The top 10 horror movies of 2026: What ranks above ‘Obsession’ on our list?
The argument that horror is the No. 1 film genre of the decade just continues to strengthen.
No, I’m not talking in terms of box office receipts — although horror is clearly a huge success story by that metric as well. I’m talking in terms of quality — and quantity of quality — that puts it leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.
The sheer magnitude of creativity, as well as the breadth of artistic achievement, that we witness year after year is just staggering.
And that’s certainly been the case in 2026, which has seen so many great scary movies hit theaters — including, most likely, a handful of future classics.
Here’s our annual list of the top horror movies of the year (thus far), starting with the best of the best and working our way down through the spooky rest.
We time our list with the Halloween season, of course. So read away — if you dare — and pick a few bloody good films to get you in the proper mood for Oct. 31.
Note: To be eligible for our list, films had to have their widespread U.S. theatrical/streaming debuts in 2026. But some of these may have screened earlier at film festivals or in other countries.
Top 10 Horror Films of 2026:
1. “Dolly”
Oh, “Dolly” … there has been nothing as fully frightening as you in 2026.
This was the only film that made me feel fully immersed in horror, much like I did when I first experienced such iconic offerings as “The Devil’s Rejects,” “High Tension” and “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” My body literally felt different as I watched this. I wanted to look away at times — but the film was too mesmerizing. I wanted to push pause to take a breather, but I was watching it on a big screen and, well, that was not an option.
The comparison with the original “Texas Chain Saw Massacre” — which makes my list as one of the 10 greatest horror films of all time — is the one that I kept coming back to as I watched this menacing tale of a couple who runs into the wrong huge, lurking figure in the woods and pays so dearly for it.
Dolly (played in fantastically maniacal fashion by professional wrestler Max the Impaler) just wants somebody to love, care for and to be her baby. But there are conditions and rules to follow — as well as very sharp consequences for anyone who might get in the way.
This is full-throttle horror at its deepest and most disturbing.
2. “Obsession”
It’s been the most-talked-about horror film of the year, the sleeper hit that just seemed to grow more popular — and keep right on drawing packed houses — as word-of-mouth spread about this love story gone very wrong.
And the buzz had everything to do with Nikki.
After a suitor puts this young woman under an absurdly powerful love spell, she goes completely off the rails — giving him far more than he ever bargained for.
Inde Navarrette is so incredible as Nikki, seamlessly switching back and forth from puppy-love sweetness to pure insanity, even the Oscar voters need to recognize her work in “Obsession.”
Navarrette’s acting is the biggest selling point in a film that is utterly filled with them — from the rest of the great cast to excellent direction and script to one of the best jump scares of the year.
No wonder people were so obsessed with this horror film in 2026.
3. “Buddy”
Top-tier fright fans tend to think that we’ve seen it all when it comes to horror. Then something like “Buddy” comes along and we relearn that this is the genre that just keeps right on evolving.
I initially assumed this would be another mediocre entry in the increasingly tired run of mascot/childhood icon horror flicks — such as “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” “The Banana Splits Movie” and “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” — but I was very wrong.
“Buddy” is so much more.
I don’t want to give too much away, since the unexpected twist in this film is what led me to being so gobsmacked for nearly my entire first (of several) watchings. So, I’ll just say that director Casper Kelly takes the setting of a children’s TV show and crafts it into something utterly captivating, horrific and as original as anything we’ve seen in eons.
4. “Hope”
The best adrenaline rush of 2026? It has to be the first hour or so of “Hope,” the amazingly intense South Korean monster flick that comes courtesy of award-winning director Na Hong-jin.
It’s just non-stop captivating action for those 60-plus minutes, as police chief Ko Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min) fights to stay alive while creatures from outer space inflict massive damage on his once-peaceful Hope Harbor.
Then the remaining 100 minutes of the film is nearly as fiercely gripping as the locals mount a counterattack against the aliens.
The action scenes, which seem to constitute roughly 158 of the 160 minutes, are extremely well done and manage to feel realistic — even when the subject matter is so utterly fantastical.
And the chase scene toward the end of the film — featuring a cop car, a horse and a galloping alien — is simply the stuff of legend.
5. “Resident Evil”
Fans just knew that the “Resident Evil” franchise was in good hands with Zach Cregger, who — with his third consecutive A-plus fright flick — claims the mantle as the greatest horror movie director on the planet right now.
Cregger, who previously helmed the bloody triumphs “Barbarian” (2022) and “Weapons” (2025), totally reinvigorates an ailing film/video game/TV franchise by crafting a horror comedy that excels equally in both parts of the equation.
