From the creepiest Japanese film in decades to a legacy-franchise standout, Sinners to Weapons — the highlights of our year in scary movies
You wouldn’t call 2025 an “off” year for horror — more like an odd one. Both A24 and Neon continued to back several scary-movie auteurs (the prolific Osgood Perkins, the brothers Danny and Michael Philippou) with mixed results. Shudder continued to mine the four corners of the globe for the weirdest, eeriest, and most outré the genre had to offer. It was a good time to be a Stephen King — sorry, “Richard Bachman” — fan, provided you loved his more dystopian work as opposed to his traditional things-that-go-bump-in-the-night offerings; as for the It-related series Welcome to Derry that dropped on HBO, let’s just say mileage may vary. Sequels and spin-offs, some decent and others detestable, came and went. We have to admit that going into 2025, we did not have Warners dominating the field for the preceding 12 months on our bingo card. And yet… well, see below.
But when we look back on the year on horror, the surprises and sideways entries that quickly established themselves as landmarks far outweighed the low points. A number of the films in our top 10 found extraordinary filmmakers using the form for both extremely personal and grand, sweeping statements — in the case of standouts like Sinners, Frankenstein, and The Shrouds, they deftly managed to balance both elements at once. From Ryan Coogler’s ambitious, astonishing history lesson with fangs to Guillermo del Toro’s interpretation of a gothic classic, a shockingly good addition to a warhorse franchise to a left-field creepshow straight from Japan, these were the horror movies — listed in alphabetical order — that made our year.
(Shout-outs as well to Bring Her Back, Dangerous Animals, Drop, It Feeds, Rabbit Trap, Keeper, Together, The Ugly Stepsister, and The Woman in the Yard.)
Photographs used in Illustration
Shudder; Warner Bros., 2; Ken Woroner/Netflix
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‘Best Wishes to All’
Image Credit: Shudder Films
Something strange is going on at a quaint house in the countryside, where a Tokyo nursing student (Kotone Furukawa) is visiting her grandparents. They seem a little too cheery at times, and completely checked out at others. Grandma keeps asking if her darling is “happy.” Strange noises keep echoing through the house after dark. The young woman doesn’t feel safe here — and that’s before she spies a fat, middle-aged man in dingy tighty-whiteys crawling past the kitchen doorway, his eyes and mouth sewn shut. Director Yûta Shimotsu’s debut feature had been kicking around the festival circuit before finally making it way here — and it’s no exaggeration to say this is, hands down, the best J-horror movie to hit these shores in decades. Everything from Furukawa’s performance to the sideways manner in which the story reveals its secrets and surreal, Lynchian interludes hits exactly as it needs to. Occasionally, a nudge is required to remind folks that privilege, luxury, and personal fulfillment usually come with a price. This film shoves that notion right back in your face.
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‘Companion’
Image Credit: Warner Bros. Picture
Boy (Jack Quaid) meets girl (Sophie Thatcher). She’s Iris, your run-of-the-mill lonelyheart. He’s Josh, her dream guy. They meet cute. Fast forward a few months into their relationship, and Iris is worried over meeting his college friends during a weekend away. They all seem a little… mixed on their buddy’s new sweetheart. You know things are going to go wrong even before the film’s first act is done. What you don’t necessarily expect is where writer-director Drew Hancock’s film ends up once it takes a hard left turn into Black Mirror country. If you know, you know. If not, check out this rom-com filtered through a nightmare ASAP, and appreciate how Thatcher is playing each twist and vengeful turn. To paraphrase a famous logline: Love means never having to your sorry if you can occasionally hit the reset button.
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‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’
Image Credit: ©Warner Bros/Everett Collection
Gotta admit, we didn’t see this one coming. And yet somehow, this warhorse series from the 2000s about people cheating death — and the Grim Reaper getting royally pissed off and concocting elaborate ways to collect the souls he’s owed — returned after a 14-year hiatus from the big screen and dropped its best entry since the original. Kicking off with an extended set piece that will keep you from frequenting revolving-tower restaurants ever again, this latest chapter follows a college student (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) plagued by nightmares centered around a historical disaster. She discovers that her grandmother (Gabrielle Rose) was actually present at the catastrophe yet avoided being one of the casualties. The bad news? Her survival has put the rest of her lineage, including her granddaughter, in Death’s crosshairs. Cue one ridiculous, Rube Goldberg-level splatterfest sequence after another, each of which will scratch your old-school, metaphysical-slasher-flick itch.
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‘Frankenstein’
Image Credit: Ken Woroner/Netflix
Guillermo del Toro has gone on record saying that doesn’t consider his singular adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel a horror movie, at least not while he was making it; the filmmaker was chasing an emotional story that resonated beyond jump scares. But this glorious end result still fits snugly within the genre, and is exactly what you’d hope for from Del Toro: tony yet pulpy, tender yet perverse, faithful to the source material while paying homage to all sorts of other gothic and genre-related influences. Above all, however, it’s a passionately personal story about being an outcast, and trying to break cycles of bad parenting (seriously) that does not skimp on the sound and the fury. Oscar Isaac’s Victor Frankenstein is part 18th-century dandy and part swaggering Swinging Sixties rock star, as if Lord Byron had been genetically spliced with Brian Jones. And for those who only know Jacob Elordi from Euphoria, his sympathetic interpretation of the creature as both an innocent and an angel of vengeance is eye-opening.
