Best of the decade
The Best Horror Movies of the 1980s
Horror movies from the 1980s, ranked by audience score and the weight of the vote behind it.
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Horror films of the 1980s passed through a lot of different hands. Stanley Kubrick, John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, Wes Craven and Sam Raimi all made horror in the decade, and no two of them went at fear the same way. Some kept the horror domestic, in a house where the walls are not quite right. Others carried the fear to a place with no way out, at the edge of the ice or deep inside a machine.
Ranked by audience score, with more weight for films that thousands have rated, so a handful of enthusiasts cannot outrank a wide audience. Feature length only, and a film needs several hundred votes to qualify.
The Shining has Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance, who takes a winter caretaking job at the remote Overlook Hotel and arrives with his wife Wendy and their son Danny. Danny has a psychic gift called shining. Stanley Kubrick directed it, with Shelley Duvall as Wendy and Danny Lloyd as Danny. The station crew in John Carpenter's The Thing includes Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley and T.K. Carter. A sled dog that reaches them carries something that absorbs and copies living things. The pilot R. J. MacReady is the man who has to work out what he is dealing with. Jeff Goldblum plays a scientist at the center of David Cronenberg's The Fly, with Geena Davis and John Getz also in the film. He shows a journalist his telepods, machines that move matter between two pods but are rough on living tissue, and then tries the device on himself.
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1. The Shining (1980)
2h 26m • Drama, Horror
- IMDb 8.4/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 84%
- Our score 4.2/5
Jack Torrance takes a winter caretaker job at the remote Overlook Hotel. He arrives with Wendy, his wife, and Danny, their son, who has a psychic gift called shining.
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2. The Thing (1982)
1h 49m • Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
- IMDb 8.2/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 85%
- Our score 4.2/5
A sled dog chased by a Norwegian helicopter reaches an Antarctic research station. The station's pilot, R. J. MacReady, learns the dog is an alien that absorbs and imitates living things.
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3. The Fly (1986)
1h 36m • Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
- IMDb 7.6/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 94%
- Our score 4.3/5
Scientist Seth Brundle shows journalist Veronica Quaife his telepods, which transmit matter between them but mangle living tissue. He tests the device on himself, unaware a housefly is inside.
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4. Evil Dead II (1987)
1h 24m • Action, Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
- IMDb 7.6/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 88%
- Our score 4.1/5
Ash Williams takes his girlfriend Linda to a remote cabin. A tape of chants from the Book of the Dead wakes a force that seizes Linda and turns on him.
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5. An American Werewolf in London (1981)
1h 37m • Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
- IMDb 7.5/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 89%
- Our score 4.1/5
Two American students, David Kessler and Jack Goodman, are attacked by a creature while hiking the Yorkshire moors. David wakes in a London hospital, where nurse Alex Price cares for him.
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6. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
1h 31m • Horror
- IMDb 7.4/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 95%
- Our score 4.2/5
Nancy Thompson and her friends dream of the same disfigured man in a bladed glove. When teenagers in their town begin dying in their sleep, Nancy searches for a cause.
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7. Santa Sangre (1989)
2h 3m • Drama, Horror
- IMDb 7.4/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 88%
- Our score 4.1/5
Fénix grows up in the Circo del Gringo, where his father Orgo throws knives and his mother Concha leads a Folk Catholic cult. Years later he is held in a psychiatric hospital.
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8. Gremlins (1984)
1h 46m • Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
- IMDb 7.3/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 86%
- Our score 4.0/5
Randall Peltzer buys a small furry mogwai as a Christmas gift for his son Billy, with three rules for its care. Billy names it Gizmo, and spilled water makes more of them.
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9. The Evil Dead (1981)
1h 25m • Fantasy, Horror
- IMDb 7.3/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 86%
- Our score 4.0/5
Five friends rent a remote Tennessee cabin, where they find a Sumerian Book of the Dead and a tape of incantations. Ash Williams and the others have awakened a demonic force.
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10. Poltergeist (1982)
1h 54m • Horror
- IMDb 7.3/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 88%
- Our score 4.0/5
Steve and Diane Freeling's home is in Cuesta Verde, California. Their youngest child, Carol Anne, talks to the static on the television, and a ghostly hand comes out of the screen.
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11. The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
1h 31m • Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi
- IMDb 7.3/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 91%
- Our score 4.1/5
Frank Johnson accidentally releases a toxic gas while showing new employee Freddy Hanscom drums in a Louisville warehouse. The dead rise in the cemetery where Freddy's girlfriend Tina waits.
