The Shining

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• Top 6 Horror Films of All Time

  Currently #5 · score 0

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• The Exorcist

  The Exorcist, released in 1973 and based on William Peter Blatty's novel, became the first horror film ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, a recognition that reflected the film's unusually serious critical reception relative to the genre's typically lower prestige standing at the time. The film's depiction of a young girl's demonic possession, including graphic special effects for its era depicting her physical transformation and violent behavior, reportedly caused audience members to faint or vomit in theaters upon its original release, generating significant media coverage of its visceral impact. Its practical special effects, including the character's head appearing to rotate and the famous "spider walk" sequence, were achieved through then-groundbreaking mechanical effects work that set new technical standards for depicting supernatural physical horror on screen. The film's steps in Georgetown, where a pivotal scene takes place, became a genuine tourist attraction known as "the Exorcist steps," and the film's blend of serious religious and psychological themes with visceral horror imagery established a template for prestige horror filmmaking that later films have continued to draw on.

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• Psycho

  Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and released in 1960, broke sharply from the more restrained horror conventions of its era, killing off its apparent lead actress, Janet Leigh, less than halfway through the film in its famous shower scene — a structural twist that shocked contemporary audiences accustomed to a film's advertised star surviving to the end. Hitchcock insisted theaters enforce a strict no-late-admission policy for the film's original release, an unusual marketing and exhibition strategy at the time intended to preserve the shock of the shower scene twist for every audience member from the film's actual beginning. The shower scene itself, achieved through rapid editing of dozens of individual shots combined with Bernard Herrmann's shrieking string score, remains one of the most analyzed and imitated sequences in film history, frequently cited as a master class in suggestion-based horror that implies extreme violence without extensive explicit gore. Psycho's success helped establish the modern horror and slasher genre template, and its influence is directly traceable through decades of subsequent horror filmmaking, and the film's black-and-white cinematography, an unusual choice for its era given color film's growing dominance, is now considered integral to its stark visual atmosphere.

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• Halloween

  Halloween, released in 1978 on a production budget of roughly $325,000, became one of the most profitable independent films ever made relative to its cost, and director John Carpenter's minimalist synthesizer score, which he composed himself, became one of the most instantly recognizable pieces of horror film music ever written. The film's masked, largely silent killer, Michael Myers, established the template for the "slasher" subgenre that would dominate horror filmmaking throughout the 1980s, including the specific narrative formula of a masked killer stalking a group of teenagers that countless subsequent films directly imitated. Carpenter's use of extended point-of-view camera shots from the killer's perspective, combined with sustained wide shots that let audiences search the frame for Myers's presence, created a persistent, anxious tension that became one of the film's most technically influential stylistic choices for the horror genre broadly. Halloween's commercial success directly launched the slasher film boom of the 1980s, spawning numerous imitators along with its own long-running franchise of sequels and reboots, and Jamie Lee Curtis's performance as protagonist Laurie Strode established the "final girl" trope that became a defining structural convention across decades of subsequent horror filmmaking.

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• A Nightmare on Elm Street

  A Nightmare on Elm Street, released in 1984, introduced Freddy Krueger, a disfigured killer who murders teenagers within their own dreams, a premise that gave writer-director Wes Craven a genre-defining hook: the film's characters must somehow stay awake indefinitely to survive, since falling asleep means death. The film's blend of genuinely disturbing dream-logic imagery with Robert Englund's darkly humorous performance as Krueger, delivering sardonic one-liners alongside his violence, gave the character a distinctive personality that distinguished him from the more silent slasher-film killers, like Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees, popular earlier in the decade. Its innovative practical effects, including a memorable sequence depicting a character's blood erupting from a bed and pooling on the ceiling, pushed horror special effects technique forward and became one of the film's most frequently referenced individual sequences. The film also marked Johnny Depp's film debut in a supporting role, and A Nightmare on Elm Street's success launched a long-running franchise, cementing Freddy Krueger alongside Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees as one of the three defining slasher-villain icons of 1980s horror cinema.

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• Get Out

  Get Out, released in 2017 as writer-director Jordan Peele's feature directorial debut, used horror film conventions to explore themes of racism and cultural appropriation within seemingly progressive white liberal social spaces, a direct genre-blending of social commentary and horror that critics widely praised as a significant creative breakthrough. The film won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and Peele became the first Black writer-director to have his debut film earn a Best Picture nomination, a recognition that reflected the film's unusually serious critical reception for a horror film centered explicitly on contemporary racial themes. Its central "sunken place" concept, depicting a state of psychological paralysis and silenced consciousness the film's Black protagonist is forced into, became a widely referenced cultural metaphor extending well beyond film criticism into broader conversations about race and psychological marginalization. Get Out's commercial and critical success, made on a modest $4.5 million budget, directly demonstrated horror's continued viability as a vehicle for serious social commentary and helped launch Peele's subsequent career as one of the genre's most prominent contemporary writer-directors.

