Whether you are trying to find basic horror movies or in search of one thing new to watch this October, the choices throughout Netflix, Apple TV, Hulu, HBO Max, Prime Video, and Disney+ can really feel overwhelming.
From psychological thrillers that’ll hold you up at night time to lighthearted Halloween comedies excellent for the entire household, streaming platforms are full of seasonal content material. The problem is not an absence of choices — it is filtering by way of a whole lot of titles to discover those really value your time.
So, this 12 months’s Halloween film lineup spans each subgenre possible. Craving supernatural scares? There are loads of ghost tales and paranormal thrillers prepared to hang-out your display. More into slasher movies and blood-pumping motion? We’ve bought these coated, too. Prefer atmospheric slow-burns that construct dread with each scene?
You’ll discover critically acclaimed choices that show horror is an artwork type. And if you happen to’re simply right here for the nostalgia of rewatching your childhood favorites, don’t be concerned — the classics are all streaming someplace.
So seize your sweet corn, dim the lights, and prepare to stream your approach by way of the spookiest month of the 12 months. Your excellent Halloween film night time begins right here with the finest Halloween films to stream in 2025 on Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, and extra.
Read extra from Complex this spooky season:
NFL Legend Marshawn Lynch Has a New Role This Spooky Season — And It Might Scare You
31 Best Horror Movies Of All Time, Ranked
16 Horror Movies We Can’t Wait to See in the Rest of 2025
And if you happen to’re in search of non-spooky TV & Film, we have got that too:
Check out our guides to the very best TV exhibits obtainable on Netflix, AppleTV, Hulu, Peacock, and HBO Max, plus the very best films on Netflix, Peacock, AppleTV, HBO Max, and Tubi.
Director: John Carpenter
Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Nancy Kyes, Donald Pleasence, Nick Castle
Rating: R
Runtime: 1hr 31m
Rotten Tomatoes: 97% Critics, 8% Audience
Before Michael Myers, there was no blueprint for the unstoppable masked killer stalking babysitters. 1978’s Halloween laid the inspiration for future slashers to come, and it was John Carpenter who created the template that each horror film since has both copied or subverted.
The authentic Halloween is without doubt one of the finest scary films of all time, and in case you have by no means watched it, it’s best to lock in this spooky season to witness slasher greatness.
Director: Greg Jardin
Cast: Reina Hardesty, Hailee Keanna Lautenbach, Madison Davenport, Gavin Leatherwood, James Morosini
Genre: Horror, Thriller, Science Fiction, Suspense, Mystery
Rating: R
Runtime: 1hr 43m
Rotten Tomatoes: 79%
It’s What’s Inside arrived on Netflix in 2024 and simply turned one in all my sleeper favs of that 12 months. This sci-fi psychological thriller follows a gaggle of school pals as they reunite for pre-wedding shenanigans. But what started as a stroll down reminiscence lane shortly devolves right into a nightmare after the chums start twiddling with the contents of a mysterious briefcase. If you’re in search of a film that leaves you with extra questions than solutions, It’s What’s Inside will get you proper this spooky season.
Director: Bill Melendez
Cast: Peter Robbins, Christopher Shea, Sally Dryer
Rating: G
Runtime: 25m
Rotten Tomatoes: 90% Critics, 80% Audience
AppleTV+ has the rights to Snoopy and the remainder of the Peanuts gang, which implies a couple of instances out of the 12 months, you’re possible to need to stream some Charlie Brown for the vacations. Of course, when it comes to animated household vacation specials, It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown is without doubt one of the finest, that includes offbeat baby voice performing and classy World War I flying ace segments.
From Charlie Brown’s costume mishaps (and rock-filled Trick-or-Treating journey) to Linus’s optimism after which hopelessness about not having discovered probably the most honest pumpkin patch to see the Great Pumpkin himself, that is one-of-a-kind vacation viewing. And clocking in at simply 25 minutes, it’s an excellent palette cleanser after one in all this checklist’s extra scary films.
Director: Sam Raimi
Cast: Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks
Rating: R
Runtime: 1hr 25m
Rotten Tomatoes: 88% Critics, 89% Audience
Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy is filled with enjoyable, sensible results and loads of gore, but when we had to single out one as the very best of the bunch, we’d have to lean in direction of Evil Dead 2. Building upon a lot of what made the primary Evil Dead nice, this sequel-slash-reimagining options Ash (Bruce Campbell) battling demons and even his girlfriend Linda when an audiotape studying of the Book of the Dead will get performed in their distant cabin getaway.What makes Evil Dead 2 a lot enjoyable is how iconic so lots of its thrills and laughs are. From Linda’s disembodied head terrorizing Ash to his disembodied hand and trusty chainsaw, it’s no surprise the films turned a cult franchise.