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12. The Lost Boys (1987)
1h 37m • Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
- IMDb 7.2/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 75%
- Our score 3.7/5
Lucy and her two sons, Michael and Sam, move to Santa Carla to live with her father. Sam hears rumors of vampires, and Michael falls in with David's biker gang.
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13. They Live (1988)
1h 33m • Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
- IMDb 7.2/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 87%
- Our score 4.0/5
A drifter called Nada arrives in Los Angeles seeking work and befriends Frank, a fellow construction hand. Sunglasses he takes from a church box reveal aliens behind human faces.
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14. Videodrome (1983)
1h 27m • Horror, Sci-Fi
- IMDb 7.2/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 83%
- Our score 3.9/5
Max Renn runs CIVIC-TV, a Toronto station built on sensationalist programming. When Harlan, who works its satellite dish, finds a pirate broadcast of torture, Max wants the show.
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15. Angel Heart (1987)
1h 53m • Horror, Mystery, Thriller
- IMDb 7.2/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 82%
- Our score 3.9/5
1955 New York. Private investigator Harry Angel takes a job for Louis Cyphre: find Johnny Favorite, a singer missing since the war. The trail leads into voodoo circles in New Orleans.
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16. Fright Night (1985)
1h 46m • Fantasy, Horror, Thriller
- IMDb 7.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 83%
- Our score 3.9/5
Charley Brewster, a high school student, becomes convinced that his new neighbor Jerry Dandrige is a vampire. His mother and his friends refuse to believe him.
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17. The Dead Zone (1983)
1h 43m • Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
- IMDb 7.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 89%
- Our score 4.0/5
Schoolteacher Johnny Smith turns down girlfriend Sarah's offer to stay the night, crashes his car in stormy weather, and wakes from a five-year coma to find her married with a child.
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18. Day of the Dead (1985)
1h 36m • Horror
- IMDb 7.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 83%
- Our score 3.9/5
The undead have overrun the world. A few scientists and soldiers shelter in a missile bunker beneath the Florida Everglades, where Sarah Bowman seeks a cure and Captain Rhodes demands results.
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19. Re-Animator (1985)
1h 26m • Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi
- IMDb 7.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 93%
- Our score 4.1/5
Herbert West arrives at Miskatonic University with a reagent that revives dead tissue. He takes a room in Dan Cain's house and brings Dan's dead cat back with the reagent.
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20. The Deliberate Stranger (1986)
3h 5m • Crime, Drama, Horror, Thriller
- IMDb 7.3/10
- Our score 3.7/5
Women are disappearing around Seattle in 1974. Detective Bob Keppel and reporter Richard Larsen work the cases, and a law student named Ted Bundy leaves the city for Utah.
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21. The Changeling (1980)
1h 47m • Fantasy, Horror
- IMDb 7.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 85%
- Our score 3.9/5
After a car accident kills his wife and daughter, composer John Russell moves to Seattle and rents a mansion that has stood empty for twelve years. A loud banging sounds each morning.
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22. The Hidden (1987)
1h 36m • Action, Crime, Horror
- IMDb 7.0/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 73%
- Our score 3.6/5
Law-abiding citizens across Los Angeles suddenly turn to robbery and murder. Detective Tom Beck is paired with FBI agent Lloyd Gallagher to find out why.
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23. White Dog (1982)
1h 30m • Drama, Horror, Thriller
- IMDb 7.0/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 94%
- Our score 4.1/5
Julie Sawyer takes in a stray white German Shepherd she hits with her car. Learning the dog was trained to attack Black people, the actress searches for someone to retrain him.
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24. The Woman in Black (1989)
1h 40m • Horror, Mystery
- IMDb 7.0/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 100%
- Our score 4.3/5
Arthur Kidd, a London solicitor, travels in 1925 to Crythin Gifford to settle the estate of Alice Drablow, a reclusive widow. At the funeral he notices a mourner in black.
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25. Hellraiser (1987)
1h 34m • Fantasy, Horror
- IMDb 6.9/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 71%
- Our score 3.5/5
Frank Cotton opens a puzzle box and is torn apart by hooked chains. His brother Larry and Larry's wife Julia move into his house, where a drop of blood brings Frank back.
