The 25 best horror movies since 2000

This story was originally published on October 26, 2015.

Ask horror-movie buffs to name their favorite decade for the genre, and you’ll likely receive a variety of answers. The ’30s had several of Universal’s classic roster of monsters. The ’40s had Val Lewton. The ’70s had zombies, and giant sharks, and Texas chain saw massacres. (The ’70s is a good choice.) But at the risk of speculating wildly, it seems safe to assume that not too many hypothetical fans would single out the current or previous decade as horror’s finest. Classics take time to solidify, reputations take a minute to build, and hindsight is 20/20. Plus, you know, Uwe Boll.

But looking over the 25 films ranked below, all of which opened in the United States sometime before today and after January 1, 2000, it’s possible to imagine a future when the turn of the new millennium will be thought as a renaissance period for scary movies. Perhaps more than any other genre, horror operates as a mirror of our anxieties—a warped reflection of everything that’s eating away at us as a culture or keeping us all up at night. And there’s been plenty to lose sleep over these past 15 years, from social and environmental instability to terrorism (and the war against it) to that few months everybody was freaking out about SARS. The list below could easily double as a guide to the fears and phobias of modern life. Its eclecticism is a testament to just how many different ways we’ve been freaked out since Y2K.

Sixteen contributors submitted ranked ballots of their favorite horror movies released in the United States since the year 2000, including a few that opened internationally before then. These are not the scariest films of our new millennium, but simply the greatest that happen to occupy the horror genre. As such, we tried to be fairly strict with the definition; films that feel like horror but wouldn’t necessarily be classified as such by IMDB or Netflix—like David Lynch’s two post-2000 magnum opuses, or Pan’s Labyrinth, or Requiem For A Dream—were excluded. (The only film that would have made the list had it not been deemed ineligible after ballots came in was Under The Skin—and even then, just barely.) Conversely, we felt little need to inclusively cater to the major horror trends of the period: Just as it’s possible to love ’80s horror without loving a single slasher movie, one can appreciate where the genre has gone these past 15 years without citing the Saw series, defending the endless string of modern Exorcist clones, or apologizing for the ongoing found-footage movement. If you’re looking for some excellent Halloween watches this week, this list is a great place to start.

How many of our top 25 have you seen? What would your ballot look like? Did we miss anything crucial? Sound off in the comments.

Updated October 2021 with where these films are available to stream.

2.

Is it too soon to call It Follows one of the great horror movies of the new millennium? Though it crept into theaters just a few months ago, David Robert Mitchell’s fledgling fright flick already feels like a classic of the genre, something we’ll be watching between fingers for years to come. Part of that is a deliberate timelessness: Beyond fashionable nods to the widescreen touchstones of John Carpenter (including a terrific throwback synth score), there’s almost nothing about the film, or its vaguely retro Michigan setting, that could betray it as a product of our here and now. Furthermore, Mitchell exploits his brilliantly simple premise—a supernatural spin on that irrational feeling that someone is right behind you, getting closer with every step—through the kind of formal ingenuity that never goes out of style, using offscreen and background space to score big scares. It Follows may be brand new, but it works in the primal manner of something much older, like a revered Halloween staple or an urban legend passed down through the ages. [A.A. Dowd]Available to stream on and , and to rent on , , and