The Top 10 Best Horror Movies Of The 70s, 80s And 90s

It’s Halloween season and the weekend is fast approaching, which means it’s time to finalize any horror movie viewing plans. This year’s first film list celebrates in scary nostalgic style, with a collection of the top 10 best horror movies from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s.

As usual, remember this is a list of my own selections for the best films of each era, meaning it reflects my own tastes, opinions, and choices. If you don’t agree, that’s okay! You are sure to find other lists that reflect your own opinions somewhere else, or at least something closer. On the other hand, maybe consider the value of checking out some of the films on my list that you might otherwise overlook or which you haven’t seen in a while and might want to reevaluate.

This is the first of two articles that look back at past decades to collect a best-of set of recommendations. I’ll be back later this week with an article offering you the top 10 best films of the 2000s, the 2010s, and the past three years of the 2020s, so be sure to check back soon for that.

My criteria is the same as usual: this is a selection of films that are sometimes straightforward horror, other times a genre mashup (such as horror and sci-fi), maybe even thriller-adjacent but which I feel also have at least one foot in the horror realm, and generally movies that to me can reside on the list alongside the other selections.

I also try to be mindful of not putting too many of the same sort of film on a given decade’s list, and including subgenres that often get overlooked (like horror-comedy). And of course, while I also think that pound for pound these films are the best of their eras, I also rely on personal favoritism when I have to make a painful choice to exclude one or another film from the list. But that’s the nature of making these lists, and anyone who thinks “bias” is somehow a bad thing, or who believes their own preferences and opinions somehow lack bias, needs to do a lot more reading and understanding of how art and opinion and bias work.

Lastly, in case it’s not clear, I’m selecting 10 films from each decade, so it’s like three great top-10 horror lists in one place! You’re welcome, and I hope you find plenty to enjoy here and on my next upcoming lists as well, dear readers.

So, without further ado, here are the top 10 best horror movies from the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s!

The 1970s were a decade of truly diverse top horror offerings. Half of these films were based on or inspired by novels, two others were remakes, leaving only three entirely original productions. But all of them are not only among the greatest examples of horror cinema, but are also some of the best films of any genre ever made.

This list includes my personal favorite film of all time, and two films that I rank at the very top of my all-time best horror movie list. Here they are, in no particular order…

• JAWS
• THE EXORCIST
• HALLOWEEN
• ALIEN
• CARRIE
• NOSFERATU
• INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS
• YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN
• THE OMEN
• THE WICKER MAN

Some honorable mentions that missed the list by a hair’s width include The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead, The Crazies, and Dracula (an oft-maligned but exceptional gothic-sensuality version of the classic vampire legend).

The 1980s often get a bad rep for film offerings, despite simultaneous nostalgia for the decade’s pop culture offerings (oddly enough, a nostalgia that seems as strong among folks who didn’t grow up in that decade as among those who did, but that’s not really a new phenomena I suppose). However, I don’t agree at all, especially when it comes to certain genres like horror and sci-fi.

This was a tough decade to narrow down to just ten picks, because of the nice variety and quantity of horror cinema to be found. Here are my choices, in no particular order…

• THE THING
• ALIENS
• THE FLY
• POLTERGEIST
• THE HOWLING
• THE SHINING
• NEAR DARK
• CUJO
• SCANNERS
• ANGEL HEART

Some honorable mentions include An American Werewolf in London, Friday the 13th, In the Company of Wolves, Pet Sematary, Psycho II, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, and A Nightmare on Elm Street.

The 1990s were an interesting year for horror because of the proliferation of thrillers that were horror-adjacent yet which I personally feel lean more toward crime-thriller territory than the horror I want to include on this list. For example, The Silence of the Lambs and Seven were so popular they spawned a plethora of copycat and similar films that I think fit more into thriller territory than horror — if not, then it becomes harder to define what constitutes a thriller in the first place.

Still, I wouldn’t argue with anyone whose own categorization places those films under horror, and at times if I’m making a list specifically of “serial killer horror” I might make more allowance for thrillers to appear on such a list (as I indeed have in the past). These are my picks, in no particular order…

• BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA
• THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT
• RINGU
• BELOVED
• THE SIXTH SENSE
• MISERY
• INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE
• CANDYMAN
• SLEEPY HOLLOW
• SCREAM

Honorable mentions for this decade include In the Mouth of Madness, Tremors, and Halloween H20: 20 Years Later.

And there you have it, the top 10 best horror movies of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. I’m sure there are other films I left out worthy of consideration and watching, but these are the ones that stand out as all-time classics of the genre and most worthy of a Halloween revisit.

I’ll be back in the next few days with some more Halloween horror movie lists, including my picks for the top 10 best horror movies of the 2000s, the 2010s, and the last few years of the 2020s, so stay tuned and have a Happy Halloween!