Director: James Wan
Cast: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Lili Taylor
Rating: R
Runtime: 1hr 51m
Rotten Tomatoes: 86% Critics, 83% Audience
From the Saw franchise to Insidious, James Wan is a director who persistently nails horror films. Perhaps none of his sequence illustrate this in addition to 2013’s The Conjuring, which is purportedly primarily based on the real-life case information of Ed and Lorraine Warren.
Starring Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, this horror film a couple of demonic presence at a farmhouse showcases some really authentic soar scares. From the spine-chilling ghost clap to its expertly terrifying camerawork, The Conjuring is an ideal scary film to watch with the lights off.
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth
Rating: R
Runtime: 2hr 32m
Rotten Tomatoes: 65% Critics, 72% Audience
In this sort-of-kind-of remake of the 1977 movie, Dakota Johnson performs dancer Susie Bannion, who auditions for and turns into a lead dancer in a Berlin dance troupe. Of course, this being a horror film, not every part is because it appears, with underground secrets and techniques and rumors of witchcraft swirling round Susie’s coveted place.
Directed by Luca Guadagnino (Challengers), the film is confrontational, fashionable, and polarizing. Regardless of whether or not you’ve seen its supply materials, you’ll both adore it or hate it. Even so, you’ll be grateful to have gone alongside for the garish experience.
Director: Richard Kelly
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Seth Rogen
Genre: Horror, Thriller, Science Fiction, Psychological
Rating: R
Runtime: 1h 53m
Rotten Tomatoes: 88%
Donnie Darko is a movie the place the true horror lies throughout the thoughts. This 2001 movie follows a troubled teenager named Donnie (performed by Jake Gyllenhaal), who narrowly escapes loss of life. However, in the times following the occasion, he begins to expertise premonitions exhibiting him what he believes to be the top of the world. To make issues worse, Darko begins to be terrorized by visions of a person named Frank in a rabbit go well with, who mentally manipulates him into committing random crimes throughout city in an try to save the world from ending in 28 days. But belief nobody, as a result of issues is probably not what they appear.
Donnie Darko is a cult basic movie at this level, so if you happen to’ve by no means seen it earlier than, that is the right time to have your thoughts blown.
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss
Rating: PG
Runtime: 2hr 4m
Rotten Tomatoes: 97% Critics, 91% Audience
Not many films have been so scary upon first launch that they modified the best way individuals vacationed. That is, not till Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. Now celebrating it’s fiftieth Anniversary (and obtainable to stream on Netflix), this film about shark infested waters and a terrorized beachfront city is simply as thrilling because it was when it was first launched.
Sure, the shark results could have aged much less nicely, however thanks to Spielberg’s professional digicam work and the film’s iconic John Williams rating, the film nonetheless maintains its tense ambiance.
Director: Jordan Peele
Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Catherine Keener
Rating: R
Runtime: 1hr 44m
Rotten Tomatoes: 98% Critics, 86% Audience
Jordan Peele’s Get Out isn’t simply a tremendous horror movie, it’s a tremendous movie interval. What begins as a weekend getaway for Black photographer Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) to meet his white girlfriend’s mother and father shortly turns supernaturally freaky as increasingly concerning the Armitage household and their historical past comes to life.
Wholly authentic and completely chilling, Get Out capabilities as each a psychological thriller and a blistering satirical commentary on race. With sharp writing and nice performances, the film is all of the extra related eight years after it’s preliminary launch.
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Cast: Meryl Streep, Bruce Willis, Goldie Hawn
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 1hr 43m
Rotten Tomatoes: 58% Critics, 62% Audience
In Death Becomes Her, a novelist returns to her ex-husband and his film star spouse after a stint in a psych ward with a secret: she has attained immortality thanks to a wierd drug. If that setup sounds comparable to The Substance, it’s as a result of it’s, though Death Becomes Her is extra of a spooky satire than physique horror gorefest.
This 90’s horror-comedy has turn out to be a cult favourite since its launch, in giant half due to the best way that Meryl Streep, Bruce Willis, and Goldie Hawn make this star-studded darkish comedy sing. It’s an excellent alternative for one thing lighter however completely on model for Halloween.
Director: Rhys Frake-Waterfield
Cast: Craig David Dowsett, Chris Cordell, Amber Doig-Thorne
Rating: NR
Runtime: 1hr 40m
Rotten Tomatoes: 3% Critics, 49% Audience
One of the strangest films to come out when A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh characters turned public area, Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey delivers precisely what its title guarantees. In the movie, Winnie the Pooh and Piglet have been deserted by Christopher Robin and gone feral, main to their titular bloodlust. Trading classes in friendship for bloody carnage is definitely a departure from the beloved supply materials, which both will attraction to you or not. If you will have a penchant for subversive B-movies, although, Blood and Honey is value testing. It may be a bit uneven, however you may’t argue that the premise is wildly authentic (albeit a tad exploitative).
