This article is updated frequently as titles leave and enter Max. *New additions are indicated with an asterisk.
Want a good scare tonight? Check out the haunted-and-stalked section of Max (the streaming service formerly known as HBO Max), which features a dense catalogue of genre films from all eras. From legit classics in the Criterion section through the hits of the ’80s and ’90s to today’s theatrical blockbusters, Max knows a thing or two about horror. Its selection is so rich that we will be rotating out entries in this horror guide regularly, so please check back often … if you dare.
Carnival of Souls
Year: 1962
Runtime: 1h 18m
Director: Herk Harvey
One of the best horror movies ever made, Herk Harvey’s film is an early cult classic, made for almost no money and became an influential masterpiece. Candace Hilligoss plays a woman who starts having terrifying visions after surviving a car accident. These visions lead her to an abandoned carnival. You can see this film’s DNA in hundreds of horror movies to follow, but it’s still wonderfully creepy when judged on its own terms.
Carrie
Year: 1976
Runtime: 1h 39m
Director: Brian De Palma
Long before Stephen King was an entire industry, he was the guy who wrote Carrie, a 1974 novel about a bullied teen girl who unleashes hell on her classmates. Every once in a while, there’s a perfect combination of source material and creatives, and that’s what happened when King, De Palma, and Sissy Spacek combined forces here. Horror movie history would be made. Note: The underrated Chloe Grace Moretz remake is also on Max.
The Conjuring
Year: 2013
Runtime: 1h 52m
Director: James Wan
One of the biggest horror films of the 2010s introduced audiences to Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), real-life investigators of paranormal occurrences, and launched an entire industry of horror movies. The first is still the best, anchored by Lili Taylor’s great performance as a woman whose ordinary life is turned upside down by a ghost in her farmhouse in the early ’70s. Note: The Conjuring 3 and a bunch of spinoffs are also on Max. Marathon time!
Evil Dead Rise
Year: 2023
Runtime: 1h 37m
Director: Lee Cronin
A hit in theaters last April, Warner Brothers has already shuffled its horror smash over to Max, free for subscribers. Rebooting the Evil Dead series for the second time (after the successful 2013 iteration), this one moves the action to an L.A. apartment building where a single mother (the phenomenal Alyssa Sutherland) gets taken over by the same evil force that once terrorized poor Ash. Twisted and clever, this gruesome horror flick was so successful that it feels like a sixth film in the series won’t take a decade to rise from the dead.
From Dusk Till Dawn
Year: 1996
Runtime: 1h 48m
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Remember when George Clooney was a legitimate action star? There was a brief window there, and his best film with a gun in his hands is probably this Robert Rodriguez cult classic, written by Clooney’s co-star Quentin Tarantino. What starts as a straightforward crime flick becomes something else altogether when Clooney and Tarantino get to a strip club that has a very dark and supernatural secret.
Funny Games
Year: 1997
Runtime: 1h 50m
Director: Michel Haneke
Michael Haneke is one of the most daring filmmakers alive, willing to shock viewers to make a point. Perhaps his most divisive film remains this 1997 shocker about a family who are essentially held hostage in their vacation home in Austria. Over the course of the day, the criminals basically torture this family, and through fourth-wall breaks, Haneke interrogates why people would even want to watch something like this, illuminating what art can reveal about the dark side of humanity.
Hereditary
Year: 2018
Runtime: 2h 7m
Director: Ari Aster
Toni Collette gives a fearless performance in Ari Aster’s debut feature, a movie that traumatizes new viewers every day. The Oscar nominee plays a woman whose life is turned upside down after the death of her mother, sending everyone into a terrifying tailspin. What starts as a family drama becomes a waking nightmare in Aster’s unforgettable vision.
It Comes at Night
Year: 2017
Runtime: 1h 32m
Director: Trey Edward Shults
Trey Edward Shults is quickly becoming one of the most important directors of his generation with his personal debut Krisha and one of the more divisive films of the last few years, Waves. In between is this daring film that A24 kind of sold too much as a horror film, turning off viewers expecting something more traditional. It’s a mood piece about trust and survival starring Joel Edgerton, Christopher Abbott, Carmen Ejogo, Riley Keough, and a guy who still feels like he’s just on the verge of stardom, Kelvin Harrison Jr.
The Lodge
Year: 2020
Runtime: 1h 49m
Director: Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz
Riley Keough rules as a woman who is about to become stepmother to two suspicious children, played by Jaeden Martell and Lia McHugh. The family goes on a trip to a remote lodge and get stranded there after dad leaves on business. The kids start to play with mom’s mind, and the results are unbelievably terrifying.
The Menu
Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 47m
Director: Mark Mylod
A regular director on Succession, Mylod made his directorial debut with this fall 2022 black comedy–horror film about a chef’s tasting to remember. Ralph Fiennes bites into a juicy role as a celebrity chef who has decided that the meal he’s cooking for his wealthy guests might be their last. Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, Hong Chau, and Janet McTeer co-star in a film that has been one of the more consistent hits on Max since it dropped there a year ago.
Midsommar
Year: 2019
Amazon Prime has lost its exclusive access to Ari Aster and A24’s excellent Midsommar, which means it’s now available on other streaming services. Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor play a couple who go to Sweden for a festival that goes horribly awry. A comedy of cultures gives way to something much darker when the true purpose of the festival is revealed in a series of final scenes you’ll never forget.
