In motion pictures, we like to think of the silver screen as a window through which the audience gets transported into another world. But it’s more than that. It’s also a mirror, reflecting our own world and our very natures back at us. Sometimes that mirror reveals something we don’t like, the darker side of ourselves, and that’s what the best serial killer movies capture. They shine a light on the shadowiest corners of our souls. Even if we can’t understand the killers themselves, we can always ruminate on our own grim fascination with their crimes.
Cinematic tales about serial killers date back well over 100 years, only to rise in number and popularity as true crime stories became more prevalent throughout the 20th century. As we’ve learned more about real-life murderers, the films that explore their psyches evolved. There are more early classics in this genre than many people realize, but over time the number of films exponentially grew, along with their narrative and thematic ambitions.
Let’s take a look back at 25 essential serial killer movies, which delve into the subject from various angles. For the purpose of this article we’ll be skewing away from slasher movies and films with overtly supernatural elements to highlight movies that are either inspired by true stories or are — to one degree or another — relatively plausible. These are films about the killers themselves, or about our collective obsession with people who do these unspeakably evil things, whether they’re tragic, exciting, or even darkly funny.
“The Lodger” wasn’t Alfred Hitchcock’s first film but it was his first thriller, and it helped set the template for what we now call a “Hitchcockian” style. In this silent classic a serial killer, not unlike Jack the Ripper, stalks the streets of London and a mysterious new tenant, played by Ivor Novello, has excited the paranoid imagination of his neighbors, who think he might be the murderer. The film keeps the mystery in the air as long as possible, driving each scene with anticipation and danger. “The Lodger” plays as well today as it ever did, powerfully suspenseful and visually striking, with twists and reversals that still rank among Hitchcock’s best.
Where to Stream: Prime Video, Max, The Criterion Channel, Freevee
The first sound film from Fritz Lang is a weird and disturbing serial killer story, which uses silence to just as powerful an effect as its eerie whistling. Peter Lorre, in his breakout role, stars as Hans Beckert, a murderer of children whose crime spree has terrified the citizens and mobilized the police, leading to a citywide crackdown on all manner of crime. So the criminals themselves decide to hunt Hans down too, leaving this pathetic monster with no place to hide. “M” is a masterpiece on many levels, delving into the mind of a madman while also incorporating real-life crime-solving techniques, presaging the eventual rise of the police procedural.
Where to Stream: Max, The Criterion Channel, Kanopy
Who says serial killers can’t be funny? In Frank Capra’s odd, demented “Arsenic and Old Lace,” Cary Grant plays Mortimer Brewster, a lifelong bachelor who just got married and runs home to share the good news with his closest family, his Aunts Abby (Josephine Hull) and Martha (Jean Adair). But when he stumbles across a hidden corpse he learns to his horror that Abby and Martha are serial killers, and somehow his day gets even worse from there. Fast-paced, quick-witted, and a little bit ghoulish, “Arsenic and Old Lace” is a delectable Halloween treat, with the whole cast — especially Grant — at the top of their comedic form.
The only film ever directed by acclaimed actor Charles Laughton is also one of the greatest motion pictures ever made. Robert Mitchum stars as Harry Powell, a serial killer who hates and murders women and talks to God like they’re close personal friends. When he finds out there’s a stash of money inside the house of a young widow (Shelley Winters), he romances and marries her, and turns the life of her two children into a living hell. “The Night of the Hunter” is intense and expressionistic, like the panicked nightmare of a child. A bedtime story gone terribly wrong, with Harry Powell as one of the most fearsome cinematic boogeymen.
Where to Stream: Prime Video, Tubi, Pluto and Hoopla
The same year Alfred Hitchcock cracked motion picture history in half with “Psycho” (we’ll get to that), another of the world’s top directors delved into violence and prurience. Michael Powell’s “Peeping Tom” stars Carl Boehm as Mark Lewis, a twisted cinephile who kills women so he can capture the moment of their death on film. His weapon of choice is a modified camera with blades in the tripod, so he can play director and the murderer at the same time. Every bit as voyeuristic as Hitchcock’s creepy classics, but with a self-awareness that indicts the audience almost as much as the maniac. It’s no wonder that the film was controversial and unpopular in its day, and it’s no wonder that it’s considered a classic now.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel, Roku and Tubi
Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” broke almost all the cinematic rules. The protagonist dies early, there’s blood and nudity in a production code film, even the shot of scraps of paper being flushed down a toilet was shocking at the time. And although we live in a world that “Psycho” helped make, where vivid violence and sex and twist endings are common (even to the point of cliché), Alfred Hitchcock’s film still hits hard. Anthony Perkins gives a towering performance as Norman Bates, a poor motel manager living in the shadow of his murderous mother, and the film’s countless iconic images have been often imitated, and rarely matched. Only the “Psycho’s” tragic mishandling of queerness brings it down, drawing a dangerous connection between non-heterosexuality and violence that horror filmmakers would keep coming back to for decades, even in otherwise great films like “The Silence of the Lambs” (we’ll get to that too).
