The 20 Best Horror Movies on Max

November 23, 2024

How We Pick Our Films

Critic Brian Tallerico watches and writes about movies and TV every day. To curate this list, he dives into Max’s catalogue every month to surface terrifying horror titles — using his taste and a lifetime of cinema study as his guide, instead of whatever the algorithm happens to be pushing. After triple-checking to make sure they’re still available, he watches each and writes his recommendation. We highlight more than just the crowdpleasers: Filmmakers can use horror to craft spine-tingling moods, keep audiences on their toes, and comment on culture. Read on to find something to watch.

Barbarian

Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 42m
Director: Zach Cregger

Georgina Marshall plays a woman who discovers that her AirBnB has been double-booked when she arrives and finds someone already staying there—the excellent Bill Skarsgard. Despite her instincts, she decides to stay too, and then things go very sideways, but not in the way you expect them to. A truly odd movie, Barbarian was a massive hit, making ten times its budget and producing roughly a million WTF TikToks.

Barbarian watch on max

*The Blackcoat’s Daughter

Year: 2017
Runtime: 1h 35m
Director: Osgood Perkins

The son of Norman Bates himself, Anthony Perkins, directs this fantastic, creepy film starring Emma Roberts, Kiernan Shipka, and Lucy Boynton. Shipka and Boynton play two girls at a boarding school during a long break, where things seem to be going awry on a possibly supernatural level. Meanwhile, Roberts is in another plotline, working her way to the school. The two arcs converge in an unforgettable final act.

The Blackcoat’s Daughter watch on max

*Cabin Fever

Year: 2003
Runtime: 1h 32m
Director: Eli Roth

Eli Roth broke through on the genre scene with this 2002 gross-out about a vacation gone horribly wrong. Roth co-wrote and directed the story of a group of college grads who decide to take a trip to a remote cabin, where they find not killers in the woods but a virus that’s ready to turn them into mush. It’s messy but memorable.

Cabin Fever watch on max

Carnival of Souls

Year: 1962
Runtime: 1h 18m
Director: Herk Harvey

One of the best horror movies ever made, Herk Harvey’s film is an early cult classic, made for almost no money and became an influential masterpiece. Candace Hilligoss plays a woman who starts having terrifying visions after surviving a car accident. These visions lead her to an abandoned carnival. You can see this film’s DNA in hundreds of horror movies to follow, but it’s still wonderfully creepy when judged on its own terms.

Carnival of Souls Watch on Max

Carrie

Year: 1976
Runtime: 1h 39m
Director: Brian De Palma

Long before Stephen King was an entire industry, he was the guy who wrote Carrie, a 1974 novel about a bullied teen girl who unleashes hell on her classmates. Every once in a while, there’s a perfect combination of source material and creatives, and that’s what happened when King, De Palma, and Sissy Spacek combined forces here. Horror movie history would be made. Note: The underrated Chloe Grace Moretz remake is also on Max.

Carrie watch on max

The Conjuring

Year: 2013
Runtime: 1h 52m
Director: James Wan

One of the biggest horror films of the 2010s introduced the world to Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson & Vera Farmiga), the real investigators of paranormal occurrences, and it launched an entire industry of horror movies. The first film is still the best, anchored by Lili Taylor’s great performance as a woman whose ordinary life was turned upside down by a ghost in her farmhouse in the early ‘70s. Note: The Conjuring 3 and a bunch of spin-offs are also on Max. Marathon time!

The Conjuring Watch on Max

Evil Dead Rise

Year: 2023
Runtime: 1h 37m
Director: Lee Cronin

A hit in theaters in April, Warner Brothers has already shuffled their horror smash over to Max, free for subscribers. Rebooting the Evil Dead series for the second time (after the successful 2013 iteration), this one moves the action to an L.A. apartment building where a single mother (the phenomenal Alyssa Sutherland) gets taken over by the same evil force that once terrorized poor Ash. Twisted and clever, this is a gruesome horror flick that was so successful that it feels like a sixth film in the series won’t take a decade to rise from the dead.

Evil Dead Rise watch on max

*From Dusk Till Dawn

Year: 1996
Runtime: 1h 48m
Director: Robert Rodriguez

Remember when George Clooney was a legitimate action star? There was a brief window there, and his best film with a gun in his hands is probably this Robert Rodriguez cult classic, written by Clooney’s co-star Quentin Tarantino. What starts as a straightforward crime flick becomes something else altogether when Clooney and Tarantino get to a strip club that has a very dark and supernatural secret.

From Dusk Till Dawn Watch on Max

*Funny Games

Year: 1997
Runtime: 1h 50m
Director: Michel Haneke

Michael Haneke is one of the most daring filmmakers alive, willing to shock viewers to make a point. Perhaps his most divisive film remains this 1997 shocker about a family who are essentially held hostage in their vacation home in Austria. Over the course of the day, the criminals basically torture this family, and through fourth-wall breaks, Haneke interrogates why people would even want to watch something like this, illuminating what art can reveal about the dark side of humanity.

Funny Games watch on max

Hereditary

Year: 2018
Runtime: 2h 7m
Director: Ari Aster

Toni Collette gives a fearless performance in Ari Aster’s debut feature, a movie that traumatizes new viewers every day. The Oscar nominee plays a woman whose life is turned upside down after the death of her mother, sending everyone into a terrifying tailspin. What starts as a family drama becomes a waking nightmare in Aster’s unforgettable vision.

