More than any other genre, horror has the distinct power to reflect our collective anxieties, using its heightened parameters to drive these fears home (with a little lag time for writing, filming, and postproduction). It’s no surprise, then, that one of the most prevalent themes of horror movies released in 2024, two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, is forced birth, with films like The First Omen, Immaculate, Apartment 7A, and Alien: Romulus depicting women losing and — in most cases — reclaiming agency over their bodily autonomy. Even Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, more fantasy comedy than horror, has a harrowing birth scene.
Some of these movies are among my favorites this year, but even horror’s weaker offerings are notable examples of what the genre can communicate. On the whole, the best horror films of 2024 largely have something to say, whether it’s about reproductive freedom, trans identity, celebrity culture, class disparity, or our true-crime obsession. These movies speak to and sometimes literalize the nagging fears in the back of our minds, which is part of what makes them so tough to shake. Not that films less interested in going deep are any less worthy: Sometimes a movie just wants to scare the shit out of you, and that’s also a pursuit worth celebrating.
19. Cuckoo
If Cuckoo did nothing beyond introducing the concept of Final Girl Hunter Schafer, it would have been enough. Rest assured, though, that writer-director Tilman Singer has more expansive aims. Schafer stars as Gretchen, a teenage girl forced to move to a remote resort town in the Alps with her semi-estranged father, Luis (Marton Csokas), and his new family. Luis is building a hotel for Herr König (Dan Stevens, a scream queen in his own right), whose eccentric behavior points to a sinister agenda. The less said about König’s plans, the better; describing much more of Cuckoo’s plot would be to give it all away. And ultimately, the plot is secondary to the nerve-jangling vibes and imagery Singer conjures, along with Schafer’s exceptional performance. I’d call it “star-making” if she weren’t already a star — let’s say “horror-star-making” and hope many more genre films follow.
18. Abigail
You can put some blame on the marketing team for Abigail’s middling reviews. In trying to sell a film about a ragtag team of criminals kidnapping a powerful man’s daughter for ransom, the trailers gave away a key piece of information: The titular little girl is a vicious ballet-dancing vampire. (Those following the movie’s development might also have clocked that it began as a modern take on 1936’s Dracula’s Daughter.) Knowing who and what Abigail is certainly undermines the suspense of the first part of the movie, but it doesn’t take away from Abigail’s success as a splatter comedy. Ready or Not directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and co-writer Guy Busick (joined here by Stephen Shields) bring a similar blood-soaked sensibility to the proceedings, with a pitch-perfect cast making sure the jokes land. Dan Stevens (again!), Kathryn Newton, and Kevin Durand all understand the assignment, but Melissa Barrera — of Scream (2022) and Scream VI from the same writer-directors — does the heaviest lifting and shows why she has become such a sought-after scream queen.
17. Oddity
The defining image in Oddity may be its truly unsettling wooden mannequin, but the Golem-inspired creature isn’t the scariest thing in the movie. That would be the opening scene, in which a woman named Dani (Carolyn Bracken) receives a late-night knock from one of her psychiatrist husband’s patients, who swears someone is inside her home. It’s an unbearably tense sequence, rivaled only by a later scene that flashes back to what really happened the night Dani was murdered. The rest of Damian McCarthy’s folky horror film is a Tales From the Crypt–style morality tale as Dani’s psychic twin sister (also Bracken, natch) tries to find justice with help from the aforementioned life-size doll. As in his 2020 movie Caveat, McCarthy shows a real skill in creating a mood and ratcheting up tension, but he has also learned the power of the jump scare — used sparingly and to maximum effect.
16. MadS
A trip-gone-wrong movie that becomes something else entirely, MadS is best enjoyed with minimal context beyond the logline: The film follows Romain (Milton Riche) as he decides to try a new drug before a night of partying, and the situation quickly spirals from there. One-take movies can easily feel gimmicky, but sometimes they’re effective! Here, writer-director David Moreau depicts a descent into hell with a relentless sense of urgency, the feeling of claustrophobia made worse by the camera’s refusal to cut away. As MadS broadens its scope and shifts its perspective, it manages to find a unique way into a generally overserved horror subgenre. Ultimately, making a movie like this feel exciting again may be an even more impressive trick than the single shot.
