Looking to spike your cortisol levels? Then we've got the Netflix streaming guide for you.
From old frights to new fears, we've scoured Netflix's horror catalog to find the best cinematic nightmares for darkening your device. Of course, not all terrifying titles are born of the same fire and brimstone — so we've included a variety of ethereal ghost stories, stark home invasion horrors, gentrifying vampires, psychological thrillers, classic creeps, satirical scares, and more. Yes, Netflix originals like the Fear Street trilogy and I'm Thinking of Ending Things are on here. But we've also got genre staples and hidden gems.
Here are the best scary movies currently streaming on Netflix — all of them packed with eerie entertainment value, because you don't need to sleep ever again. Happy haunting!
25. The Autopsy of Jane Doe
Anybody who saw the absolute blast of found footage fun that was 2010's Troll Hunter knew that Norwegian director André Øvredal was somebody to watch out for. And yet six years later, his follow-up, this claustrophobic oddity about a father and son pair of coroners (pre-Succession Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch) who go to work trying to figure out what killed the mysterious, unblemished young woman whose body has been delivered to their lab, didn't make much of a sound. Not at first, anyway.
But over the years the film's cult has steadily grown, and by now from where I stand, it's become a stone cold (or should I say, "corpse cold"?) classic. Awash in deeply unsettling body horror that digs its hooks deep into our anxieties about what's under our own skin, The Autopsy of Jane Doe eventually twists its scalpel to become something even stranger still. A real hidden gem. — Jason Adams, Freelance Contributor
How to watch: The Autopsy of Jane Doe is now streaming on Netflix.
24. El Conde
Chilean General Augusto Pinochet was one of history's most notorious dictators and a voracious embezzler, to boot. What if he were "bloodthirsty" in a more literal sense?
From Spencer director Pablo Larraín, this pitch-black satire reimagines Pinochet (played here by Jaime Vadell) as a 250-year-old vampire, living in exile with a family whose ready to tear him (and each other?) apart over his vast fortune. Think of it as "Blood Succession," but with a math-whiz nun at the center of it (Paula Luchsinger, who nearly steals the film).
Filmed in lush black and white, El Conde is a dark, clever, and often gruesome gothic alternative history. It pulls off the feat of offering supernatural chills while never losing sight of the monstrous historical evils which it draws upon. — Rufus Hickok, Contributing Writer
How to watch: El Conde is now streaming on Netflix.
23. Under the Shadow
Times are tense in 1980s Tehran for mother Shideh (Narges Rashidi) and her daughter Dorsa (Avin Manshadi). The former medical student is worried about running afoul of Iran’s repressive post-revolutionary government, and the country is mired in a seemingly endless war with Iraq. Her husband Iraj (Bobby Naderi) is called to serve as a doctor on the frontlines, and their apartment building is being shelled daily.
Things only get worse after a bomb hits their apartment building and lodges, unexploded, in the roof; as their neighbors flee to safer locations, the building becomes downright uncanny. Did the bomb let something — or someone — in? Precious objects are disappearing from their apartment or being thrown out entirely, which the feverish little girl blames on malevolent djinn. It's up to Shideh to save not only her daughter's life from all these external threats but her very soul from malevolent, seemingly mystical intruders.
In his first feature-length film, Iranian-born director Babak Anvari proves adept at slowly ratcheting up the paranoid atmosphere and jittery details, before finally letting it all explode in the last act. — R.H.
How to watch: Under the Shadow is now streaming on Netflix.
22. Run Rabbit Run
Succession star Sarah Snook has more to worry about than the Roy family in this Aussie chiller. She plays Sarah, a divorced mother and fertility doctor suddenly in charge of her late father's estate — which includes her estranged mother, Joan (Greta Scacchi), who is in the beginning stages of dementia and is in an adult care home. If that weren't enough, Sarah's young daughter, Mia (Lily LaTorre), has begun acting strange. First, it’s the stray rabbit she’s brought home and started dressing like. Then, it’s some creepy crayon drawings and insistent demands to visit Joan, whom Mia has never met. Finally, it’s the girl’s conviction that she’s not Mia at all but Alice, Sarah’s sister who went missing when they were children at the same age Mia is now. Is Alice back for some sisterly spooks? Director Daina Reid makes deft use of unnerving sound design, creepy visuals, and a pervasive sense of dread and danger to strongly suggest the answer is yes. — R.H.
How to watch: Run Rabbit Run is now streaming on Netflix.
21. The Babysitter
Y'know, I'm not sure The Babysitter really works as a movie; it's more the idea of a movie loosely strung together by one-liners and style. Still, it's a fun way to kill a few hours. Samara Weaving stars as the titular childcare professional, a popular teen with a passion for human sacrifice and one-liners. Judah Lewis stars as the kid being babysat, with supporting performances by Hana Mae Lee, Robbie Amell, Bella Thorne, and Andrew Bachelor. The sequel, released in 2020, is more of the same — so if you like the first, do a double feature. — Alison Foreman, Entertainment Reporter
How to watch: The Babysitter is now streaming on Netflix.
