Trick or Treat is a threat. Costume party? Good Luck. Keeping the fright on this year’s scariest night may mean choosing from decades of Hollywood’s most terrifying hits.
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With so much of the world stuck at home, Hollywood is on hand to pile on the fright. Since 1922’s Nosferatu, horror films have been proven both popular and profitable, a genre that is cheap to make and appeals to the masses. Take Paranormal Activity (2007) and The Blair Witch Project (1999), both of which cost less than $500,000 to film but sold more than $190 million and $240 million worth of tickets respectively. Even better, from a business perspective, a great scary flick creates recurring revenue streams from a string of equally profitable sequels. To date there have been five Paranormal Activity sequels with a sixth in the works. Children of the Corn, a 1984 blockbuster from horror master Stephen King, has spawned 10 sequels.
Few in the genre can claim storytelling mastery of King. Not many filmmakers can live up to Hitchcock’s string of suspenseful thrillers. But there is no shortage of nightmares out there thanks to creators like Wes Craven and John Carpenter, and the abundance of programming available on streaming services like Shudder and Amazon Prime that have embraced the genre this month.
Some iconic titles—the original Frankenstein and King’s The Shining among them—and legends-to-be like A Quiet Place’s John Krasinski and Get Out’s Jordan Peele—didn’t have the numbers to make it. But all of them offer plenty of scenes to embrace your nightmares.
All figures are for domestic and international box office and are inflation adjusted. What qualified as a “scary” movie was distilled from a lively discussion among the Forbes editorial team.
The Top-Grossing Scary Movies
Domestic and international box office. All figures inflation adjusted.
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The Top-Grossing Scary Franchises
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Classic Favorites
Cultural touchstones more than 45 years old.
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Best Bargains
Horror films are relatively cheap—and can pay off big time.
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Monster Men
The highest-grossing directors and their top three blockbusters. For cross-genre filmmakers, only box office from horror films were tallied.
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