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26. Altered States (1980)
1h 42m • Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
- IMDb 6.9/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 87%
- Our score 3.9/5
Psychopathologist Eddie Jessup experiments on himself to reach states of mind beyond the ordinary. He starts with an isolation tank, then adds a potion gathered from a Mexican tribe.
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27. Fortress (1985)
1h 28m • Drama, Horror, Thriller
- IMDb 7.0/10
- Our score 3.5/5
Outback teacher Sally Jones has nine pupils, aged six to sixteen, in a one-room school. Four armed men in Halloween masks walk in and take them away in a van.
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28. Christine (1983)
1h 50m • Action, Drama, Horror
- IMDb 6.8/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 72%
- Our score 3.5/5
Bullied high school senior Arnie Cunningham buys a dilapidated 1958 Plymouth Fury he names Christine and restores it at Will Darnell's garage. The work turns him arrogant and rebellious.
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29. The Fog (1980)
1h 29m • Fantasy, Horror
- IMDb 6.8/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 76%
- Our score 3.6/5
A glowing fog drifts toward Antonio Bay, carrying the crew of a clipper ship wrecked a century earlier. Radio DJ Stevie Wayne broadcasts from the lighthouse as the centennial begins.
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30. Creepshow (1982)
2h • Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
- IMDb 6.8/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 74%
- Our score 3.6/5
Billy Hopkins is punished for reading a horror comic. Five tales follow: a Father's Day dinner, a meteor crash, a beach confrontation, a hidden crate and a millionaire's roach problem.
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31. Dead Calm (1989)
1h 36m • Drama, Horror, Thriller
- IMDb 6.8/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 84%
- Our score 3.8/5
Rae and John Ingram sail their yacht, the Saracen, into the Pacific after their son's death. A stranger rows over from a sinking schooner and says the other passengers are dead.
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32. Child's Play (1988)
1h 27m • Fantasy, Horror
- IMDb 6.7/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 74%
- Our score 3.5/5
Police detective Mike Norris shoots serial killer Charles Lee Ray, who uses voodoo to put his soul inside a Good Guy doll. Widow Karen Barclay buys it for her son Andy.
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33. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
1h 36m • Fantasy, Horror, Thriller
- IMDb 6.7/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 68%
- Our score 3.4/5
Kristen Parker is admitted to Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital after Freddy Krueger attacks her in a dream. There she meets Nancy Thompson, an intern therapist who survived him years ago.
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34. Scanners (1981)
1h 43m • Horror, Sci-Fi
- IMDb 6.7/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 70%
- Our score 3.4/5
Cameron Vale hears voices no one else can hear until a psychologist tells him he is a scanner, one of 237 psychics. ConSec sends him after Darryl Revok, a renegade scanner.
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35. The Blob (1988)
1h 35m • Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
- IMDb 6.7/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 69%
- Our score 3.4/5
A meteorite crashes near Arborville, California, releasing a slime-like creature that consumes people. Three teens fight to save their town.
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36. Phenomena (1985)
1h 56m • Crime, Horror, Mystery
- IMDb 6.7/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 74%
- Our score 3.5/5
Jennifer Corvino, daughter of a famous actor, arrives at a Swiss boarding school. She sleepwalks and communicates telepathically with insects, while a killer murders young girls nearby.
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37. Night of the Creeps (1986)
1h 28m • Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi
- IMDb 6.7/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 73%
- Our score 3.5/5
A slug from a crashed space canister gets into a student in 1959. Twenty-seven years later, Chris and J.C. steal a corpse to join a fraternity and impress Cynthia.
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38. The Stepfather (1987)
1h 29m • Horror, Thriller
- IMDb 6.7/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 88%
- Our score 3.9/5
A man kills his family, changes his name to Jerry Blake and marries Susan Maine, a widow near Seattle. Her teenage daughter Stephanie is suspicious of her new stepfather.
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39. The Entity (1982)
2h 5m • Horror, Mystery, Thriller
- IMDb 6.7/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 62%
- Our score 3.2/5
Carla Moran, a single mother in Los Angeles, is raped by an invisible assailant. The psychiatrist she consults traces her attacks to childhood trauma, not to a presence in her home.
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40. The Ninth Configuration (1980)
1h 58m • Comedy, Drama, Horror
- IMDb 6.7/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 80%
- Our score 3.7/5
Colonel Hudson Kane takes command of a castle the Army runs as an asylum. Among the patients is astronaut Billy Cutshaw, who refuses to say why he aborted his Moon launch.
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