Top ten horror films of 2025

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (2025) is a visually stunning and emotionally resonant reimagining of Mary Shelley’s classic tale. Del Toro blends his signature gothic aesthetic with a deeply humanist approach, crafting a world that is as grotesque as it is beautiful. The film’s monster, brought to life with a combination of practical effects and subtle CGI, is both terrifying and sympathetic, embodying the anguish of isolation and the longing for acceptance. The narrative delves beyond the familiar horror tropes, exploring themes of creation, responsibility, and the blurred line between humanity and monstrosity. Performances are compelling across the board, particularly from the leads, whose chemistry adds depth to the philosophical underpinnings of the story. The cinematography and production design immerse viewers in a richly textured, hauntingly atmospheric setting, while Alexandre Desplat’s score underscores the tragic grandeur of the tale. Frankenstein succeeds not only as a horror film but as a profound meditation on empathy, identity, and the consequences of playing god, cementing del Toro’s status as a master of modern gothic cinema.

Osgood Perkins, the filmmaker behind The Blackcoat’s Daughter and Longlegs, takes a sharp left turn with his latest adaptation of Stephen King’s short story, The Monkey. Where one might expect a grim and oppressive descent into supernatural dread, Perkins delivers something stranger: a grisly, absurdist horror-comedy that mixes slapstick energy with unnerving gore.

At its center is Theo James, pulling double duty as estranged twin brothers haunted since childhood by a demonic toy monkey whose clashing cymbals seem to signal death. James’ performances give the film an anchor—one brother weary and bitter, the other fragile and guilt-ridden. Surrounding him is a strong cast including Tatiana Maslany, Elijah Wood, and Adam Scott, all leaning into the film’s tonal weirdness with varying degrees of success.

What makes The Monkey memorable is its willingness to lean into outrageousness. Perkins stages death scenes like punchlines—grisly Rube Goldberg spectacles that leave the audience unsure whether to laugh, wince, or both. The editing is tight (at under 100 minutes, it never drags), and the film often looks stunning, shot with the icy precision that has become Perkins’ trademark.

But this very precision creates a divide. The film’s cool, calculated visual style often feels at odds with the anarchic humor, producing a tonal clash that some will find exhilarating and others jarring. Characters are painted in broad strokes, and beyond the monkey’s cruel game of fate, there isn’t much thematic depth. For viewers seeking a more layered King adaptation, this may feel thin.

Still, there’s no denying The Monkey is entertaining in its audacity. It’s gory, funny, and unapologetically strange—a film that knows exactly what it is and doesn’t care if you’re on board or not. Like the cursed toy at its heart, it clangs its symbols loudly, daring you to laugh even as it ushers in another grotesque demise.

A polarizing but bold horror-comedy—part midnight-movie romp, part stylish nightmare. Not for everyone, but for those with a taste for the gleefully grotesque, The Monkey will hit all the right notes.

After the breakout success of Barbarian, director Zach Cregger returns with Weapons, a bold and unsettling horror epic that confirms his status as one of the most inventive voices in the genre. Instead of a straightforward narrative, Cregger structures the film as a series of interwoven character perspectives, all orbiting around the mysterious disappearance of a classroom of children at exactly 2:17 a.m. The result is part mystery, part social satire, and part folklore-tinged nightmare.

The cast is superb. Julia Garner lends quiet strength as a teacher grappling with guilt, Josh Brolin delivers raw intensity as a grieving father, and Amy Madigan dominates every scene as Gladys, a chilling antagonist whose dark rituals give the film its folkloric edge. Supporting turns from Alden Ehrenreich and Benedict Wong add texture to the web of paranoia and suspicion.

Visually, Weapons is striking. Cinematographer Larkin Seiple crafts dimly lit, atmospheric frames that heighten both dread and intimacy. The pacing is deliberate—sometimes almost meditative—but every scene carries a sense of creeping inevitability, rewarding patient viewers with moments of shocking clarity.

While some may find its fractured structure and slow burn frustrating, Weapons thrives on ambiguity and atmosphere. It’s less about jump scares than the unnerving ways violence, grief, and superstition intersect. By the final act, Cregger ties the threads into a conclusion that feels both inevitable and deeply unsettling.

Disturbing, ambitious, and impeccably acted, Weapons is one of the standout horror films of 2025—a genre experiment that lingers long after the credits roll.

Danny Boyle and Alex Garland reunite nearly three decades after 28 Days Later to deliver a sequel that feels both familiar and daringly new. Set largely on Lindisfarne Island, the film contrasts sweeping pastoral imagery with visceral terror, all heightened by Boyle’s decision to shoot much of it on iPhones. The result is an unsettling blend of natural beauty and raw immediacy.

At its heart is Spike, a 12-year-old boy whose journey into chaos and loss forms the film’s emotional backbone. Alfie Williams gives a remarkable performance—fragile yet resilient—making his arc one of the most affecting in the franchise. Jodie Comer adds gravitas and vulnerability as Isla, while Ralph Fiennes, in a quieter turn as Dr. Kelson, infuses the story with philosophical weight.