Where to Stream: TCM
In a subgenre often associated with terror and madness, “The Honeymoon Killers” is disarmingly matter-of-fact. Based on real-life murderers, the film stars Shirley Stover as Martha Beck, a lonely nurse who falls in love with Raymond Fernandez, a con man played by Tony Lo Bianco. He answers personal ads, seduces women and steals their money. Martha doesn’t care because she loves him, so she joins in on his crime spree, which gradually turns into a series of terrible, deeply unsettling murders. There’s nothing grandiose about these killers, nothing alluring or even phantasmagorical. They’re just terrible people who decide to do terrible things, and forcing the audience to just deal with that is as scary as anything. Martin Scorsese was fired after just a few days of shooting; Donald Volkman and Leonard Kastle (the only credited director, who directed just this one film) made the majority of this masterpiece.
Where to Stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
A lot of horror movies have been inspired by real-life serial killer Ed Gein, but “Deranged” may be the most… well, deranged. Roberts Blossom, best known as the creepy old man who turns out to be a nice guy in “Home Alone,” stars as Ezra Cobb, a creepy old man who turns out to be a monster. When his mother dies, Ezra goes insane with loneliness and digs her up, fixing her rotted corpse with spare parts from a graveyard, until he finally decides to collect them from fresh, living people. “Deranged” is a film that seems to understand, to a disquieting degree, the isolation of a murderer. And while it may be impossible to sympathize with the evil acts of Ezra Cobb, Blossom — in his best and weirdest role — somehow makes him pitiable. The whole film plays out like a little church play from hell, right down to the naive organ music.
Ken Ogata plays one of cinema’s most devilish serial killers in Shōhei Imamura’s terrifying classic, based on the true story of Akira Nishiguchi, a real life murderer and con artist who was on the run for years. This fictionalized version finds Ogata sliming his way into people’s lives, bringing horror with him and sometimes finding it himself, as damning a portrayal of humanity and criminality as any filmed. There’s a despair for the human condition in “Vengeance Is Mine,” an uncomfortable revelation about how easy it is to be truly evil. Imagine “Catch Me If You Can” if it was terrifying instead of entertaining, and you’ve got some sense of how “Vengeance Is Mine” operates. But nothing can prepare you for Ogata’s alternately cold and charismatic villainy, or the film’s unforgettable final shot.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
William Lustig’s “Maniac” doesn’t just depict a violent murder spree — although it’s one of the most violent ever filmed — it’s practically an act of cinematic brutality itself. Joe Spinell, who co-wrote the screenplay, stars as a serial killer stalking the streets of New York City, scalping women and using their hair to adorn his mannequins. Spinell plays Frank Zito as a damp, seedy man who, to his own surprise, can be genuinely likable, even attractive. But no matter how close he comes to a real human connection, his inner demons always get the better of him, in more ways than one. “Maniac” is impressively intelligent for how prurient it is. It was remade into an also excellent first-person thriller in 2012, directed by Franck Khalfoun and starring Elijah Wood, who brings a very different, but no less chilling energy to the part.
Where to Stream: Shudder, Tubi and Pluto
Michael Mann’s adaptation of Thomas Harris’s influential novel “Red Dragon” stars William Peterson as Will Graham, an FBI agent who gets inside the minds of serial killer, solving crimes at the risk of his own sanity. Tom Noonan plays a killer stalking families across America, and Brian Cox is the first actor to play Hannibal Lecter — here spelled “Lecktor,” for some reason — and brings a working class charm to “Hannibal the Cannibal” that’s just as terrifying as Anthony Hopkins’ iconic, supercilious interpretation. Mann’s film places its horrifying psychology against the backdrop of mature professionalism, making the vulnerability all the more uncomfortable for feeling out of place. One of the best of all serial killer films, later remade as “Red Dragon,” a Brett Ratner film that can’t hold a candle to Mann’s haunting vision.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Originally screened in 1986, but not released theatrically until 1990, it’s easy to see why John McNaughton’s debut feature had trouble getting distribution. It is resolutely, unapologetically vile. Michael Rooker plays the title role, a serial killer who drifts from town to town, and is now staying with a young woman, Becky (Tracy Arnold), and her brutish brother Otis (Tom Towles). Becky falls in love with Henry, but he forms a more profound connection to Otis, who joins in on his killing sprees. “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” seems completely unconcerned with whether the audience is enjoying themselves, because there’s nothing entertaining about these horrors. Even when Otis and Henry watch their own crimes on a stolen camcorder, they stare as blankly as two dudes wasting away their weekend watching golf.