15. V/H/S/Beyond
Now released annually in October, the V/H/S franchise’s found-footage anthology films have largely become an exercise in diminishing returns. So it was a pleasant surprise that V/H/S/Beyond — the sci-fi-themed latest installment — is the best and most consistent entry since 2021’s V/H/S/94 (hail Raatma). In “Stork,” Jordan Downey successfully translates a first-person-shooter zombie game to the screen. Justin Martinez’s “Live and Let Die” features the skydiving excursion from hell in the film’s most creative offering. Even the weakest segment has its charms: “Fur Babies,” a collaboration between brothers Justin and Christian Long, gets points deducted for being off theme, but its grotesque body horror mostly makes up for that.
14. Immaculate
There are, miraculously enough, two 2024 horror films about an American nun who joins a convent in Italy where she’s impregnated with something unholy as part of an evil Church plot. Or maybe it’s less a miracle and more — as I alluded to in the introduction to this list — a way to process the dramatic rollback of abortion rights in the U.S. and the role of the religious right therein. In Immaculate, Sydney Sweeney stars as Sister Cecilia, who becomes a holy figure to her fellow nuns when she’s found to be pregnant despite being a virgin. Michael Mohan’s film is a slightly more conventional take on the material than The First Omen (which you can read more about below), but Immaculate earns special commendation for Sweeney’s committed performance and its breathtaking ending — a cry of righteous anger and well-earned brutality that feels like true transgression, particularly at this moment in history.
13. Strange Darling
You can roll your eyes at Strange Darling’s nonlinear structure and its insistence on letting you know it was shot on 35-mm … or you can simply acknowledge that it works. A cat-and-mouse game between “the Lady” (Willa Fitzgerald) and “the Demon” (Kyle Gallner) — both actors delivering standout performances in a year of stellar ones in horror — Strange Darling is too stylish and captivating to let you care much about a little pretension. While the big twist is easy enough to spot for genre fans, it’s still plenty of fun to watch it play out. It helps that the film looks fantastic, with credit to director JT Mollner (also the screenwriter) and cinematographer Giovanni Ribisi (yes, that Giovanni Ribisi). Try not to think too hard about Strange Darling’s politics, which I would argue are more careless than malicious, and let it go down as easy as Ed Begley Jr.’s impossibly decadent breakfast.
12. What You Wish For
I may sound like a broken record with my repeated admonitions to go into these movies blind. It’s not my way of kowtowing to our needlessly spoilerphobic culture but a reflection of how several of 2024’s best horror films, including Nicholas Tomnay’s What You Wish For, unfold as a series of delicious surprises best enjoyed without any forewarning. Here’s what I can say: Ryan (Nick Stahl) is a chef who owes money to some very dangerous people when he connects with his former culinary-school roommate, Jack (Brian Groh). Now much more successful, Jack is involved in a world that’s scarier than any gambling syndicate, which leads Ryan to a desperate decision that has him in over his head. What sounds like a thriller reveals itself to be horror in increasingly gruesome ways. Stahl, after some troubled years out of the spotlight, makes a welcome return as a compelling, morally murky lead.
11. In a Violent Nature
Jason Voorhees is stuck in hell, and so are we — ongoing legal battles have kept more Friday the 13th sequels from being made. But writer-director Chris Nash has delivered the next best thing. Though In a Violent Nature is not a Friday the 13th movie, there are obvious similarities between Jason and Johnny (Ry Barrett), another masked killer murdering teenagers in the woods. The twist of Nash’s film is that it’s told mostly from the perspective of Johnny instead of his victims. If you’ve ever wondered what slasher villains like Jason do between kills, here’s your answer (a lot of walking, it turns out). Incredibly, the shocking bursts of violence aren’t what keeps things interesting but rather the long, semi-hypnotic scenes in which nothing happens — and the startling mundanity of Johnny’s “process.”