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More in Film & TV

• Hidden Figures

  "Hidden Figures" (2016), directed by Theodore Melfi, dramatizes the true story of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, three Black women mathematicians whose calculations at NASA were critical to the success of the early American space program, based on Margot Lee Shetterly's nonfiction book of the same name. The film brought significant mainstream public attention to the real contributions of Black women "computers" at NASA during the Space Race, a history that had received relatively little prior widespread recognition, and it prompted renewed public interest in and honors for the real Katherine Johnson, who was still alive at the time of the film's release. Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monáe's central performances drew significant critical acclaim, and the film became a notable box office success, outperforming many contemporary awards-season dramas and demonstrating a substantial mainstream audience for historical stories centered on Black women. Hidden Figures's combination of its overdue mainstream spotlight on real, previously under-recognized NASA scientists and its strong central performances has made it one of the most culturally significant true-story films of its decade.

• 12 Years a Slave

  "12 Years a Slave" (2013), directed by Steve McQueen, dramatizes the true story of Solomon Northup, a free Black man from New York who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the antebellum South, based on Northup's own 1853 memoir of the same name. Chiwetel Ejiofor's lead performance and Lupita Nyong'o's supporting performance, in her film debut, both drew significant critical acclaim, with Nyong'o winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and the film itself won the Academy Award for Best Picture. McQueen's unflinching, sustained visual approach to depicting the brutality of slavery, including several extended, unbroken takes of violence that the camera refuses to look away from, was widely credited with giving American slavery a more direct and confrontational cinematic treatment than most previous major studio films had attempted. 12 Years a Slave's combination of its direct grounding in Solomon Northup's own historical memoir and Steve McQueen's unflinching directorial approach has made it one of the most acclaimed and historically significant true-story films ever produced.

• Catch Me If You Can

  "Catch Me If You Can" (2002), directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, dramatizes the real early life of Frank Abagnale Jr., who successfully impersonated an airline pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer while forging millions of dollars in checks before being caught by an FBI agent, played by Tom Hanks. The film was based on Abagnale's own memoir, and the real Abagnale, who later became a longtime security consultant working with the FBI, served as a consultant on the production, giving the filmmakers direct access to the actual details and methods behind his real-life cons. The film's stylish, buoyant tone and 1960s period production design, paired with John Williams's jazz-inflected score, gave the true story a lighter, more playful cinematic register than many other crime-based true stories, emphasizing the audacious cleverness of Abagnale's real schemes over their consequences. Catch Me If You Can's combination of its direct access to the real Frank Abagnale's own account and its stylish period filmmaking has made it one of the most purely entertaining true-story films ever produced.

• Erin Brockovich

  "Erin Brockovich" (2000), directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Julia Roberts, dramatizes the true story of the real Erin Brockovich, an unemployed single mother who, working as a legal clerk, helped build a massive lawsuit against Pacific Gas & Electric over water contamination in Hinkley, California. Roberts's performance won her the Academy Award for Best Actress, and her portrayal of the real Brockovich's brash, persistent determination in the face of both corporate stonewalling and professional condescension became one of the most acclaimed performances of her career. The real underlying case resulted in a $333 million settlement, at the time the largest settlement ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit in U.S. history, and the real Erin Brockovich served as a consultant on the film and appeared in a small cameo role. Erin Brockovich's combination of Julia Roberts's Oscar-winning lead performance and its grounding in one of the largest environmental settlements in American legal history has made it one of the most acclaimed true-story legal dramas ever produced.

• The Social Network

  "The Social Network" (2010), directed by David Fincher from Aaron Sorkin's screenplay, dramatizes the founding of Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard University and the subsequent legal disputes with his co-founders and the Winklevoss twins over credit and ownership of the company. Sorkin's screenplay, built around competing depositions and conflicting accounts of the same events, embraced the genuine ambiguity of the real underlying legal disputes rather than presenting a single definitive version of what happened, a structural choice widely praised by critics as an unusually sophisticated approach to dramatizing contested recent history. Jesse Eisenberg's performance as a fictionalized version of Zuckerberg drew significant critical acclaim, and the film's release while the real Facebook was still a relatively young and rapidly growing company gave it an unusually immediate, real-time quality rare for a historical biopic. The Social Network's combination of its sophisticated multi-perspective legal-dispute structure and its unusually immediate proximity to still-unfolding real events has made it one of the most critically acclaimed true-story films of the 21st century.