MRQE Ranks: Cinema's Best Paranormal Movies

1

Frankenstein (1931)

Cast: Colin Clive, Boris Karloff, Mae Clarke, John Boles, Edward Van Sloan

Director: James Whale

Synopsis: Still regarded as the definitive film version of Mary Shelley's classic tale of tragedy and horror, Frankenstein made unknown character actor Boris... [MORE]

2

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Cast: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Maurice Evans, Sidney Blackmer

Director: Roman Polanski

Synopsis: In Roman Polanski's first American film, adapted from Ira Levin's horror bestseller, a young wife comes to believe that her offspring is not of thi... [MORE]

3

The Thing (1982)

Cast: Kurt Russell, A. Wilford Brimley, T.K. Carter, David Clennon, Keith David

Director: John Carpenter

Synopsis: John Carpenter's The Thing is both a remake of Howard Hawks' 1951 film of the same name and a re-adaptation of the John W. Campbell Jr. story "Who ... [MORE]

4

Alien (1979)

Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton

Director: Ridley Scott

Synopsis: "In space, no one can hear you scream." A close encounter of the third kind becomes a Jaws-style nightmare when an alien invades a spacecraft in Ri... [MORE]

5

Don't Look Now (1973)

Cast: Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland, Hilary Mason, Clelia Matania, Massimo Serato

Director: Nicolas Roeg

Synopsis: A married couple is haunted by a series of mysterious occurrences after the death of their young daughter in this enigmatic chiller. Based on a sto... [MORE]

6

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Francois Truffaut, Bob Balaban

Director: Steven Spielberg

Synopsis: Steven Spielberg followed Jaws (1975), his first major box-office success, with this epic science fiction adventure about a disparate group of peop... [MORE]

7

The Exorcist (1973)

Cast: Linda Blair, Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Jason Miller, Lee J. Cobb

Director: William Friedkin

Synopsis: Novelist William Peter Blatty based his best-seller on the last known Catholic-sanctioned exorcism in the United States. Blatty transformed the lit... [MORE]

8

The Shining (1980)

Cast: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers, Barry Nelson

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Synopsis: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" -- or, rather, a homicidal boy in Stanley Kubrick's eerie 1980 adaptation of Stephen King's horror nov... [MORE]

9

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Cast: Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Leonard Nimoy, Veronica Cartwright, Art Hindle

Director: Philip Kaufman

Synopsis: This remake of the 1956 horror classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers moves the action from small-town USA to 1970s San Francisco and replaces at l... [MORE]

10

Halloween (1978)

Cast: Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nancy Loomis, P.J. Soles, Charles Cyphers

Director: John Carpenter

Synopsis: It was "The Night HE Came Home," warned the posters for John Carpenter's career-making horror smash. In Haddonfield, IL, on Halloween night 1963, s... [MORE]

11

Ghost Busters (1984)

Cast: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Sigourney Weaver, Ernie Hudson

Director: Ivan Reitman

Writer: Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd, Peter Torokvei

Synopsis: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson star as a quartet of Manhattan-based "paranormal investigators". When their government gran... [MORE]

12

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Cast: Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Amanda Wyss

Director: Wes Craven

Synopsis: A decade of wisecracking sequels have not diminished the power of this striking horror film from the director of Scream. Teenagers in a small town ... [MORE]

13

The Sixth Sense (1999)

Cast: Haley Joel Osment, Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams, Donnie Wahlberg

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Synopsis: In this tense tale of psychological terror, Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) is a child psychologist whose new patient has a problem far outside hi... [MORE]

14

Ringu (1998)

Cast: Nanako Matsushima, Miki Nakatani, Hiroyuki Sanada, Yuko Takeuchi, Hitomi Sato

Director: Hideo Nakata, Chisui Takigawa

15

Jacob's Ladder (1990/I)

Cast: Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Pena, Danny Aiello, Matt Craven, Pruitt Taylor Vince

