Prod between the lines at this year’s horror list and a surprising truth emerges: a lot of the best horror films of 2025 were studio releases. Horror has long been the playground for independent cinema, where the genre itself serves as the headliner. However, Hollywood has taken some real chances on horror over the past few years. Suddenly, every studio seems to be riding the lightning with stories of body horror and boogeymen, and that has made for a pretty fun year at the cinema for horror lovers.
READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films of 2026
And while there are a few omissions that may surprise – Danny Boyle’s “28 Years Later” and Guillermo Del Toro’s “Frankenstein” have their defenders, though not enough to make the cut here – our final list is indicative of the full breadth of the genre. Sequels? Period pieces? Adaptations? Blockbusters? They’re all here, with both style and body counts to spare.
Follow along for all our Best Of The Year and Most Anticipated coverage here.
“Black Phone 2”
It’s rare to find a sequel that feels smaller in scope than its predecessor, but that’s just what Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill have accomplished with “Black Phone 2.” Instead of leaning more into the pseudo-superhero abilities on display—positioning the “Black Phone” series as the big screen counterpart to, say, “Stranger Things”—Derrickson and Cargill have made a chamber piece about two siblings with death on their minds (and in their dreams). Once again, Madeleine McGraw shines, taking center stage as the film’s love letter to Nancy Thompson. But as stripped down as it may be, “Black Phone 2” still manages to be more stylish than the original, leading Simon Thompson to describe it as “a killer good time” in his review. – Matthew Monagle
“Companion”
Sophie Thatcher is on one hell of a hot streak. After starring in one of 2024’s best horror films in “Heretic,” Thatcher returned this year in “Companion,” a techno-horror fable about the technologies we exploit (and the rich people who love them). Drew Hancock’s debut feature could have skated across the surface of AI skepticism with little new to offer, but instead, his script leans into Jack Quaid’s charisma to create a much darker story about power, consent, and sexual abuse. The result is a rare horror-comedy that is stronger and gets the most out of balancing two disparate tones. Oh, and let’s not overlook Lukas Gage, who also has a special kind of horror career brewing between this and last year’s “Smile 2.” – MM
“Dangerous Animals”
It would be tempting to call Sean Byrne one of the best horror filmmakers of his generation if it weren’t for how infrequently he releases the damn things. Bryne makes bangers –“The Loved Ones” and “The Devil’s Candy” were instant classics among horror fans—but “Dangerous Animals” is only his third film since 2009. Then again, films like this are worth the wait. Byrne’s latest, an adaptation of Nick Lepard’s script about a boat-based serial killer, provides the perfect star vehicle for Jai Courtney, who is finally finding his niche in the industry as the Ted Levine of the 2020s. Both action-packed and character-driven, “Dangerous Animals” is a reminder that good creature features never really fall out of style. – MM
“The Damned”
Thordur Palsson’s horror film slipped into theaters on January 3, causing it to be overlooked by many horror fans who were still more interested in debriefing 2024’s releases. But if you didn’t get a chance to see it in theaters, “The Damned” is very much worth seeking out on streaming. Set in an arctic fishing village in the 19th Century, Palsson’s film follows a small group of fisherfolk whose meager existence is interrupted when a boat shipwrecks off their island. This forces them to make a tough decision about who (if anyone) to save at the risk of exhausting their meager offseason supplies. “The Damned” soon reveals its monster to be a draugr, an undead revenant from Nordic mythology, and the resulting carnage is as moody a horror film as you could hope to see. – MM
