In 2026 Horror is hip.
Between the overwhelming success of A24’s “Backrooms” and Focus Features’ “Obsession” (which have made $368 and $429 million respectively), the studio thrills of “Evil Dead Burn” and “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy,” plus Zach Cregger’s upcoming “Resident Evil,” which is out in September, big scares equal big business.
In this atmosphere, we are running down our favorites of the year thus far – from zombies to sharks to murderous spores – in no particular order. Plus, we will continue to update the list throughout the year with our new favorites.
Anyway, on with the very best…
“Thrash”
We are living in a golden age of killer shark movies. After 2024’s “Under Paris” about sharks that invade the Olympics and last year’s oddly underrated “Dangerous Animals,” starring Jai Courtney as a psychopath who feeds his victims to sharks, we get a new thriller about gilled terror. In “Thrash,” a historic hurricane brings more than flooded basements; it brings a shiver (yes, that’s the actual name for a group of sharks) to a small southern town.
Tommy Wirkola’s fitfully entertaining film, originally meant as a theatrical release from Sony, he adopts the loose structure of a 1970’s disaster movie, following disparate characters (an agoraphobic young girl, a woman on the verge of giving birth, some kids trying to outsmart their abusive foster parents) and combines it with the chills of a creature feature, embroidered with some socially conscious commentary about climate change and invasive species (courtesy of producer Adam McKay). New to Netflix and already a hit, we’re dreaming about “Thrash 2.”
“Send Help”
Genre legend Sam Raimi returned for an original thriller, and even though it never quite tips into horror, there’s enough horrific stuff on display to have it make the list. But just barely. Dylan O’Brien plays a casually cruel boss and Rachel McAdams his meek underling, but after their private plane crashes on the way to a corporate engagement, the plane goes down and leaves them both stranded on a deserted island. McAdams is a bit of a survivalist (she’s prepared to be a contestant on “Survivor”) and adapts to the conditions on the island quicker than her boss, who turns out to be utterly helpless.
There are more twists and turns from there – some expected, some from left field, each delightful and scary and wickedly funny. “Send Help” is a welcome return for Raimi – to an original story, to the kind of movie that made him such a beloved figure, and to an R-rating. Just the best.
“Faces of Death”
“Faces of Death,” a hilarious, horrific meta commentary on our current obsession with watching horrible videos on our phones (that also wittily interpolates the 1978 original), had a tough time getting to the big screen. But it was all worth it. Because it’s not only one of the best horror movies of the year but it’s also one of the best movies of 2026, period.
Barbie Ferreira plays a content moderator who starts noticing videos that are remaking elements from the original “Faces of Death” movie, only this time they are real murders. She attempts to flag them but is told to leave them alone, which sends her on a dangerous quest to uncover the killer (Dacre Montgomery from “Stranger Things”) and set things right. Writer/director Daniel Goldhaber and co-writer Isa Mazzei clearly have much to say about the way that we cruelly consume content, but they are also perfectly happy to stage ace set pieces and have a ton of fun. What a movie.
“Forbidden Fruits”
Meredith Alloway’s feature directorial debut, which features a coven operating out of a Free People star in a sterile suburban mall, is bitchy and witchy and all sorts of fun. For a while, “Forbidden Fruits,” which was produced by Diablo Cody (whose “Jennifer’s Body” is an obvious forebearer), churns along as a “Mean Girls”-adjacent story of the cool girls (led by Lili Rinehart) and less-than-cool girls (exemplified by Lola Tung), jockeying for power in a modern landscape that is all too ready to pit them against each other. But then it starts to twist – first into a murder mystery and then into something much more bizarre and sinister. By the time it reaches its blood-soaked climax, the beginning of the movie doesn’t just seem miles away but like a distant memory.
The journey of “Forbidden Fruits” is just one of its pleasures, since there are many – the prickly performances, sharp direction, excellent needle drops and plentiful gore, all help to add up to a movie that deserves to be a part of the cult canon, no matter what anybody says.
“Cold Storage”
With “Cold Storage,” David Koepp, the most successful screenwriter in Hollywood history, adapted himself. More specifically, he adapted his whip-smart novel of the same name. “Cold Storage,” which borrows equally from “Clerks” and “Return of the Living Dead,” pits a pair of slackers (Joe Keery and Georgina Campbell) against a killer biological agent that has been buried underneath the all-night storage place where they work. This fungus, which might remind you of “The Last of Us,” turns you into a creepy ghoul that might explode at any given moment. Yes, that lends itself a lot of gooey fun.
Liam Neeson plays the military professional who has dealt with the fungus before and his presence in the movie feels like a pointed joke – the man who has starred in 100 action movies has little bearing on the actual plot, leaving it up to the twentysomethings to figure it out. “Cold Storage” had a minimal theatrical release but will be out on 4K disc soon. And it deserves to be in your collection. It feels like something you would take home from the video store on a Friday night, based on the title and the cover alone. An underrated gem that deserves to be rediscovered – or discovered in the first place.
“28 Years Later: The Bone Temple”
The follow-up to Danny Boyle’s absolutely astonishing legacy sequel (released last summer), “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” continued the story while also swapping directors (to “Candyman” remake director Nia DaCosta), composers (to Hildur Guðnadóttir) and cinematographers (hello Sean Bobbitt!) The sensation was familiar and new. And the screenplay for the second entry in a supposed trilogy, by the great Alex Garland, was surprising and shocking in unexpected ways.