Director: Adrian Lyne

Synopsis: A tortured man finds himself caught in a middle-ground between hallucination and reality in this supernatural thriller, scripted by Bruce Joel Rubi... [MORE]

16

The Changeling (1980)

Cast: George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere, Melvyn Douglas, John Colicos, Jean Marsh

Director: Peter Medak

Synopsis: Peter Medak's The Changeling is among a handful of films, including The Haunting (1963), Ghost Story (1981), and Lady in White (1988), that have su... [MORE]

17

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Cast: David Naughton, Griffin Dunne, Jenny Agutter, John Woodvine, Brian Glover

Director: John Landis

Synopsis: While wandering the English moors on vacation, college yanks David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne) happen upon a quaint pub with a myster... [MORE]

18

Ghost (1990)

Cast: Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Goldwyn, Rick Aviles

Director: Jerry Zucker

Synopsis: An interesting hybrid of popular film genres, Ghost showcases the talents of its entire cast. While out on the town one evening, New York couple Sa... [MORE]

19

Carrie (1976)

Cast: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, John Travolta, Amy Irving, William Katt

Director: Brian De Palma

Synopsis: This classic horror movie based on Stephen King's first novel stars Sissy Spacek as Carrie White, a shy, diffident teenager who is the butt of prac... [MORE]

20

Drag Me to Hell (2009)

Cast: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, David Paymer, Reggie Lee

Director: Sam Raimi

Synopsis: Evil Dead director Sam Raimi takes the helm for this "spook-a-blast" shocker about an ambitious L.A. loan officer who incurs the wrath of a malevol... [MORE]

21

Poltergeist (1982)

Cast: JoBeth Williams, Craig T. Nelson, Beatrice Straight, Dominique Dunne, Oliver Robins

Director: Tobe Hooper

Synopsis: With Poltergeist, directed by Tobe Hopper, Steven Spielberg had his first great success as a producer. Released around the same time as Spielberg's... [MORE]

22

The Orphanage (2007)

Cast: Belen Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Roger Príncep, Mabel Rivera, Montserrat Carulla

Director: J.A. Bayona

Synopsis: Pan's Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro produces director Juan Antonio Bayona's gothic frightener about a long-abandoned orphanage with a parti... [MORE]

23

The Omen (1976)

Cast: Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Billie Whitelaw, Harvey Stephens

Director: Richard Donner

Synopsis: Satan's son has arrived on Earth and He's not about to let human parents get in the way. When his wife Katherine's (Lee Remick) pregnancy ends in a... [MORE]

24

The Others (2001)

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Alakina Mann, James Bentley, Fionnula Flanagan, Christopher Eccleston

Director: Alejandro Amenabar

Synopsis: Spanish filmmaker Alejandro Amenabar's first English-language production is a creepy period ghost story that continues in the vein of his earlier a... [MORE]

25

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Cast: Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, Joshua Leonard, Bob Griffith, Jim King

Director: Eduardo Sanchez, Daniel Myrick

Synopsis: Combining Hi-8 video with black-and-white 16 mm film, this film presents a raw look at what can happen when college students forego common sense an... [MORE]

26

Carnival of Souls (1962)

Cast: Candace Hilligoss, Herk Harvey, Frances Feist, Sidney Berger, Stan Levitt

Director: Herk Harvey

Synopsis: A drag race turns to tragedy when one car, with three young women inside, topples over a bridge and into the muddy river below. The authorities dra... [MORE]

27

Predator (1987)

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Kevin Peter Hall, Elpidia Carrillo, Bill Duke

Director: John McTiernan

Synopsis: Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has a code of honor which he will not violate, even when his life depends on it. Paradoxically, his code of honor giv... [MORE]

28

The Rapture (1991)

Cast: Mimi Rogers, Patrick Bauchau, David Duchovny, Kimberly Cullum, Dick Anthony Williams

Director: Michael Tolkin

Writer: Michael Tolkin

Synopsis: An audacious film about faith, The Rapture is a contemporary fantasy that keeps its feet unnervingly planted in reality even as reality starts to c... [MORE]