Director: Colin Cairnes, Cameron Cairnes
Cast: David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Fayssal Bazzi
Rating: R
Runtime: 1hr 33m
Rotten Tomatoes: 97% Critics, 82% Audience
In Late Night with the Devil, David Dastmalchian stars as Jack Delroy, a chat present host who plans a one-of-a-kind Halloween particular in an try to enhance his flailing rankings. Set in the Seventies, it leans closely on different horror films from that period, making for a retro expertise even supposing the movie was launched in 2024. Films about possessions are few and much between as of late, so it’s nice to see a extra trendy effort in Late Night with the Devil. Anchored by a strong efficiency by Dastmalchian, it’s a enjoyable horror flick that doesn’t depend on gratuitous scares to creep you out.
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Cast: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Daniel Zovatto
Rating: R
Runtime: 1hr 41m
Rotten Tomatoes: 95% Critics, 66% Audience
Sometimes a film comes alongside that fully turns a style trope on its head, and It Follows is a type of films. In many horror flicks, particularly 80s slashers, characters get offed for “bad” conduct (like having intercourse earlier than marriage). In It Follows, that’s the entire premise. In this film, in case you have intercourse with somebody, you’ll be pursued by a shapeshifting monster that may cease at nothing to kill you until you may cross the curse onto another person by way of intercourse.
It’s a brilliant easy premise, however director David Robert Mitchell will get tons of mileage from it. It Follows is a film that modifications the best way you watch films, with each background actor out of the blue upping the stress with their entrance.
Director: John Landis
Cast: David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne
Rating: R
Runtime: 1hr 37m
Rotten Tomatoes: 89% Critics, 85% Audience
In An American Werewolf in London, two school pals backpacking in Great Britain are attacked by a wolf, with one in all them surviving the assault solely to turn out to be a werewolf. While that sounds grisly, the film is an element creature-feature and half comedy, a tough balancing act to nail. It’s wacky and bizarre, for certain, however surprisingly, all of it works. Even if you happen to’re on the fence about this one, it’s value seeing for the make-up results alone. They stand the check of time much more than forty years later.
Director: Tobe Hooper
Cast: Marilyn Burns, Gunner Hansen, Allen Danziger
Rating: R
Runtime: 1hr 23m
Rotten Tomatoes: 84% Critics, 82% Audience
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre could have been made in 1974, however it’s nonetheless scary sufficient to go toe-to-toe with just about any horror film on the market. The title tells you just about every part you want to find out about this one, however that doesn’t make the best way it unfolds any much less stunning. As its teenage characters are hunted by the masked, chainsaw-wielding Leatherface, the stress is at an all-time excessive. What makes it so scary is simply how senselessly believable all of it feels. It’s sick, it’s twisted, it’s every part the title guarantees and a lot extra.
Director: Parker Finn
Cast: Sosie Bacon, Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner
Rating: R
Runtime: 1hr 56m
Rotten Tomatoes: 80% Critics, 77% AudienceAfter Dr. Rose Cotter witnesses a terrifying incident with one in all her psychiatric sufferers, she slowly turns into terrorized by an invisible presence that manifests in one thing typically deemed innocent: a broad smile. As each a horror movie and a surprisingly nuanced exploration of trauma, Smile is filled with stunning, scary photos. It’s an unsettling movie that will get underneath your pores and skin; precisely the sort of factor an excellent horror film ought to purpose for.
If you’re a fan of mid-2000s slow-burning horror like The Ring, Smile will possible be proper up your alley. With strong soar scares and a robust forged to boot, it’s one unnerving viewing expertise.
Director: Mike FlanaganCast: Elizabeth Reaser, Lulu Wilson, Annalise Basso
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 1hr 39m
Rotten Tomatoes: 83% Critics, 58% Audience
Director Mike Flanagan is essentially identified for the beautiful and creepy Netflix sequence The Haunting of Hill House or Midnight Mass. But his horror films are simply as scary, one thing Ouija: Origin of Evil proves in spades. In this film, a mom’s seance rip-off service takes an evil flip when her daughter turns into posessed by a relentless spirit. While 2014’s Ouija left many wanting for extra, its sequel exhibits that there’s loads of promise in its supernatural premise. In the fingers of Flanagan, it’s basic horror goodness.
