpse he brings back to life.
For nearly a century, Boris Karloff’s monster has been the defining take on the character, and as elegant as that portrayal was, it has lacked the nuance of Mary Shelley’s original story. Del Toro corrected that with Frankenstein, showcasing the pain and grief of a creature doomed to survive yet never asking to be created in the first place, witnessing firsthand the highs and lows of the human condition. On top of the power of these themes, the production design and cinematography continue del Toro’s reputation as an expansive storyteller, pulling off the impossible by breathing fresh life into a story only few would dare to adapt.
2
‘Weapons’
A key strength of Zach Cregger’s 2022 film Barbarian was how little its marketing campaign revealed about the true nature of the story, and the marketing campaign of Weapons similarly managed to find ways to freak us out while never tipping its hand to what kind of story it would be. Not only did all the promotional materials prevent us from forming theories, but it also reminded us that Weapons was an experience that failed to be defined in traditional descriptions.
The movie felt like a grab bag of various horror concepts, from witches to creepy kids to freaky neighbors, and like Cregger’s previous efforts, Weapons managed to inject just as many genuine laughs as unsettling frights. With Weapons, Cregger proved he didn’t accidentally stumble on success with Barbarian and he is continuing to evolve as a storyteller.
1
‘Sinners’
Ryan Coogler’s Sinners wasn’t just one of the best horror movies of the year, but one of the best movies of any genre this year. Thanks to Jaws, filmmaker Steven Spielberg set the standard for how to use a horror movie premise to offer everything you could want from a theatrical experience, and Coogler similarly delivered an experience that ticks all of our cinematic wants.
Sinners itself felt like a horror epic, as this movie delivered an entirely unsettling story about vampires, but also a compelling family drama, an exploration of the rise of blues music in Mississippi, and both subtle and overt depictions of white people appropriating Black culture. The scenes of terror were just as satisfying as scenes of glee, and much like the sprawling narrative itself, the talented cast brought to life a variety of perspectives. Michael B. Jordan playing dual roles was an already impressive feat, while supporting cast members Miles Caton, Wunmi Mosaku, Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O’Connell, Yao, and Li Jun Li were all compelling and complex enough to have taken the spotlight in their own movies.
While Sinners has already secured a number of Golden Globe Awards nominations, this is likely just the tip of the iceberg of accolades it’s about to receive.
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