Hereditary watch on max

*It Comes at Night

Year: 2017
Runtime: 1h 32m
Director: Trey Edward Shults

Trey Edward Shults is quickly becoming one of the most important directors of his generation with his personal debut Krisha and one of the more divisive films of the last few years, Waves. In between is this daring film that A24 kind of sold too much as a horror film, turning off viewers expecting something more traditional. It’s a mood piece about trust and survival starring Joel Edgerton, Christopher Abbott, Carmen Ejogo, Riley Keough, and a guy who still feels like he’s just on the verge of stardom, Kelvin Harrison Jr.

It Comes at Night watch on max

The Lodge

Year: 2020
Runtime: 1h 49m
Director: Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz

Riley Keough rules as a woman who is about to become stepmother to two suspicious children, played by Jaeden Martell and Lia McHugh. The family goes on a trip to a remote lodge and get stranded there after dad leaves on business. The kids start to play with mom’s mind, and the results are unbelievably terrifying.

The Lodge Watch on Max

*The Menu

Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 47m
Director: Mark Mylod

A regular director on Succession, Mylod made his directorial debut with this Fall 2022 black comedy/horror film about a chef’s tasting to remember. Ralph Fiennes bites into a juicy role as a celebrity chef who has decided that the meal he’s cooking for his wealthy guests might be their last. Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, Hong Chau, and Janet McTeer co-star in a film that has been one of the more consistent hits on Max since it dropped there a year ago.

The Menu watch on max

Night of the Living Dead

Year: 1968
Runtime: 1h 37m
Director: George A. Romero

The movie that changed it all. It’s really hard to overstate the impact that George A. Romero’s classic black-and-white masterpiece had on not just the zombie genre but DIY microbudget horror filmmaking in general. So many people have been chasing that game-changing impact of Night of the Living Dead in the half-century since it came out, but it’s the original that’s passed the test of time.

Night of the Living Dead Watch on Max

*Orphan

Year: 2009
Runtime: 2h 3m
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra

Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard play a grieving couple who adopt a child after losing one of their own. As the tagline says, “There’s something wrong with Esther.” More than just a traditional “bad seed” movie, this is a clever thriller with great performances all around. It’s darkly humorous too, constantly taking risks that other filmmakers would have avoided. It’s held up remarkably well.

Orphan watch on max

Paranormal Activity

Year: 2009
Runtime: 1h 27m
Director: Oren Peli

One of the most profitable films of all time, this found footage blockbuster was notoriously made for only $15k (before post-production) and ended up grossing almost $200 million worldwide, launching a franchise that’s still going over 15 years later. A formative film in the found footage genre, it stars Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat as a young couple who set up cameras in their house to document the supernatural presence they feel. What they would find would change indie horror movie history. Note: Several sequels are also on Max.

Paranormal Activity watch on max

Pet Sematary

Year: 1989
Runtime: 1h 43m
Director: Mary Lambert

Forget that junky 2019 remake (or the even-junkier 2023 prequel) and stick with the first adaptation of the Stephen King novel from the 1980s about a cemetery that brings pets back to life. Based on the 1983 novel of the same name, this is a timeless tale of not messing with the power of life and death after a family decides to make an impossible decision after a tragedy and learns their lesson the very hard way.

Pet Sematary watch on Max

Piranha

Year: 2010
Runtime: 1h 28m
Director: Alexandre Aja

Sadly, it’s not 3D on Max, but you can use your imagination. Alexandre Aja helmed his loose remake of the B-movie classic about a school of piranha that causes bloody chaos at a waterside resort. Elisabeth Shue and Adam Scott totally understand that this movie needs to be as over-the-top as possible, and they play along wonderfully with the tone of this entertaining remake. (Note: Piranha 3DD is also streaming on Max.)

Piranha watch on max

The Shining

Year: 1980
Runtime: 2h 23m
Director: Stanley Kubrick

The most popular adaptation of a Stephen King novel is also the one the writer notoriously hated. Radically changing key elements, including the ending, Stanley Kubrick made the movie his own and made movie history. One of the most iconic horror films ever made, this one has lost none of its power in the four-decades-plus since it was released. It’s still a terrifying study in claustrophobic horror with one of Jack Nicholson’s most unforgettable performances.

The Shining watch on max

The Silence of the Lambs

Year: 1991
Runtime: 1h 58m
Director: Jonathan Demme

Movies don’t get much better than Jonathan Demme’s adaptation of Thomas Harris’ chilling thriller about Clarice Starling and Dr. Hannibal Lecter. With career-defining performances from Jodie Foster and Sir Anthony Hopkins, this movie still absolutely slays a quarter-century after it was released. It’s fascinating to see its DNA in so many modern genre films. Nothing about it is dated, which isn’t something that can be said about many films that are three decades old.

The Silence of the Lambs watch on max

Under the Skin

Year: 2014
Runtime: 1h 49m
Director: Jonathan Glazer

A trippy, sci-fi masterpiece, this flick stars Scarlett Johansson as an alien being exploring the world around her and, well, doing some terrifying things to the men she comes into contact with. Although that only scratches the surface of why this is a special movie, a terrifying tone piece that has more in common with Twin Peaks than Species. It’s unforgettable and brilliant, one of the best films of the ‘10s.

Under the Skin watch on max

The Witch

Year: 2016
Runtime: 1h 32m
Director: Robert Eggers

The directorial debut of the future director of The Lighthouse and The Northman was an instant hit for A24, a film that felt like nothing else on the market. Anya Taylor-Joy made her film debut in this tale set in the 1630s as a Puritan family faces an evil entity in the woods near their home. With stunning sound design and unforgettable visuals, it’s one of the best horror movies of its era.

The Witch watch on max

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