Director: Drew Goddard
Cast: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison
Rating: R
Runtime: 1hr 35m
Rotten Tomatoes: 92% Critics, 74% Audience
The Cabin in the Woods is a completely creative tackle the horror style as an entire. It takes a well-recognized premise of a faculty getaway to a distant cabin and turns it fully on its head, interjecting a a lot grander, meta-social experiment to the proceedings with thrillingly darkish wit.Expertly enjoying with viewers expectations, archetypes, and style tropes, the movie makes use of self-aware humor alongside some reliable scares to create a film that’s twisty and enjoyable from begin to end. If you haven’t seen it but, don’t learn the rest about it earlier than you give it a watch. You’ll be rewarded.
Director: David Lynch
Cast: Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Allen Joseph
Rating: NR
Runtime: 1hr 29m
Rotten Tomatoes: 87% Critics, 82% Audience
Pretty a lot any of David Lynch’s movies (nicely, aside from The Straight Story) might match on this checklist. But Eraserhead’s distinctive mix of surrealism, alienation, and straight-up physique horror looks as if the very best choose. In this hour-and-a-half, black-and-white nightmare, a person named Henry should father or mother an otherworldly, mutant child. Its cries and wails are as haunting as the economic soundscape and imagery, making the movie one of many scariest (and weirdest) explorations of parenting, alongside different horror greats like Rosemary’s Baby.
Director: Tim Burton
Cast: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 1hr 45m
Rotten Tomatoes: 75% Critics, 78% Audience
In this sequel to the cult-classic, Beetlejuice, Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) and the remainder of her household are thrust again into the Netherworld and put face-to-face with the eponymous Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) as Lydia tries to rescue her daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega). Much lighter on conventional scares than different movies on this checklist, it’s nonetheless an excellent Halloween watch thanks to its ghoulish characters and Tim Burton’s idiosyncratic, gothic aptitude. If we’re being trustworthy, Burton has been fairly hit-or-miss for some time now, however Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice confirmed that the filmmaker behind classics like Edward Scissorhands nonetheless has lots up his sleeves. The movie’s rousing finale (set to the lyrically-weird Richard Harris tune, “Macarthur Park”) is an actual spotlight. With the second season of Wednesday in the books too, perhaps we’re getting into a brand new period of Burton.
Director: George Romero
Cast: Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, Karl Hardman
Rating: NR
Runtime: 1hr 36m
Rotten Tomatoes: 95% Critics, 87% Audience
George A. Romero’s 1968 horror basic, Night of the Living Dead, is spine-tingling much more than sixty years after it first terrified audiences. Following seven disparate strangers who get trapped in an deserted home throughout a zombie outbreak. Something about Night of the Living Dead’s black-and-white shade makes it even eerier, as characters and the undead disappear into pitch-black darkness in some scenes.
Amidst all of the blood and terror, there’s additionally a critique of capitalism constructed in, giving the film the form of thematic weight that makes it a scary film with endurance. It spawned a franchise for a motive.
Director: Andrew Fleming
Cast: Robin Tunney, Neve Campbell, Rachel True
Rating: R
Runtime: 1hr 40m
Rotten Tomatoes: 57% Critics, 65% Audience
When Sarah transfers to a highschool in LA, she learns that her powers of telekinesis make her a super match for a trio of witches in search of a fourth to be a part of them. Featuring Neve Campbell of Scream fame alongside Fairuza Balk, Robin Tunney, and Rachel True, you’ve bought your self a enjoyable ensemble flick for teenagers and adults alike.While this 1996 horror film comes with a hearty dose of camp, it’s the sort of campiness that endears it to you much more. Throw in some witchy feminism and memorable characters, and also you’ve bought your self an excellent look ahead to spooky season.
Director: Kenny Ortega
Cast: Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy
Rating: PG
Runtime: 1hr 35m
Rotten Tomatoes: 41% Critics, 71% Audience
Name a extra iconic trio than the Sanderson sisters. This Disney cult basic from High School Musical director Kenny Ortega stars Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy as three hilarious witches who’re resurrected by a teenage boy and have to be defeated earlier than they take over the city.
For pure 90’s made-for-tv nostalgia alone, Hocus Pocus is a helluva lot of enjoyable. Light on scares and large on spooky humor, the film has so many quotable strains it’s onerous to hold observe of all of them. Pretty a lot every part delivered by Thora Birch as child sister Dani is pure gold.
Director: Ryan Coogler
Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Wunmi Mosaku, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton
Rating: R
Runtime: 2h 17m
Rotten Tomatoes: 97% Audience Score: 96%
Sinners stands out as one of many strongest horror films of 2025. Featuring a stellar ensemble and a contemporary, incisive tackle the vampire style, Sinners will go away you shocked by each sudden twist.
From the cultural tributes to the electrifying performances from practically your entire forged, Sinners marks a daring addition to the horror movie canon. You want to see it this Halloween season.