The best horror movies of the year, ranked by scariness

It’s been a banner year for horror movies. It was filled with good movies. But, 2022 also saw some of the top IPs around the globe contract. This year, there were no Star Wars or Marvel films to take the top spot at the box office. Horror, however, proved its reliability once more.

You can break out of your budget and get smaller hits like Smile And Barbarian became genuine word of mouth sensations, smashing ticket sale expectations and reminding movie goers there are some scares worth experiencing in a theater — if you’re able to. You can even have a microbudget fun-filled splatter-house adventure Terrifier 2It was able to make a huge profit.

Horror movies were not only successful at the box office this year. Some of the best directors in the world, including Jordan Peele, Luca Guadagnino, and David Cronenberg, branched out from the kind of horror they’ve worked on in the past and fused it with new genres, giving us blockbusters about aliens, love stories about cannibals, and a whole new kind of crime.

And, as it’s been for the past several years, theaters weren’t the only place to find great horror this year. Paramount Plus, Netflix and HBO Max all joined the horror scene to different degrees. Shudder, however, was 2022’s true star.

Shudder, the streaming platform with original content that is pound for pound best, once more flew high. They released great movies and exciting stories like The Wounded Fawn, Resurrection, Hellbender, Saloum, Mary’s Last Thing, Deadstream, Dark glasses, Sissy, Flux GourmetThe truly amazing stop-motion wonder Mad God. It was one year that you couldn’t limit your horror to only Shudder originals, but still it was one the greatest years of recent horror.

To celebrate the greatness in horror movies from theaters to streaming and everywhere else, we’ve put together a list of the best horror movies of 2022. Because everyone deserves the exact fright they want, we’ve ordered them based on scariness. Scariness isn’t an easy thing to define, so we’ve divided the topic up into two categories: Terror, which could be anything from creepiness to something genuinely frightful, and Gore, which is just about how bloody a movie ends up getting. We assign each category a rating of 5 and then add these numbers together to get a scientific scariness score.

As with any list or year, movies can fall outside of the genre guidelines. This kept great films like Saloum Or PreyThis list also includes, both of which felt more horror than action, and. But with the caveats in mind, here are 2022’s best horror movies, ranked by just how scary we think they really are:

Hellbender

Photo: Christine Ramage/Shudder

Run time: 1h 26m
Director: John Adams. Zelda Adams. Toby Poser
CastZelda Adams (Toby Poser), Lulu Adams

This is a sweet, but a bit sickly coming-of age movie about a young girl who lives in the woods and learns that her mother comes from a long lineage of witches. Hellbender isn’t terribly scary or gory, but it’s a ton of fun and looks excellent, with small splatters of blood that feel more like an addition to the color palette than something gross. — Austen Goslin

• Terror: 1
• Gore: 1
• Scariness total score 2

HellbenderShudder is able to stream the video.

Menu

Photo: Eric Zachanowich/Searchlight Pictures

Run time: 1h 27m
Director: Mark Mylod
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult

All of violence, mayhem and gore are part of the “Real Life” menu. MenuThis list isn’t terribly graphic. So while it’s possible (and encouraged) to be at least mildly disturbed by the increasing horror at this restaurant, it’s relatively easy to sit back and enjoy the feast of laughs and skewering of fine dining. —Zosha Millman

• Terror: 1
• Gore: 2
• Scariness total score 3

MenuOn Jan. 3, the stream will become available on HBO Max.

Nope

Universal Pictures

Run time: 2h 10m
Director: Jordan Peele
Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun

Nope The story follows the adventures of two brothers (played by Daniel Kaluuya & Keke Palmer), as they attempt to prove that there is a real UFO. This is Jordan Peele’s least scary movie so far, but it’s also arguably his most entertaining, which is pretty high praise for the director of You must get out And Us. — AG

• Terror: 2
• Gore: 2
• Scariness total score 4

NopePeacock allows you to watch it live online.

Crimes of the Future

Photo: Nikos Nikolopoulos/NEON

Run time: 1h 47,
Director: David Cronenberg
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux, Kristen Stewart

Surgery has become the new form of sex. Crimes of the Future isn’t very scary, it revels in the vivid depictions of its surgery scenes, which ups the goriness factor significantly. It’s a great sci-fi movie with efficient worldbuilding and excellent production design from the master of body horror himself. — Pete Volk

• Terror: 1
• Gore: 4
• Scariness total score 5

Crimes of the FutureHulu streams it.

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair

Image by Utopia

Run time: 1h 26m
Director: Jane Schoenbrun
Cast: Anna Cobb, Michael J Rogers

Writer-director Jane Schoenbrun’s unnerving horror thriller is at once a coming-of-age story with strong trans themes, and also an ode to the stranger corners of the internet. Although the movie lacks horror scares, there’s plenty of tension and unpredictability. However there are scenes from actual internet creators which lean towards body horror with some gore. — PV

• Terror: 2
• Gore: 3
• Scariness total score 5

We’re All Going to the World’s FairYou can stream it on HBO Max.

