The 10 best Halloween movies of all time, ranked
Sure, Halloween demands a good Halloween movie. But what if you could celebrate pumpkin-spice season by watching a great Halloween movie?
Here's a countdown of the 10 best Halloween movies of all time. The list is based on a comprehensive look at the Halloween genre by our sister site ET Online. The best horror movies, of course, made the list. And, yes, Halloween TV classics such as "It's a Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" were considered too.
For our rundown, only shows that can be streamed on subscription services, such as Disney+ and HBO Max, or on free, ad-supported services, such as Pluto TV, made the cut. We've also provided links to rent the individual movies on Amazon, if you don't want to subscribe to a streaming service just to watch a single movie. (Disclosure: CBS Essentials and Pluto are both subsidiaries of ViacomCBS.)
Entries are ranked by their respective scores on the movie-review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. Ties were broken by the total number of critic reviews that went into each title's grade.
So, what's the best movie to go with your family's (or dog's) Halloween costumes? What are the greatest ghoul-fests to put you in the spirit of the Halloween spooky season, and where can you stream them right now? Read on... if you dare.
(Note: Rotten Tomatoes scores and streaming availability are current as of publication; if a film is available to stream on multiple platforms, we've listed up to two options.)
10. "Scream" (1996)
"...[N]othing beats the original," ET Online wrote of this scare-fest, featuring Drew Barrymore.
With its self-aware references and "Psycho" twists, "Scream" pumped new energy into the horror genre -- and ushered in a film and TV franchise. As an added bonus, it features a masked villain whose get-up would be hard to beat at the neighborhood Halloween-costume contest.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 79%
Watch "Scream" on HBO Max (subscription required)
Rent "Scream" on Amazon Prime Video, $3.99
9. "Halloweentown"
This family-friendly, seasonal favorite premiered on the Disney Channel in 1998. "Halloweentown" stars Debbie Reynolds as the spell-casting grandmother of a girl (played by Kimberly J. Brown) who learns that she, too, is a witch.
"Sharp performances, entertaining writing, and a gorgeous sense of whimsy…," Cinema Crazed's Felix Vasquez Jr. praised.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 80%
Watch "Halloweentown" on Disney+ (subscription required)
Rent "Halloweentown" on Amazon Prime Video, $3.99
8. "The Exorcist" (1973)
This Oscar-winning bone-chiller about a possessed girl (played by Linda Blair) went the 1973 equivalent of viral, inspiring around-the-block lines at movie theaters. But does "The Exorcist" hold up for Halloween viewers of the 21st century? According to Fico Cangiano of the CineXpress podcast, it does.
"Scary then, scary still," judged the critic. "Without a doubt one of the most frightening films ever made."
Rotten Tomatoes score: 83%
Watch "The Exorcist" on Shudder (subscription required)
Rent "The Exorcist" on Amazon Prime Video, $2.99
7. "The Blair Witch Project"
Shot for $35,000, "The Blair Witch Project" doesn't boast big stars or bloody set pieces. But the film has something better: a killer concept. The 1999 sensation about a trio of ghost-hunting filmmakers basically invented the found-footage movie.
"The actors never put a foot wrong; the video diary form allows no artifice, so that as terror mounts, the dread is infectious," Time Out's Tom Charity wrote.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 86%; 163 reviews
Watch "The Blair Witch Project" on Epix (subscription required)
Rent "The Blair Witch Project" on Amazon Prime Video, $3.99
6. "It" (2017)
Bill Skarsgård stars as Pennywise, the ultimate scary clown (and Halloween costume favorite) in this big-screen take on the Stephen King novel of the same name.
"You'll scream bloody murder!" Rolling Stone's Peter Travers wrote of "It."
Rotten Tomatoes score: 86%; 386 reviews
Watch "It" (2017) on HBO Max (subscription required)
Rent "It" (2017) on Amazon Prime Video, $3.99
5. "The Witches" (1990)
In the original, big-screen version of the same-titled Road Dahl children's novel, star Anjelica Huston has occasion to disappear under fright makeup. The result is scary, but, as ET Online judged, "The Witches" is "scary [in a] good way." (And that's not unlike Halloween itself.)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 93%
Watch "The Witches" on HBO Max (subscription required)
Rent "The Witches" on Amazon Prime Video, $3.99
4. "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"
Clocking in at only about 25 minutes, there's no briefer work in this countdown. There's also no more Halloween-y entry here than "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."
Produced in 1966, the animated special features Charles M. Schulz's "Peanuts" characters trick-or-treating, bobbing for apples -- and anticipating the arrival of the Great Pumpkin.
"No matter how often we see it, we'll still be happy to wait in the pumpkin patch with Linus," Matt Roush wrote for TV Guide.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 95%; 22 reviews
Watch "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" on Apple TV+ (subscription required)
3. "The Nightmare Before Christmas"
This Christmas-y Halloween (or Halloween-y Christmas) tale is told via song and stop-motion animation.
Wrote ReelViews' James Berardinelli in praise of director Tim Burton's 1993 film, "'The Nightmare Before Christmas' has something to offer just about everyone."
Rotten Tomatoes score: 95%; 97 reviews
Watch "The Nightmare Before Christmas" on Disney+ (subscription required)
Rent "The Nightmare Before Christmas" on Disney+ (subscription required), $3.99
2. "Halloween" (1978)
"Halloween" isn't just on this list because it's called "Halloween." The 1978 film from John Carpenter pioneered the teen-slasher film, made a movie star of Jamie Lee Curtis, introduced audiences to iconic villain Michael Myers -- and, per Vox's Aja Romano, is "[s]till creepy as hell."
Rotten Tomatoes score: 96%; 73 reviews
Watch "Halloween" (1978) on Shudder (subscription required)
Rent "Halloween" (1978) on Amazon Prime Video, $3.99
1. "What We Do in the Shadows" (2014)
The No. 1 Halloween film on our list is a comedy -- an occasionally bloody comedy. "What We Do in the Shadows" stars Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement as vampire roommates whose workaday monster lives in the capital of New Zealand are documented by a film crew. Waititi, the Oscar-winning moviemaker of "Jojo Rabbit," and Clement, formerly of the musical-comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, wrote and directed -- and won near-universal acclaim from critics.
"If 'Twilight' made you queasy and 'Dark Shadows' felt like a missed opportunity," USA Today's Claudia Puig wrote, "this pitch-perfect genre spoof is worth relishing."
"What We Do in the Shadows" launched the same-titled TV series, which is available to stream on Hulu.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 96%; 187 reviews
Watch "What We Do in the Shadows" (2014) on Kanopy (free, registration required)
Rent "What We Do in the Shadows" (2014) on Amazon Prime Video, $3.99