10. The First Omen
Who knew Arkasha Stevenson’s take on The Omen would turn out to be one of the most creative, visually rich horror films of the year? No, we didn’t need an origin story for Damien Thorn — the Antichrist in the five preceding Omen films, including the miserable 2006 remake — but if we had to get one, I can’t imagine a better version. It’s impossible to take your eyes off Nell Tiger Free as Margaret, a novice nun and Damien’s eventual mother. Her thrillingly committed homage to 1981’s Possession late in the film is one of the year’s great horror moments, full stop. Stevenson’s daring riffs on genre classics and surprisingly explicit imagery combine with The First Omen’s unavoidable cultural context to make this IP extension feel entirely singular.
9. Alien: Romulus
Also a prequel — to be fair, it takes place between 1979’s Alien and 1986’s Aliens — Alien: Romulus is clearly more indebted to its franchise than The First Omen is. You could dismiss Romulus as a greatest-hits compilation of the six (Predator-less) Alien films that precede it, but that would ignore two things: First, that director and co-writer Fede Álvarez has plenty of original ideas to offer, and second, that he’s pretty damn good at riffing on his predecessors. That’s most apparent in Alien: Romulus’s ending, a disturbing hybrid of Prometheus and Alien Resurrection that highlights Álvarez’s boldness and ingenuity. If you can overlook the ghoulish digital recreation of Ian Holm — and I’ll concede, that’s a tough pill to swallow! — there are ample fun and scares to be had here, with Cailee Spaeny’s Rain emerging as a worthy addition to the franchise’s memorable Final Girls.
8. Sleep
There were a number of solid feature debuts in 2024 — both inside and outside the horror genre — though few have impressed me as much as Jason Yu’s Sleep. Jung Yu-mi and the late Lee Sun-kyun play newlyweds Soo-jin and Hyeon-soo, who are disturbed by Hyeon-soo’s sleepwalking and increasingly odd nocturnal behavior. Sleep is a masterful escalation, beginning as a creepy dark comedy that raises its stakes en route to a deeply unnerving third act. Yu has a naturally deft command of tone and storytelling, and his past collaboration with director Bong Joon Ho appears to have helped boost his instincts. (Yu was assistant director on 2017’s Okja.) It’s not surprising that Bong counts himself as one of Sleep’s biggest fans, calling the movie “the most unique horror film and the smartest debut film I’ve seen in ten years.”
7. Heretic
Filmmaking duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods made a name for themselves with 2018’s A Quiet Place, a postapocalyptic movie about survivors forced to live in silence. Ironically, their strongest film since then is exceedingly talky. Heretic is at its best when it’s a three-hander, as Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant) challenges Mormon missionaries Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East). His religious ramblings and digressions aren’t always coherent or particularly clever, but that’s by design — and the real thrill comes from trying to determine, as Barnes and Paxton work to do, exactly what kind of psychopath Mr. Reed is. Even if the tension can’t sustain itself for the entire film, the performances hold Heretic together, with Grant masterfully weaponizing his fumbling charm and East finding grace in a character balancing her unwavering faith with her survival instinct.
6. The Substance
Casual horror fans were quick to call The Substance Cronenbergian, a designation normies are quick to apply to any iteration of body horror. Yes, there are allusions to David Cronenberg in Coralie Fargeat’s film — including one very notable fly — but the real point of comparison is the director Brian Yuzna’s Society. As in Yuzna’s 1989 film about Beverly Hills elites who literally suck the life out of the lower class, The Substance satirizes the disgusting lengths the wealthy will go in order to stay young and beautiful. Here, however, there’s a distinctly feminist twist, with Demi Moore’s Elisabeth Sparkle pushed to her breaking point by an entertainment industry eager to discard women over 50. You can’t really blame her for trying the substance, even if the result — the emergence of a younger version of herself, played by Margaret Qualley — has some revolting consequences. Fargeat knows exactly which buttons to push in terms of the squelchy details, but Moore’s gravitas is what sells the film’s message.