Night of the Living Dead
Year: 1968
Runtime: 1h 37m
Director: George A. Romero
The movie that changed it all. It’s really hard to overstate the impact that George A. Romero’s classic black-and-white masterpiece had on not just the zombie genre but DIY microbudget horror filmmaking in general. So many people have been chasing that game-changing impact of Night of the Living Dead in the half-century since it came out, but it’s the original that’s passed the test of time.
Orphan
Year: 2009
Runtime: 2h 3m
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard play a grieving couple who adopt a child after losing one of their own. As the tagline says, “There’s something wrong with Esther.” More than just a traditional “bad seed” movie, this is a clever thriller with great performances all around. It’s darkly humorous, too, constantly taking risks that other filmmakers would have avoided. It has held up remarkably well.
Paranormal Activity
Year: 2009
Runtime: 1h 27m
Director: Oren Peli
One of the most profitable films of all time, this found-footage blockbuster was notoriously made for only $15K (before postproduction) and ended up grossing almost $200 million worldwide, launching a franchise that’s still going over 15 years later. A formative film in the found-footage genre, it stars Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat as a young couple who set up cameras in their house to document the supernatural presence they feel. What they find changed indie-horror-movie history. Note: Several sequels are also on Max.
Pet Sematary
Year: 1989
Runtime: 1h 43m
Director: Mary Lambert
Forget that junky 2019 remake (or the even junkier 2023 prequel) and stick with the first adaptation of the Stephen King novel from the 1980s about a cemetery that brings pets back to life. Based on the 1983 novel of the same name, this is a timeless tale of not messing with the power of life and death, in which a family makes an impossible decision after a tragedy and learns their lesson the very hard way.
Piranha
Year: 2010
Runtime: 1h 28m
Director: Alexandre Aja
Sadly, it’s not 3-D on Max, but you can use your imagination. Alexandre Aja helmed his loose remake of the B-movie classic about a school of piranha that causes bloody chaos at a waterside resort. Elisabeth Shue and Adam Scott totally understand that this movie needs to be as over-the-top as possible, and they play along wonderfully with the tone of this entertaining remake. (Note: Piranha 3DD is also streaming on Max.)
Scream
Year: 1996
Runtime: 1h 51m
Director: Wes Craven
The Ghostface killer came back in January 2022 with the release of Scream, the fifth film in this franchise and the first since the death of Wes Craven, and the fun continued with another sequel in 2023 (before the wheels came off in the pre-production of a seventh film). Even the makers of the new movies would suggest that fans go back and watch the original films to see how Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) got here. All four of the Craven films are available now on Max. The first movie is still a flat-out genre masterpiece.
The Shining
Year: 1980
Runtime: 2h 23m
Director: Stanley Kubrick
The most popular adaptation of a Stephen King novel is also the one the writer notoriously hated. Radically changing key elements, including the ending, Stanley Kubrick made the movie his own and made movie history. One of the most iconic horror films ever made, this one has lost none of its power in the four-decades-plus since it was released. It’s still a terrifying study in claustrophobic horror with one of Jack Nicholson’s most unforgettable performances.
The Silence of the Lambs
Year: 1991
Runtime: 1h 58m
Director: Jonathan Demme
Movies don’t get much better than Jonathan Demme’s adaptation of Thomas Harris’s chilling thriller about Clarice Starling and Dr. Hannibal Lecter. With career-defining performances from Jodie Foster and Sir Anthony Hopkins, this movie still absolutely slays a quarter-century after it was released. It’s fascinating to see its DNA in so many modern genre films. Nothing about it is dated, which can’t be said about many films that are three decades old.
*The Strangers
Year: 2008
Runtime: 1h 26m
Director: Bryan Bertino
Loosely based on a true story, The Strangers is one of the best home invasion flicks of the modern era. It’s the terrifyingly relatable story of a couple, played by Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman, who are attacked in their vacation home in the middle of the night. Made for almost nothing, this tense film was a huge smash, tapping into something we all fear could happen when we hear a strange sound outside in the middle of the night.
Under the Skin
Year: 2014
Runtime: 1h 49m
Director: Jonathan Glazer
A trippy sci-fi masterpiece, this flick stars Scarlett Johansson as an alien being exploring the world around her and, well, doing some terrifying things to the men she comes in contact with — though that description only scratches the surface of why this is a special movie, a terrifying tone piece that has more in common with Twin Peaks than with Species. It’s unforgettable and brilliant, one of the best films of the ’10s.
The Visit
Year: 2015
Runtime: 1h 34m
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
It feels like everyone is back to digging Shyamalan’s undeniably original voice, but people forget that he desperately needed a comeback after the damage of films like The Last Airbender and After Earth in the early 2010s. That came in the form of this horror found footage film about a couple of kids who go to visit their truly creepy grandparents. Clever, funny, and twisted, The Visit really launched its creator back to the forefront of the horror genre.
The Witch
Year: 2016
Runtime: 1h 32m
Director: Robert Eggers
The directorial debut of the future director of The Lighthouse and The Northman was an instant hit for A24 and a film that felt like nothing else on the market. Anya Taylor-Joy made her film debut in this tale set in the 1630s as a Puritan family faces an evil entity in the woods near their home. With stunning sound design and unforgettable visuals, it’s one of the best horror movies of its era.
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