The infected have evolved in startling ways, no longer just mindless threats but symbols of cultural isolation and societal fracture. These innovations, paired with a haunting score by Young Fathers, keep the horror fresh while grounding it in allegory.

That said, the film occasionally falters with uneven pacing and tonal shifts, at times prioritizing atmosphere over momentum. The bold finale, designed to tee up a new trilogy, feels abrupt—undercutting the emotional closure built throughout.

Even with its imperfections, 28 Years Later stands as a worthy and thought-provoking revival. It prioritizes emotion, artistry, and social commentary over simple gore, proving the series still has teeth—and plenty left to say.

Steven Soderbergh quietly returns to form in Presence, crafting a ghost story that’s more elegy than scare ride. Entirely seen through the camera’s vantage—representing the ghost—this film reframes the haunted-house genre into a deeply emotional drama. Its strength lies not in shocks, but in lingering, melancholic tension.

The Payne family—led by Lucy Liu’s driven Rebecca, Chris Sullivan’s gentle but distant father, an ambitious son, and a grief-shrouded daughter, Chloe (Callina Liang)—inhabits a sprawling house under the watchful lens of its unseen occupant. Chloe, mourning a lost friend, senses more than the others, cultivating a fragile bond with the presence that feels protective rather than sinister.

Soderbergh’s camera is the film’s emotional core: gliding through halls, pausing in corners, watching with empathy. The subtle, quiet dread it cultivates is often compelling, though the film occasionally drifts, revealing narrative threads that seem underdeveloped. Yet, what it lacks in plot tightness it makes up for in tone and atmosphere.

Performances are understated but effective—Liang’s Chloe is quietly compelling, while Liu and Sullivan bring the sharp edges of familial strain into view. Despite minimalist dialogue, the emotional stakes feel real.

The conclusion delivers a shift that’s both tender and haunting, reframing everything that came before. It’s a twist that isn’t flashy but deeply affecting—one of those moments that lingers long after the credits roll.

Presence isn’t a horror movie in the traditional sense—it’s a poetic study of grief, family, and the unseen ties that bind us, told through the melancholy gaze of someone who’s already gone. It may unsettle you quietly rather than scare you outright—and it’s all the more memorable for it.

David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds is a haunting and divisive exploration of grief, technology, and the strange ways we try to hold onto the dead. Vincent Cassel stars as Karsh Relikh, a tech magnate who invents GraveTech, a system that lets mourners watch their loved ones decompose in real time through digital headstones. For Karsh, it’s a way to remain tethered to his late wife (Diane Kruger), but when the feeds are hacked and disturbing images appear, paranoia and conspiracy spill into his mourning.

As with much of Cronenberg’s work, the surface plot is less important than the atmosphere it creates. The production design is immaculate—bedrooms glow like laboratories, cemeteries are bathed in sterile light—and Howard Shore’s mournful score lingers like a ghost. Cassel delivers a deeply internal performance, his grief held in taut restraint, while Kruger doubles as both wife and her twin sister, blurring the line between memory and reality.

The film is deliberately cold and elliptical. Threads of corporate espionage and surveillance never resolve cleanly, which some viewers will find frustrating. Yet beneath its abstraction lies a deeply personal core, reflecting Cronenberg’s own experience of loss. The Shrouds is less about death than the inability to let go, and the futility of using technology to sanitize grief.

Beautiful, unsettling, and emotionally distant, The Shrouds may alienate audiences who want narrative closure. But for those attuned to Cronenberg’s late-career meditations, it stands as a chilling and poignant work—a requiem etched in glass and steel.

Dangerous Animals is a lean, blood-soaked thriller that gleefully blends shark-movie spectacle with serial-killer horror. Directed by Sean Byrne, the film follows Zephyr, a reckless surfer whose carefree lifestyle takes a terrifying turn when she’s abducted by Tucker, a deranged boat captain with a sinister obsession: sacrificing his victims to the ocean’s predators. What unfolds is a claustrophobic survival story that feels part Jaws, part The Silence of the Lambs, and entirely its own beast.

The film thrives on its two central performances. Hassie Harrison brings grit and vulnerability to Zephyr, making her more than just another final girl, while Jai Courtney chews the scenery as Tucker, balancing charm and menace in a way that makes him both magnetic and monstrous. Their cat-and-mouse dynamic drives the narrative with an uneasy tension that rarely lets up.

Byrne directs with tight control, resisting cheap jump scares in favor of sharp pacing and sudden, brutal bursts of violence. The sharks themselves are used sparingly, which only heightens their impact, turning them into an extension of Tucker’s madness rather than just digital monsters. While the story occasionally leans into familiar genre beats, the execution keeps it engaging, delivering enough surprises and grotesque thrills to satisfy horror fans.