20. Bone Tomahawk
If you've already seen Bone Tomahawk — writer/director S. Craig Zahler's feature debut, the blackhearted 2015 Western that stars Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox, Richard Jenkins, and David Arquette — then you know the infamous scene that cemented this movie's place in the pantheon of cinematic nastiness. If not, well, prepare yourselves. This movie, and that scene in particular, definitely doesn't mess around. (With those vibes and Arquette's presence, it very much feels like the heir to Antonio Bird's 1999 masterpiece Ravenous, which is no small compliment.)
Russell plays the sheriff of a small desert town in the 1890s who's forced to head out into the wild with some men when several of his townspeople are kidnapped by a tribe of Native Americans who've gone off the deep end, to put it mildly. (The film manages to thread the needle on what could be considered problematic representation, making it clear this tribe is shunned by all the other tribes due to their inbred cannibalistic savagery.) That's basically the entirety of it: a rescue mission that goes very, very, very sour, very fast. It's brutally tense, truly nightmare-inducing stuff — torture porn on the Western front. — J.A.
How to watch: Bone Tomahawk is now streaming on Netflix.
19. Velvet Buzzsaw
From the dude behind the brilliant 2014 psychological thriller Nightcrawler comes a hilarious — and horrifying — send-up of the Los Angeles art scene. In writer-director Dan Gilroy's epic Velvet Buzzsaw, Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Toni Collette, and half a dozen other performers you probably love act their hearts out as fine art appreciators hunted down and killed by their priceless pieces. (Seriously, Billy Magnussen gets strangled by a painting of monkeys. It's awesome.) — A.F.
How to watch: Velvet Buzzsaw is now streaming on Netflix.
18. Blood Red Sky
Netflix's Blood Red Sky is one of those horror movies made so much better by knowing as little as possible going into it that I'm going to try to say as little as possible to get you to watch it. Directed by Peter Thorwarth, who co-wrote the script with Stefan Holtz, this action horror adventure combines the best parts of Flight Plan with tinges of A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night. Star Peri Baumeister is completely breathtaking as a woman attempting to protect her son from hijackers aboard a transatlantic voyage. — A.F.
How to watch: Blood Red Sky is now streaming on Netflix.
17. The Ritual
In director David Bruckner's scenic tour of a hellscape, four pals hike through northern Sweden to honor a departed friend. Of course, their trip soon morphs into a torturous and never-ending nightmare — with a killer lead performance by Rafe Spall. Slippery and divisive, this movie begs to be picked apart. More likely than not, you'll love the world it creates but hate the way it ends. Or, like me, you'll love the world it creates and how it ends. Have fun with it! And pack bug spray! — A.F.
How to watch: The Ritual is now streaming on Netflix.
16. Apostle
Before Michael Sheen became the angel Aziraphale in Amazon's Good Omens, he celebrated religion in a, uh... "different" way. Apostle is a completely bonkers period horror film that features Sheen at his most terrifying, playing a cult leader with an affinity for bloodletting and other "creative" religious sacraments. Lead Dan Stevens keeps the slow-paced narrative moving, with stunning supporting performances by The Politician's Lucy Boynton and Welsh stage actor Mark Lewis Jones. — A.F.
How to watch: Apostle is now streaming on Netflix.
15. Pearl
The middle child of director Ti West's X trilogy – flanked by X before and MaXXXine after – is, in typical middle child fashion, the weirdest of the bunch. No offense to middle children; we're so very here for it! Flashing us some 60 years back from the Texas Chain Saw-adjacent slasher setting of X, Pearl doles out the 1918-set backstory for that first film's elderly murderess (also played by Mia Goth), showing us what sent her off toward cuckoo-town in the first place. And oh, what a wild tale it is.
Isolated on her parent's farm during that year's notorious flu pandemic and finding her big flashy (and deluded) dreams of stardom dashed at every turn, Pearl works just fine as a demented little stand-alone picture. It never demands you be familiar with what happens in either of its bookend movies. It's just its own little surreal technicolor tale of ambitions curdled, featuring an instantly iconic horror performance from Goth as we watch Pearl give 40 whacks to every bastard who keeps her down. Cuz she's a star, dammit. And is she ever. — J.A.
How to watch: Pearl is now streaming on Netflix.
14. It Follows
Kicking off with a righteous banger of an opening scene — we watch a young woman run out of her house half-dressed in a panic from something we can't see, only to end up moments later unnervingly mangled in the sand of a local beach — David Robert Mitchell's 2015 new classic of atmospheric terror never lets up. Much like the shape-shifting entity at its heart, which passes from teenager to teenager like an STD on fire.