Where to Stream: Peacock, Tubi, Pluto, Roku and Freevee
Terry O’Quinn stars as a man with many names, because he finds nice single mothers, marries them, and tries to embody the Reagan Era suburban fantasy America promised him. When his new family doesn’t live up to that fantasy, he murders them and moves on. As pointed and topical a cinematic statement as any made in the 1980s, directed with Hitchcockian suspense by Joseph Ruben, “The Stepfather” builds anticipation for the villain’s discovery but spends an alarming amount of time following the killer and getting inside his head, as he devolves into a monstrosity with every new disappointment. Terry O’Quinn gives a career-best performance as a murderer who is always putting on an act. Few lines of dialogue are as chilling as when he mixes up his fake identities and genuinely asks his wife: “Who am I here?”
Where to Stream: Peacock, Fubo, Tubi and Roku
Jonathan Demme’s adaptation of Thomas Harris’s second Hannibal Lecter novel is the only Best Picture Academy Award-winner about skinning people or eating people, let alone both. Jodie Foster stars as Clarice Starling, an FBI cadet assigned to interview Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter, played by a scene-chewing Anthony Hopkins. They form a frighteningly close connection while he guides her to another serial killer, “Buffalo Bill” (Ted Levine), who kidnaps women and flays them. Cinematically ambitious on every level, with innovative editing and poignant cinematography, and an uncommon amount of narrative and thematic depth, highlighting the deeply embedded sexism and misogyny in all walks of modern life. But like “Psycho,” the film’s incredible fumbling in its depiction of trans identity, and the real-life consequences in the wake of those decisions, casts a shadow over its legacy.
Where to Stream: Prime Video
A documentary film crew has found an unusual subject for their latest project: Ben (co-director Benoît Poelvoorde), a serial killer who’s only too happy to shine a light on his daily life, and takes them along on his murderous escapades. Many movies about violence wrestle with the balance between portrayal and complicity, and “Man Bites Dog” makes this conversation quite literal, as the film’s documentarians struggle to remain objective while innocent people are brutally killed for the sake of their movie. But over time, watching horrifying acts and doing nothing to stop them becomes morally indistinguishable from committing them yourselves. Disturbingly, darkly humorous and confrontationally self-aware.
Where to Stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
On the lighter side, John Waters’ 1994 cult comedy classic “Serial Mom” stars Kathleen Turner as the perfect suburban housewife, always making breakfast, doing the recycling, and telling people to spit out their gum. And when anything cracks that superficially perfect facade she kills somebody, even if they just wore white shoes after Labor Day. Turner gives one of the all-time great comedic performances, and Waters’ smartly skewers not just the image of the American ideal but the not-so-secret obsession everyone seems to have with murder and mayhem, as the trial to convict “Serial Mom” rapidly turns into a media event where almost everyone — except her victims — seems to reap some rewards.
Where to Stream: Netflix
Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt stars as mismatched detectives on the hunt for a serial killer whose victims are all guilty of one of the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, and Sloth. The mysterious madman’s means of execution are all inventive to a horrifying degree, and are destined to leave a fetid taste in your mouth. Filmed with oppressive panache by David Fincher, “Se7en” takes place in a morally bankrupt universe where the innocent only exist to be slaughtered, and evil will probably always win. At first glance the film looks like an exercise in style over substance, but its overwhelmingly oppressive aesthetic perfectly matches its dank, depressing themes. It’s not just a great thriller, it’s a great film.
It’s ironic that Jon Amiel’s “Copycat,” a film about a serial killer who copycats other famous serial killers, came out just one month after the massively successful “Se7en,” since that made it look a little like a copycat itself. But the two films were made at the same time, and although they have superficial similarities — a killer with a high-concept modus operandi, mismatched investigators, a cynical worldview — they’re very different, equally excellent films. Holly Hunter stars as a detective on the hunt for the mysterious copycat, and Sigourney Weaver plays an agoraphobic psychologist who tries to help without leaving the safety of her apartment. Smartly written, frighteningly filmed, with an unexpectedly alarming performance by crooner Harry Connick Jr. as one of the madmen whose crimes are about to be repeated.