Overall, Dangerous Animals may not reinvent the genre, but it’s a stylish, high-energy survival horror with teeth. It’s grisly, tense, and unapologetically pulpy—perfect fare for anyone craving a fresh spin on both shark films and serial-killer slashers.

Bugonia is an unsettling, darkly comic psychological thriller that lingers long after the final frame, less because of what it shows than because of what it suggests. It is a film about belief—how it forms, how it metastasizes, and how easily it can turn ordinary people into agents of quiet horror. Rather than offering a traditional narrative arc, Bugonia unfolds like a tightening vice, slowly compressing the viewer into the same claustrophobic mental space as its characters.

The story begins with a premise that borders on the absurd, yet the film treats it with unwavering seriousness. This refusal to acknowledge its own strangeness becomes one of Bugonia’s most effective tools. Humor emerges not through punchlines, but through the uncomfortable recognition of how plausible irrational thinking can feel when framed as certainty. The film understands that conspiracy thinking does not begin in madness, but in fear, ego, and the seductive comfort of having secret knowledge.

The performances are central to the film’s success. The leads deliver restrained, deeply committed portrayals that avoid caricature at all costs. Their emotional flatness is not emptiness, but control—an unsettling calm that slowly erodes as obsession takes hold. Small gestures and tonal shifts signal enormous internal changes, making the characters’ psychological descent feel organic and disturbingly believable. No one in the film seeks audience sympathy, and that refusal makes the experience more bracing and honest.

Visually, Bugonia is precise and minimalist. The camera often maintains a detached, observational stance, framing characters in ways that emphasize isolation and rigidity. Clean lines, static compositions, and muted colors create a world that feels sterile and overly ordered, in sharp contrast to the irrational thinking driving the story forward. When the film disrupts this visual discipline, the impact is immediate, underscoring moments where belief overwhelms control.

The film’s pacing is deliberately measured, even repetitive, which will test some viewers’ patience. Scenes often linger longer than expected, conversations circle familiar ground, and progress feels incremental. Yet this repetition is purposeful: it mirrors the looping logic of obsession itself. The viewer is not meant to be entertained in a conventional sense, but immersed in a mindset where certainty replaces curiosity and doubt becomes an enemy.

Where Bugonia will most sharply divide audiences is in its conclusion. The film resists catharsis, closure, or moral hand-holding. Instead, it ends on a note that feels more philosophical than narrative, forcing the audience to confront the implications of what they have witnessed. This ambiguity may frustrate those seeking resolution, but it is entirely consistent with the film’s thematic core.

Ultimately, Bugonia is a cold, intelligent, and deeply unsettling film that prioritizes ideas over comfort. It is not designed to please, but to provoke—to sit in the uneasy space between satire and tragedy. For viewers willing to engage with its slow burn and moral discomfort, Bugonia offers a haunting reflection on paranoia, power, and the dangerous allure of believing you alone see the truth.

Forgive Us All is a haunting exploration of faith, guilt, and redemption, set against a backdrop of intimate family drama and simmering tension. The film follows a fractured family grappling with buried secrets and moral compromises, weaving together themes of spirituality and human frailty with a measured, atmospheric approach. Its pacing is deliberate, allowing emotions to breathe, while the cinematography leans into shadow and silence, creating a sense of unease that lingers throughout.

The performances are the film’s strongest element—each actor brings layered vulnerability and quiet intensity, grounding the more abstract themes in raw human conflict. The script avoids heavy-handedness, instead favoring ambiguity and subtle revelations that leave viewers questioning where forgiveness begins and ends. While its slow-burn style may challenge audiences craving a more conventional dramatic arc, the film rewards patience with moments of piercing emotional resonance.

Ultimately, Forgive Us All is less about providing answers than about immersing viewers in a moral and emotional labyrinth. It’s a stark, contemplative work that resonates long after the credits roll, marking it as one of the more thought-provoking films of the year.

Mark Anthony Green’s Opus is a strikingly confident directorial debut, one that blends style and substance with an assured hand. The film is a layered meditation on ambition, artistry, and the costs of chasing greatness, told with a visual polish that feels both contemporary and timeless. Green crafts his story with precision, drawing audiences into a world where creative drive collides with personal vulnerability, raising questions about what it truly means to leave a legacy.

What makes Opus resonate is its balance of intimacy and spectacle. The narrative unfolds with deliberate pacing, allowing character moments to breathe while maintaining a steady undercurrent of tension. Performances are strong across the board, with the cast delivering work that feels lived-in and authentic, grounding the film’s thematic ambition in human emotion. Green’s direction is bold yet restrained, avoiding excess while leaning into the power of image, silence, and rhythm to carry meaning.

As a debut, Opus signals the arrival of a filmmaker with a clear voice and a sharp eye. It’s a film that is unafraid to confront big questions while staying anchored in personal stakes, leaving audiences with the sense that they’ve witnessed not only the story of its characters but the emergence of a major new talent.