29

The Ring (2002/I)

Cast: Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, David Dorfman, Brian Cox, Jane Alexander

Director: Gore Verbinski

Synopsis: A disturbing videotape appears to hold the power of life and death over those who view it in this offbeat thriller. A strange videotape begins maki... [MORE]

30

Paranormal Activity (2007)

Cast: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Mark Fredrichs, Amber Armstrong, Ashley Palmer

Director: Oren Peli

Synopsis: A haunted house makes no secret of the fact it's not pleased with its new tenants in this independent tale of supernatural horror. Katie (Katie Fea... [MORE]

31

1408 (2007)

Cast: John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, Mary McCormack, Tony Shalhoub

Director: Mikael Hafstrom

Synopsis: A writer renowned for debunking infamous paranormal events is confronted by a force that he cannot explain upon checking into room 1408 of the noto... [MORE]

32

Signs (2002)

Cast: Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Abigail Breslin, Rory Culkin, Cherry Jones

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Synopsis: Following the smash hit The Sixth Sense (1999) and the under-performing follow-up Unbreakable (2000), directing phenom M. Night Shyamalan returns t... [MORE]

33

The Howling (1981)

Cast: Dee Wallace, Patrick Macnee, Dennis Dugan, Kevin McCarthy, Christopher Stone

Director: Joe Dante, Robert Picardo

Synopsis: This groundbreaking, darkly comic horror film from director Joe Dante changed the look and feel of werewolf movies in ways light-years distant from... [MORE]

34

The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

Cast: Susan Lanier, Robert Houston, Martin Speer, James Whitworth, Virginia Vincent

Director: Wes Craven

Synopsis: Horror auteur Wes Craven followed his threadbare but horrifically compelling cult classic Last House on the Left with this wonderfully demented mor... [MORE]

35

The Last House on the Left (1972)

Cast: Lucy Grantham, Sandra Cassel, David Hess, Marc Sheffler, Jeramie Rain

Director: Wes Craven

Synopsis: Wes Craven's first film was a crude but shocking horror opus that, like George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968), became a grind house hi... [MORE]

36

The Witches of Eastwick (1987)

Cast: Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer, Veronica Cartwright

Director: George Miller

Synopsis: The Witches of Eastwick, a memorable comedy with a dark edge, is based upon a novel by John Updike. On Thursday nights three female friends -- Alex... [MORE]

37

Enter the Void (2009)

Cast: Nathaniel Brown, Paz De La Huerta, Cyril Roy, Emily Alyn Lind, Jesse Kuhn

Director: Gaspar Noé

Synopsis: Death takes one man on a journey that is by turns beautiful and terrifying in this feature from writer and director Gaspar Noé, who describes it as... [MORE]

38

Insidious (2010/I)

Cast: Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Ty Simpkins, Lin Shaye, Leigh Whannell

Director: James Wan

Synopsis: Saw franchise veterans James Wan and Leigh Whannell team with Paranormal Activity writer/director Oren Peli to give the familiar haunted house stor... [MORE]

39

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)

Cast: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Brian Boland, Molly Ephraim, Sprague Grayden

Director: Tod Williams

Synopsis: The sequel to the low-budget blockbuster Paranormal Activity takes place a few months before the events of the first film. Katie (Katie Featherston... [MORE]

40

The Grudge (2004)

Cast: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr, William Mapother, Clea DuVall, Takako Fuji

Director: Takashi Shimizu

Synopsis: This American remake of director Takashi Shimizu's popular Japanese movie franchise The Grudge puts Buffy the Vampire Slayer alumna Sarah Michelle ... [MORE]

41

Hereafter (2010)

Cast: Matt Damon, Bryce Dallas Howard, Cécile De France, Jay Mohr, Richard Kind

Director: Clint Eastwood

Synopsis: Director Clint Eastwood delves into the mysterious world of the hereafter with this ensemble supernatural drama starring Matt Damon, Cécile De Fran... [MORE]