5. Smile 2
A horror film about trauma? Now I’ve heard everything. Yes, the Smile films turn PTSD into a demon that stalks you in the form of smiling strangers until it finally kills you, but if you throw in enough really good scares, audiences will embrace the metaphor. And Smile 2 — in which singer Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) is the doomed central figure — has more on its mind than simple ideas about trauma. This is also a movie about how we treat our pop stars, the soul-destroying pressures of fame, toxic fan communities, and the enabling of addiction in the service of greed. Don’t worry, it’s also really scary! Parker Finn is making a name for himself as someone who can craft inventive and viscerally frightening set pieces, elevating these films beyond their (admittedly silly) conceits. In a just society, Scott would be earning award buzz for her raw and devastating performance.
4. Nosferatu
While I’ve held back on sharing too much about many films on this list, I could safely detail every plot beat of Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu without ruining much of anything. Whether you’ve seen one of the previous versions (the 1922 F.W. Murnau film or the 1979 Werner Herzog remake) or any number of adaptations of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, you get the idea. Thankfully, Eggers’s vision is distinct enough that knowing what happens is beside the point. You’re here for his take on a fast-decaying Count Orlok (an unrecognizable Bill Skarsgård), his richly stylized modern evocation of gothic horror, and his overwhelming embrace of darkness in a film that exists almost entirely in shadow. There’s also the exceptional cast Eggers has assembled, most notably Lily-Rose Depp, another horror star delivering one of the year’s best performances, as the tormented Ellen.
3. Red Rooms
It’s not a spoiler to say you don’t see any of the horrific acts of violence discussed in Red Rooms — its torture and murder of children are too awful to be depicted. Yet this part–courtroom drama, part–psychological thriller is more stomach-turning than any of the extreme gore in Terrifier 3. In tapping into our obsession with true crime and desensitization to violence, Pascal Plante’s film leaves you soul-sick, a feeling much harder to shake than Art the Clown–induced nausea. As Kelly-Anne, a model whose fixation on alleged serial killer Ludovic Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos) is derailing her life, Juliette Gariépy is endlessly compelling, but she taps into a kind of obsession that makes you want to look away. You can view Red Rooms as an indictment of “murderino” culture or as a portrait of the different shades of psychopathy.
2. A Quiet Place: Day One
Some will question my placement of A Quiet Place: Day One so high on this list — not because it’s another prequel (I’m as shocked as you are) but because it’s barely a horror film. After the action-packed first two installments of the Quiet Place series, writer-director Michael Sarnoski opts for something far more restrained and meditative in Day One. Lupita Nyong’o stars as Sam, a woman with terminal cancer who finds herself alone (minus her cat) after the arrival of the Death Angels. (Yes, those are what the aliens attracted to sound are called.) She links up with a frightened English law student, Eric (Joseph Quinn), and the two embark on a quest that’s as much about staying alive as it is about getting the last great slice of New York pizza. Sam and Eric’s attempts to evade the aliens can be gripping and scary, but Day One is really a profoundly moving exploration of what survival really means. Its horror tendencies are just a bonus.
1. I Saw the TV Glow
Another movie that straddles genres, I Saw the TV Glow is easily the most haunting film I saw this year — along with being one of the very best — which is reason enough to let it top a 2024 horror list. In the late ’90s, Owen (Ian Foreman) and Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) bond over the YA show The Pink Opaque. Maddy disappears and upon returning, years later, works to convince Owen (now played by Justice Smith) that the world of The Pink Opaque is realer than either understood as teens. While many trans critics and culture writers have written about the overt trans allegory of I Saw the TV Glow, Jane Schoenbrun’s film is a rich text for queer people of all gender identities who have retreated into a pop-culture fantasy world and battled the horrors of self-denial and repression. The imagery of The Pink Opaque’s Midnight Realm is frightening, but the potent themes and aching nostalgia are what will keep you up at night.