Orphaned by the First Kill

Photo: Steve Ackerman/Paramount Pictures

Run time: 1h 39m
Director: William Brent Bell
Cast: Isabelle Fuhrman and Julia Stiles. Rossif Sutherland

This is the decade-later prequel. Orphan Isabelle Fuhrman is back in the lead role as a 9 year old. It’s a funny horror film that plays perfectly straight. Though Esther certainly takes out her fair share of people in this movie, it isn’t particularly gory and has a nice balance of fun and scary. — AG

• Terror: 3
• Gore: 2
• Scariness total score 5

Orphanage First KillParamount Plus allows you to watch it live.

The Fireplace, also known as Adult Swim Yule Log

Image by Adult Swim

Run time: 1h 31m
Director: Casper Kelly
Cast: Megan Hayes, Tordy Clark, Brendan Patrick Connor

Too many cooks director Casper Kelly did it again — it being “hiding a horrific work of surrealism behind mundane late-night Adult Swim filler content.” But with Adult Swim Yule LogThe aka Fireplace, he’s out done himself. A locked-off shot from a Yule Log turns into an exhilarating horror film. The filmmaker is thrown in with Sam Raimi, David Lynch, and other weirdo dream logic. Justin Miles (and Andrea Laing) star as Justin Miles in the secret feature film. The couple is at crossroads hoping for romance. An unruly group of stoners arrives at the Georgia cabin overbooked on the same night and immediately destroys the mood. The people are hurt by the maniacal hillbillies. That’s the tip of the iceberg, as alternate dimensions, extraterrestrials, and ghosts of Georgia’s racist past all find their way into Kelly’s puzzle box. The fans of Too Many Cooks and the director’s Cheddar Goblin work on MandyThe clash between cartoon nightmares and brutal realism you see in the movie will be immediately apparent to everyone. Fireplace. For everyone else… uh, get on board! — Matt Patches

• Terror: 2
• Gore: 4
• Scariness total score 6

Yule Log (also known asThe Fireplace) You can stream it on HBO Max.

The Wounded Fawn

Photograph by Peter Mamontoff/Shudder

Run time: 1h 31m
Director: Travis Stevens
Cast: Sarah Lind, Josh Ruben

This is one of the strongest under-the radar horror entries. The Wounded FawnThis movie is about a serial killer, who takes his victim to a cabin deep in the woods. Already the serial killer aspect of this movie increases the terror (and goriness), and the back half of the film is one of most delightful (complimentary). Expect some creepy iconography and brutal kills. — PV

• Terror: 3
• Gore: 3
• Scariness total score 6

The Wounded FawnShudder is able to stream the video.

Bones and all

Photo by Yannis Drakoulidis/MGM

Run time: 2h 11m
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Taylor Russell, Mark Rylance

A road trip romance may not seem like the obvious choice for a top three slot on a horror movie ranking, but when it’s a Luca Guadagnino cannibal love story with this much gore, and a Mark Rylance performance this disturbing, the spot starts explain itself. The blood, guts and gore aside, Bones and all’s central love story between characters played by Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell is so good and well grounded that it makes Bones, AllThis movie is both one of my favorite movies and one of my favourites. — AG

• Terror: 2
• Gore: 5
• Scariness total score 7

Bones and allYou can rent it from YouTube and Apple TV.

Resurrection

Image: IFC Films

Run time: 1h 43m
Director: Andrew Semans
Cast: Rebecca Hall, Tim Roth, Grace Kaufman

ResurrectionThis movie is very low in gore, considering it’s so high on our list. It instead focuses on the scare element, which is heightened by a constant sense of tension and unease throughout this thriller. Rebecca Hall’s performance is more than enough to sell the deep, persistent mounting dread of the movie, but with Tim Roth doing his best unhinged menace, Resurrection really takes it to the next level — and that’s all before the grim (and bloody) final act. — ZM

• Terror: 5
• Gore: 3
• Scariness total score 8

ResurrectionShudder is able to stream the video.

Barbarian

Image Credit: 20th Century Studios

Run time: 1h 42m
Director: Zach Cregger
Cast: Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård, Justlin Long

BarbarianThe film is a must-see for all the freaks. This horror movie may be the most divisive of the 2022 year, due to some bizarre shifts in the tone and the story. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but for those who jibe with it, Barbarian’s wild thrills — which are best left unspoiled, if at all possible — are well worth maxing out the scariness scale here. For those who don’t (or would like to be warned) there’s a couple brutal on-screen deaths that rank high for gore, which are mostly telegraphed. It doesn’t matter what, it is worth watching. — ZM

• Terror: 5
• Gore: 4
• Score: 9 for total scariness

Barbarian You can stream it on HBO Max.