We travel along two tracks as an audience, which is also very satisfying. On one path, we follow young Spike (Alfie Williams) as he falls in with a group of murderous weirdos led by Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), while another parallel narrative tracks Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) and his attempt to tame (or maybe it’s befriend?) one of the local zombies he has named Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry). How these two threads collide is astonishing, with Fiennes giving an all-timer of a performance, and DaCosta nimbly dancing between the two storylines, along with multiple tones. Should there be a third film (and this one really ends on a cliffhanger, so we’re praying there will be), Boyle will return to direct. It could end up being one of the great cinematic trilogies about finding hope in the most desperate times. Something we can all relate to.
“Dracula”
After being released in France last summer, “Dracula” finally came to the United States. And it really is a hoot. French filmmaker Luc Besson, who helmed “The Fifth Element” and “Lucy,” emphasizes the romance elements of the Dracula story, with Dracula (Caleb Landry Jones) searching for the reincarnated form of his beloved (Zoë Bleu) through the centuries.
Besson borrows liberally from previous adaptations of the Bram Stoker story, from John Badham to Francis Ford Coppola to Tod Browning, while also injecting some flourishes all his own, like a gaggle of adorable gargoyles that tend to Dracula in his giant, empty castle. There’s nothing in “Dracula” that you haven’t seen before (and if you’re turned off by the recent allegations of sexual misconduct against Besson, fair enough) but it is a sweeping, sumptuous, relentlessly entertaining riff on the story, with a lush Danny Elfman score and some fine, filigreed performances (including Christoph Waltz as the Van Helsing stand-in). In other words, it doesn’t suck.
“Backrooms”
A24’s ingenious smash, based on a series of creepy online videos, is set largely in a creepy liminal space that goes on forever. (It is discovered, cleverly, behind a bargain basement furniture store.) Chiwetel Ejiofor plays the owner of the crappy furniture store, who soon becomes obsessed with this alternate world and recent Oscar nominee Renate Reinsve plays his therapist, who is also drawn into the strange, yellow-tinged corridors and angled chambers.
The strength of “Backrooms” is in its simplicity; director Kane Parsons, who did many of the earlier online videos, suggests a vast world cluttered with lore but is smart enough to not engage with almost any of it. It’s so satisfying to see a movie that is not encumbered by needless mythology or exposition, that coasts along on the strength of its creepy vibes and terrific lead performances. One of the surprise smashes of the year, the story of “Backrooms” will undoubtedly unspool for years to come. But unlike other would-be franchise starters, we cannot wait to learn more about the world. And Parsons, who was just 19 at the time that he shot the movie, seems like a genuine wunderkind, inspired as much by other horror movies as by videogames, YouTube clips, animation and architecture. He’s a one-of-a-kind and so is “Backrooms.”
“Her Private Hell”
It’s been 10 years since Nicolas Winding Refn’s last film – the glittery, fashion-world horror movie “The Neon Demon” that saw Elle Fanning hunted (and, spoiler alert, consumed) by predatory models played by Bella Heathcote and Abbey Lee. It was awesome.
But thankfully the 10-year wait was worth it. “Her Private Hell” feels, in some respects, like a continuation of “The Neon Demon.” Instead of a young model, the lead is Sophie Thatcher as a young starlet whose former lover (Havana Rose Liu) is now her stepmom. If you thought that is bad, there’s a black-leather-clad serial killer terrorizing the city and a mysterious poison fog that is enrobing her neon-trimmed skyscraper. Charles Melton, dressed like a 1950’s street tough, plays a mysterious American GI who is also hunting for the killer (he suspects that the leather man has abducted his daughter). “Her Private Hell” is dazzling and singularly striking, a dream-logic odyssey through a made-up city full of Japanese gangsters, slippery operatives and ditzy starlets (the bubbly Kristine Froseth is the Fanning surrogate). The whole thing is set to a lush, overwhelming score by frequent Brian De Palma collaborator Pino Donaggio, which wraps “Her Private Hell” in velvety decadence. It might not be to everybody’s liking, but if you prefer your horror movies coated in glitter and studded diamonds, “Her Private Hell” will probably be your new favorite movie.
“Obsession”
The runaway success of the year is “Obsession,” a movie that was made for $750,000 and has grossed more than $429 million worldwide. And it’s easy to see why. “Obsession” has a strong central conceit – Bear (Michael Johnston), a nerdy music store employee, makes a wish on an occult store novelty for his adorable colleague Nikki (Inde Navarrette) to fall in love with him. Of course, things go terribly, murderously wrong. (Including one murder that was so intense it had to be trimmed to avoid an NC-17 rating. When was the last time that happened?)
Written, directed and edited by Curry Barker, a whiz kid who got his start in comedy and YouTube videos, “Obsession” has an agreeably grimy aesthetic, full of sickly colors and tight close-ups. But there’s also a puckish sense of humor to the whole thing, which makes it perfect for repeat viewings and clips to be shared on social media. Plus Navarrette gives one of the most winning performances of the year. It’s rare these days to see an actress transform into a star before your eyes in a single movie. But that happened with “Obsession.” And she deserves everything that’s coming to her. No wish necessary.