The horror manifests through plenty of tense moments, great special effects, more fully realized jump scares than any other movie this year and a purposefully opaque storyline — one that has already been explained ad nauseum through past “Resident Evil” chapters — about a virus that turns living things into crazed mutant monsters.
The humor comes courtesy of the excellent casting of “Weapons” standout Austin Abrams, who plays a medical courier who really should have said no to the request to bring an urgent package to Racoon City one wintry night, and a script that goes for laughs in all the right places.
6. “Send Help”
Nepo baby Bradley Preston is having a blast running the show, having been just hired on as CEO after his dad stepped down from the position, and seems to enjoy making life miserable for longtime hard-working employee Linda Liddle.
Yet, the script flips — as does the balance of power — once their plane crashes in the ocean and they end up stranded on a seemingly deserted island. Turns out that Liddle has quite a few survival skills, ones that Preston probably missed while he was being fed by a silver spoon.
Rachel McAdams is incredibly believable in the role of Liddle, a woman who has been overlooked, beaten down and underestimated her whole entire life and now is in the position to take command.
She takes the whole “Mean Girls” concept to a much deadlier level as she deals with the utterly unlikeable Preston (convincingly played by Dylan O’Brien) in this delightfully over-the-top survivalist tale spun by great director Sam Raimi.
7. “Backrooms”
No other 2026 film transported viewers to its own unique universe quite like “Backrooms,” a gripping psychological horror thriller that unfolds in a seemingly endless labyrinth of long corridors that grow increasingly nightmarish as the story goes on.
One enters this eerie extradimensional space through a hidden portal in a furniture store — as indistinct and commonplace a setting as there ever was — which only further adds to the feeling that this kind of shattered and horrific playground could exist at any point and anywhere.
The film has a couple of very strong Northern California connections, with the first being that its ground zero — the fictional furniture store of Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire — is supposed to be set in San Jose (at Capitol Avenue and McKee Road, to be exact).
The second is that it was expertly directed by the North Bay’s own Kane Parsons, who based “Backrooms” on his hit web series of the same name. Parsons, who turned 21 years old one month after “Backrooms” was released, is the youngest director to ever have a film hit No. 1 on both the U.S. and global box offices.
8. “Exit 8”
It’s not in the same league as “Backrooms,” but the Japanese thriller does share quite a few similarities with the better-known film. So many, in fact, that one might be tempted to incorrectly label it a “Backrooms” knock off.
Yet, it actually predates Parsons’ blockbuster and was released in Japan (as well as a number of other countries) in 2025, before reaching U.S. screens this past spring.
It also deals with both the exciting and horrifying notion that there are passageways to other dimensions all around us — some of which are so close that a sudden wrong step here or there could alter everything around us, possibly for all time.
In this case, it’s not an endless office-like corridor connected to a San Jose furniture store, but rather a Japanese subway station that has somehow morphed into a series of loops that threaten to overwhelm — and perhaps consume — the lost.
9. “Whalefall”
Jay didn’t have an easy childhood, growing up in the Monterey Bay area as the only son of the very demanding seafaring local legend Mitt Gardiner.
And things get worse for Jay — much, much worse — when he returns home and dons scuba gear to search for the remains of his dad (who died at sea) and is suddenly swallowed by a huge sperm whale.
The rest of the movie is basically Jay (also played by “Resident Evil” star Austin Abrams) trying to get out of the belly of the beast before he gets digested, runs out of oxygen or is otherwise killed by another deadly stomach dweller. It’s a fun survival romp, but one that would have been even more enjoyable if it wasn’t so weighed down by daddy issues and father flashbacks.
The movie left me really wanting to read the 2023 novel of the same name from Daniel Kraus, the great horror author who won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for “Angel Down.” (Look for “Angel Down” to also hit theaters at some point, thanks to yet another movie deal for Kraus with “Whalefall” partners Imagine Entertainment.)
10. “Hokum”
It’s the best haunted house film of 2026, which might not be saying all that much given that no other offering from the subgenre even came close to making this year’s list. But that’s all the more reason to embrace “Hokum,” the third film — and third winner — from Irish director Damian McCarthy (2020’s “Caveat,” 2024’s “Oddity”).
The film stars Santa Cruz’s own Adam Scott (best known as Ben Wyatt in the hit sitcom “Parks and Recreation”) as a particularly prickly author who has traveled to an old hotel in very rural Ireland.
And, yes, he should have gone to Cabo instead.
But then he wouldn’t have witnessed all the creepy things going on around the hotel grounds, nor noticed when a bartender goes missing, eventually leading him on a journey to confront the supernatural forces at play in this intriguing ghost story.
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