Starring Maika Monroe (who cemented her Scream Queen status this year thanks to the double-feature of this and The Guest) as unwitting teen Jay, who's just met a sweet, mysterious boy she likes, It Follows immediately becomes a death march of tension that thrums along on Disasterpeace's masterful throwback synth score. And Mitchell's brilliantly off-kilter camera work does a lot of the heavy-lifting, giving us a nightmare that presents itself in bright light and familiar spaces, disfiguring ordinariness into something unforgettably horrific. — J.A.
How to watch: It Follows is now streaming on Netflix.
13. Cam
One of the most underrated titles in Netflix's original horror catalog, Isa Mazzei and Daniel Goldhaber's Cam combines the tumultuous world of professional webcam modeling with the insidious terrors of a body-snatching whodunnit. The Handmaid's Tale's Madeline Brewer stars as Alice Ackerman, an ambitious performer eager to climb up the digital ranks who finds herself confronted with a doppelgänger gunning to take her spot, her fans, and maybe...her life. — A.F.
How to watch: Cam is now streaming on Netflix.
12. The Babadook
Way back before becoming an inexplicable LGBTQ+ icon, The Babadook was just a simple ghoul standing in front of a girl asking her to "dook dook dook" it. Anyway, enough has been written in the last decade about director Jennifer Kent's 2014 film being an "allegory for grief" that we should probably start writing papers about those papers now. Or perhaps we should just wipe away the cobwebs and see the movie for what it is, which is a barn-burner of a tale about an overworked mom (Essie Davis, who deserved all of the awards for this performance) and her anxious little boy Samuel (Noah Wiseman, really earning that "World's Most Annoying Brat" mug) unraveling together hand-in-hand in the wake of family tragedy. The performances keep everything almost too relatable, and Kent's eye for gothic weirdness summoned a new horror icon right out of thin air. — J.A.
How to watch: The Babadook is now streaming on Netflix.
11. Bodies Bodies Bodies
Director Halina Reijn's Bodies Bodies Bodies is a spin on the "Old Dark House" trope — get a bunch of pretty people trapped inside a space and then start picking them off one by one, until the survivor(s) can suss out the killer(s) and their motive(s). Here it's a "Hurricane Party" thrown by rich dickweed David (Pete Davidson) at his parent's palatial place. We enter the festivities alongside girlfriends Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and Bee (Borat 2 breakout Maria Bakalova), who want to showcase their new love to Sophie's old friends. But once the bodies start hitting the hardwood floors, old tensions and new questions — who is this stranger in their midst? — quickly arise. All that, plus a hilarious Rachel Sennott and a half-naked Lee Pace opening a champagne bottle with a sword! What more could one ask for? — J.A.
How to watch: Bodies Bodies Bodies is now streaming on Netflix.
10. 1922
Directed by Zak Hilditch and based on Stephen King's novella of the same name, 1922 tackles classic themes of guilt, envy, and evil through the grim lens of the American Dust Bowl. Thomas Jane and Molly Parker square off to striking effect, painting a portrait of a marriage that is as at once remarkably absurd and nauseatingly plausible. The couple's son, played by Dylan Schmid, is just as compelling, with a heartbreaking storyline you won't soon forget. (FYI, fans of the book, there are big changes to the adaptation's ending that didn't bother me but could bother you.) — A.F.
How to watch: 1922 is now streaming on Netflix.
9. Ouija: Origin of Evil
The biggest surprise in Ouija: Origin of Evil, the 2016 prequel to the mediocre 2014 film Ouija, was when it turned out to actually be a good movie. It makes sense now, since Origin of Evil's director Mike Flanagan has gone on to mesmerize us with The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, and The Fall of the House of Usher. But in 2016 this movie hit as a shock — the best kind.
Set in the late 1960s, this is an old-fashioned tale of two sisters, one of whom asks the board to connect with their dead father and the other one who gets possessed by an evil spirit in the process. Flanagan manages to suss out big wallops of the oogie-boogies from the little wooden board and its recognizable planchette, which has haunted every sleepover for the past 130 years. (Ouija boards as we know them date all the way back to 1890, if you can believe it!)* — J.A.
How to watch: Ouija: Origin of Evil is streaming on Netflix.
8. Vampires vs. the Bronx
Want a movie that's got excitement, comedy, a scorching message about the evils of gentrification, and is a kid-friendly romp? Then take a bite out of Vampires vs. the Bronx. Oz Rodriguez's PG-13 horror-comedy centers on Afro-Latino teens, who recognize that a flurry of missing person posters and influx of rich white folks with tote bags means bad news for the neighborhood. Together, they team up Monster Squad-style to take down the bloodsuckers and save their community. With a sharp wit, a warm heart, a rich sense of atmosphere, and an equal appreciation for the Blade movies and '80s Amblin, Vampires vs. the Bronx is an easy watch full of rewards.* — Kristy Puchko, Film Editor
How to watch: Vampires vs. the Bronx is now streaming on Netflix.