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‘Good Boy’
Image Credit: Independent Film Company/Shudder
There have been a million movies about haunted houses — credit Ben Leonberg’s ingenious addition to the subgenre for being the first to make one as viewed from the perspective of a pooch. Indy, a golden retriever who truly does live up the film’s title, relocates from the city to a house in the countryside so his sick human (Shane Jensen) can recuperate. It turns out the two of them are not alone in this cursed family residence, though only Indy can sense the malevolent, mud-covered spirit that lurks in the shadows. And only this loyal dog can keep his master from being sucked into whatever cursed realm this presence comes from. Thankfully, Leonberg never outdoes the dog’s-eye view of events, and knows how to construct a supernatural thriller around his expressive and charismatic four-legged lead. This is why they’re called man’s best friend, folks! They will try to save you from ghosts!
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‘Presence’
Image Credit: Photo by Peter Andrews/The Spectral Spirit Company
Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park) make a contemporary haunted-house movie — and, just for kicks, they frame the whole thing from the point-of-view of the ghost. But once you begin to pick up on how the film is using this tried-and-true horror staple as a way of dealing with the dynamics of a highly dysfunctional family, you start to understand the bigger game Soderbergh is playing here. The only thing scarier than a spirit gliding through hallways is a house full of loved ones on the brink of falling apart. And given how deftly she handles the movie’s equivalent of a damsel in distress, we hope this gem gets actor Callina Liang a lot of work.
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‘The Shrouds’
Image Credit: Sideshow & Janus Films
David Cronenberg would like to have a few words with you about death. The legendary filmmaker responsible for the term “body horror” becoming part of the cine-lexicon delivers what’s arguably his most personal film, a cryptic mix of a conspiracy thriller and chilly, clinical dreadfest involving the mourning routines of one Karsh Relikh (Vincent Cassel, looking like a dead ringer for the director). He’s pioneered a cutting-edge development in the 21st Century Grief Industrial Complex, which allows folks to watch their late loved ones rot in peace via in-grave cams. Soon, he’s embroiled in a plot to steal the innovation and plagued by nightmares of his deceased wife (Diane Kruger). Cronenberg may have slowly removed himself from the gross-out racket, yet his desire to poke, prod, and contemplate the perverse ironies of mortality is still present and accounted for. It’s haunting.
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‘Sinners’
Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
In which Ryan Coogler and longtime collaborator/muse/21st century movie star Michael B. Jordan go HAM on the vampire movie and somehow manage to fold in an old-fashioned 1930s gangster movie, an ode to the blues and a meta-history lesson about two separate but highly unequal Americas as well. Southern twins Smoke and Stack — both played by Jordan, in such a distinct manner that makes you forget you’re watching the same actor twice over — return home after a stint up north, with grand plans of opening up their own juke joint outside of town. The good news is it’s an instant hit with the community. The bad news is it’s also attracted an alpha bloodsucker (Jack O’Connell) who’d graciously like to come inside and feast on the occupants, please and thank you. Digs at cultural appropriation and the double standards regarding race and capitalism sit side by side with gory action sequences and ambitious set pieces — and that’s before Coogler takes a big swing on a showstopper that literally unites centuries of Black music under one roof.
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‘28 Years Later …’
Image Credit: Miya Mizuno/Sony Pictures
The core creative team behind one of the greatest zombie movies of all time (yes, we’re know they’re not technically walking cadavers, but let’s not get bogged down in semantics) reunites for a belated third chapter to the 28 Days Later... franchise — and kickstarts a whole new dawn of the raging dead. Director Danny Boyle, screenwriter Alex Garland, producer Andrew Macdonald and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle deepen their vision of a world on the brink, adding in strong elements of British folk horror, anxiety over good-old-days nationalism and an emphasis on what happens to a generation having grown up in the shadow of normalized chaos. They’ve also introduced variations of the infected that have not only mutated but evolved into “Alphas” — a type of super-creature that presents quite a problem for underage protagonist Spike (Alfie Williams), as well as a Kurtz-like doctor (Ralph Fiennes) living in a fortress of bones. It’s both a great extension of their original postapocalyptic nightmare and the start of a whole other trilogy that promises to close the loop of the living and the damned.
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‘Weapons’
Image Credit: Warner Bros.
By this point, you likely know the central secret behind writer-director Zach Cregger’s ambitious follow-up to his Airbnb horror flick Barbarian (2022), and understand why veteran actor Amy Madigan is now generating a lot of awards-season heat for her portrayal of a mysterious, unwelcome houseguest. Even after all of this psychological thriller’s cards have been turned over, however, Cregger’s tale of the unexplained disappearance of 17 children in the middle of the night still manages to cast a chill. Juggling several different narratives and re-viewing events from the perspectives of a teacher (Julia Garner), one of her young students (Cary Christopher, amazing), the father (Josh Brolin) of a missing kid, and several others, the movie has a penchant for toying with viewers in the same way a predatory cat toys with a wounded mouse. The go-for-broke climax is well-earned, yet it’s the deft way that Cregger weaves between storylines and sets everything up for the kill that sticks with you more than the payoff itself. It’s a horror movie that knows how to hit its targets.
