Ever since the return from the pandemic, horror movies have been established as one of the genres, even beyond superhero fare, that audiences are willing to see in the theater. Even streaming services, including the horror-focused Shudder, have put out horror movies regularly throughout the year.
So with apologies to M3gan, those retiring fraudsters Ed and Lorraine Warren, and 28 Years Later — which every critic but me seems to have loved — these are the best horror movies of 2025. The first ten months of the year that is, as there remain a few horror movies on the year’s remaining schedule, such as Radu Jude’s Dracula, Chris Stuckmann’s Shelby Oaks (just released), Oz Perkins’ Keeper, and the remake of Silent Night Deadly Night.
Counting down the top ten:
Companion
Drew Hancock’s film stars Jack Quaid and Sophie Thatcher on an awkward trip with several other couples to a cabin, but the twist is that one of them is a “companion robot” that can be controlled with the other’s phone. But that’s not just the twist — that’s really just the start of things.
Dead Talents Society
Director John Hsu’s horror-comedy is set in a world in which ghosts remain on Earth, but must actually scare people or risk vanishing. It’s like a live-action Monsters, Inc.
Dangerous Animals
Sean Byrne’s film starts out as a thriller about sharks, but then it turns out it’s actually the man who’s even more dangerous. Jai Courtney, not always the most impressive actor, gives a strong performance as the psychopathic killer.
The Woman in the Yard
“Actually, it’s all about trauma” is getting to be an overused premise, in the horror genre and elsewhere. But Jaume Collet-Serra’s latest film, starring the great Danielle Deadwyler, finds a creative way to tell such a story, in which a family (led by Deadwyler) is haunted by a woman, in her yard, covered in a black shroud.
The Long Walk
The latest adaptation of a Stephen King novel — actually, the first book he ever wrote — tells the post-apocalyptic story of a competitive walk in which anyone who slows down below a certain speed is killed. The key to the film is the relationship between two of the competitors (Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson).
Borderline
This film about a pop star (Samara Weaving) being followed by a psychopathic stalker (Ray Nicholson) who thinks they’re lovers, barely got a theatrical release before landing on HBO Max, but I found it a hidden gem, thanks to a go-for-broke performance by Nicholson, and a murderous duet to the Celine Dion song “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now,” one of my favorite movie scenes of the year.
Presence
One of two Steven Soderbergh films this year — plus he had a third at TIFF — this one tells the story of a family haunted by a ghost, who sometimes intervenes to affect events. The film’s ending, in particular, is a gut punch.
Weapons
Zach Cregger’s sophomore film is an inventive, creatively told story about a group of kids who go missing, the teacher (Julia Garner) who falls under suspicion, and the dad (Josh Brolin) who leads the mob against her. Then, about an hour in, we meet Aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan), one of the best movie characters of the year.
Frankenstein
Guillermo Del Toro has made another film that’s an adaptation of something that’s been made countless times before, but gives it all sorts of Del Toro-specific touches. There’s also a fantastic performance by Jacob Elordi as “The Creature,” who enters the story about an hour in.
Sinners
Sinners is a lot of genres — musical, thriller, vampire… but I’d say Ryan Coogler’s film qualifies as horror as well. The most sonically inventive film of the year, and one of the best overall, Sinners successfully weds a human story with a couple of hundred years of American musical history.