7. The Fear Street trilogy
Director Leigh Janiak pulls off a small movie miracle in her Fear Street trilogy, delivering consistently fun and fright-filled sequels that just keep getting better. Start your journey off with Fear Street Part One: 1994, in which we meet the cursed teens of a town named Shadyside. For years, the suburban haven has been terrorized by mass murderers — all of them normal townspeople who seemingly "snapped" over nothing.
Across Fear Street Part Two: 1978 and Fear Street Part Three: 1666, get to the bottom of the mystery behind these killings and their connection to the legendary Shadyside Witch. Based on the Fear Street books by R.L. Stine, this is a punchy slasher with enough gore and goofs to fuel a straight-through binge. — A.F.
How to watch: The Fear Street trilogy is now streaming on Netflix.
6. The Perfection
From cellos and foreplay to hallucinations and hiking, The Perfection does absolutely whatever it wants. Featuring Allison Williams in her best role since Get Out and Dear White People's Logan Browning in her best part ever, this vibrant genre blend will get a reaction out of you. Not necessarily a good reaction, but a reaction nonetheless. It's body horror meets psychological thriller meets occult drama meets classical music. With bugs. And vomit. I, for one, loved it! — A.F.
How to watch: The Perfection is now streaming on Netflix.
5. His House
Writer-director Remi Weekes' His House is easily my favorite scary Netflix release from 2020. Wunmi Mosaku and Sope Dirisu star as refugees from South Sudan seeking asylum in Britain who are assigned to live in an eerie neighborhood where they aren't welcome. Spectacularly frightening and ruthlessly critical of its subject matter, His House delivers everything it must — and then some. — A.F.
How to watch: His House is now streaming on Netflix.
4. Gerald's Game
Another romp from Mike Flanagan, based on one of Stephen King's lesser-known terrors, Gerald's Game follows a couple on a romantic trip to a remote cabin where things are totally fine and nothing bad happens. Just kidding! It's so, so, so bad! This survival thriller rooted in psychosexual trauma offers an exquisite performance by Carla Gugino, who is devastating nearly every moment she is on screen. Really. It's Haunting of Hill House times 10. Watch it for her. — A.F.
How to watch: Gerald's Game is now streaming on Netflix.
3. Creep
Oh, you thought you liked Mark Duplass? Because he was the love interest in all those indie rom-coms, played that doctor in The Mindy Project, and is easily the best character in The Morning Show? Well, think again! In Creep, a found-footage film that foregoes pageantry for a stark sense of panic, Duplass plays a strange loner named Josef that freelance documentarian Aaron, played by writer-director Patrick Brice, can't quite pin down. Duplass's performance is intoxicating, and Brice imagines a universe so compelling it absolutely merits its equally great sequel (also on Netflix). — A.F.
How to watch: Creep is now streaming on Netflix.
2. Incantation
Kevin Ko's Taiwanese horror freaked people out so much that it even started a TikTok challenge and managed to become the all-time highest-grossing horror film in Taiwan. "When one imagines horror movies, it’s almost impossible to not associate them with jump scares, monsters, or slashers," wrote Rizwana Zafer for Mashable. "Incantation does not rely on any of those typical horror movie factors, so it’s not really 'scary' in the traditional sense. Instead, Ko manages to terrify us using suspense and dread, built on the intimacy and psychological terror of the heroine. He plays on our deepest fears to scare us, incorporating elements of gore, trypophobia, and the eeriness of the unknown, that something evil is always lurking in the background."* — Shannon Connellan, UK Editor
How to watch: Incantation is now streaming on Netflix.
1. I'm Thinking of Ending Things
Emotional demolitions expert/filmmaker Charlie Kaufman destroys audiences once more in the mind-boggling I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Adapted from Iain Reid’s novel of the same name, this cryptically titled psychological thriller follows a woman, played by Jessie Buckley, and her boyfriend, played by Jesse Plemons, on a disturbing visit to his parents’ remote farmhouse. What follows? Well, that depends on who you ask.
A transfixing meditation on art, existence, value, authorship, isolation, and more, I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a truly one-of-a-kind experience as profound as it is disquieting. You may not have a great time in this house of abstract horrors (especially when Toni Collette is on-screen doing those classically terrifying Toni Collette things), but it will be a lasting one.* — A.F.
How to watch: I'm Thinking of Ending Things is streaming on Netflix.
* denotes that this blurb appeared in a previous Mashable list.
UPDATE: Sep. 11, 2024, 3:30 p.m. EDT This story was originally published on Oct. 23, 2019. It has been updated to reflect Netflix's current streaming library.
Topics Netflix Streaming Watch Guides