Where to Stream: Paramount+
A body is found with an “x” carved into their flesh, but the killer is also found next to them, with no memory of committing murder. And then that happens again, and again, the work of a serial killer who somehow gets other, seemingly normal people to do the work for him. Kōji Yakusho stars as the detective trying to solve this impossible case, and Masato Hagiwara stars as a young man drifting along in a fugue-like state, somehow at the center of it all. The solution is almost supernatural, but Kiyoshi Kurosawa makes it all seem plausible, in part because he uses the killer’s own methods on the audience as well. “Cure” is almost Kubrickian in its stark imagery and emotional distance, and one of the most terrifying motion pictures of the 1990s.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Mary Harron’s blistering indictment of the male ego and 1980s yuppie values stars Christian Bale as a handsome investment banker who commits brutal murders and gets away with them because, you guessed it, he’s a handsome investment banker. It’s a situation Harron finds darkly humorous, a story about a man without a soul who suspects maybe he’s supposed to have one and just doesn’t know how to go about it, latching generic mainstream pop music as deeply meaningful art, and eventually coming to an unexpected personal crisis. Eventually, even Patrick Bateman finds out that although he’s a devil, he’s also living in hell, and is tormented almost as much as he torments others.
Where to Stream: Netflix, Tubi
“Parasite” director Bong Joon-ho’s second feature film tells the story of South Korean detectives on the hunt for the country’s first known serial killer, and quickly finding out that they are completely unprepared for an investigation of this complexity and magnitude. Song Kang-ho and Kim Sang-kyung co-star as detectives with very different methods, one of them beating false confessions out of suspects, the other piecing together the very odd methodology of the murderer, who only strikes when a specific song plays on the radio. “Memories of Murder” is not, ultimately, about solving the crime and saving the day, it’s about what happens when the police — so often glorified in these types of stories — are absolute failures, adding a new layer to an already deep subgenre.
Where to Stream: Tubi
Charlize Theron won an Oscar for her portrayal of real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos, and looking back at her performance today, maybe she should have won two of them. She gives such an amazing performance, not just because she’s under a lot of makeup but because she makes brilliant, interesting choices. Her work almost overpowers Patty Jenkins’ excellent drama, but Jenkins keeps the film balanced, anchoring Theron’s role with another great performance by Christina Ricci, playing Wuornos’s lover, who unintentionally motivates Wuornos to kill johns to support her. Lots of actors have given memorable performances as serial murderers but few, if any, have imbued their role with as much nuance as Theron.
Where to Stream: Prime Video, Pluto
David Fincher returned to the serial killer genre with a true-crime story about one of the most notorious unsolved cases in American history: the Zodiac murders. San Francisco was plagued by a homicidal maniac in the late 1960s and early 1970s, who didn’t just kill people, but taunted the police and the public like a Batman villain, leaving secret codes in newspapers. “Zodiac” follows multiple characters — a detective (Mark Ruffalo), a reporter (Robert Downey Jr.) and a cartoonist (Jake Gyllenhaal) — who dedicate and nearly ruin their lives trying to catch the killer. Fincher’s film is sometimes genuinely terrifying, portraying the murders themselves as horror movies in miniature, but its real power comes in its uncertainty. No matter how hard we look we’ll never find the answer, and that doesn’t stop us from looking. It only makes us peer harder.
Where to Stream: Paramount+, Pluto
Marjane Satrapi, the Oscar-nominated co-director of “Persepolis,” which was based on her own autobiographical graphic novel, also made one of the most tragic and fascinating serial killer movies. “The Voices” stars Ryan Reynolds as Jerry Hickfang, a mild-mannered employee at a toilet manufacturing plant who lives in a bright and colorful world where, incidentally, his cat and his dog talk to him. While driving a co-worker home at night, Jerry accidentally stabs her, and keeps stabbing her, apologizing all the while. “The Voices” plays off of Reynolds’ likable persona, but more than that it gets deep inside the perspective of a killer who genuinely doesn’t understand what he’s really doing, in a way that’s profoundly uncomfortable and uncomfortably profound. Largely overlooked upon its release, Satrapi’s film is still an underappreciated classic in the genre.
Where to Stream: Pluto, Freevee
“My Friend Dahmer” gets under the skin in a way few other serial killer movies can. Alex Wolff stars as John Backderf, who published an autobiographical graphic novel about his teen years, when he just happened to have been friends with Jeffrey Dahmer. Ross Lynch plays the burgeoning serial killer, a social outcast who seeks attention by engaging in elaborate pranks, like inserting himself into every school club’s yearbook photo, and even tricking their way into meeting Vice President Walter Mondale (which yes, actually happened). But all that sounds like “My Friend Dahmer” is a novelty, a collection of historical trivia. More than anything, Marc Meyers’ film highlights the warning signs everyone ignored because they were too wrapped up in their own lives to pay Dahmer much mind, and captures the pain and regret that stems from knowing you were that close to a monster, and that somehow you
Where to Stream: Hulu, Prime Video, Peacock, AMC+, Fubo
The post The 25 Essential Serial Killer Movies appeared first on TheWrap.
