WATCHcanonAlien
1979 · USA/UK · 117m
A haunted house film in space, and the crew are contractors arguing about bonuses.
The films
486 entries, from the 1931 Universal cycle to last year. Curated, not exhaustive: a short shelf of things worth knowing about beats a long one nobody can navigate.
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486 films · page 14 of 14
WATCHcanon
WATCHcanonGet Out
2017 · USA/Japan · 104m
Won the screenplay Oscar, which horror never does. The sunken place is the best new image in the genre this century.
WATCHcanonHalloween
1978 · USA · 92m
Cost 300,000 dollars, took 70 million, and contains almost no blood at all.
WATCHcanonJaws
1975 · USA · 124m
The mechanical shark did not work, so Spielberg shot around it and accidentally made the best one.
WATCHcanonKing Kong
1933 · USA · 100m
The first great monster film, and Willis O'Brien's animation still has more personality than anything rendered.
WATCHcanonNight of the Living Dead
1968 · USA · 96m
Invented the modern zombie, lost its own copyright, and has one of the bleakest endings ever filmed.
WATCHcanonNosferatu
1922 · Germany · 94m
An illegal Dracula that survived a court order to burn it. Still the best-looking vampire film.
WATCHcanonOldboy
2003 · South Korea/Japan · 116m
A man is imprisoned in a room for fifteen years with no explanation, released, and given five days to find out why.
WATCHcanonSaw
2004 · USA · 103m
Two men chained in a bathroom, made for 1.2 million dollars in eighteen days, and it is far better than its franchise.
WATCHcanonScream
1996 · USA · 111m
Characters who know the rules. Worked exactly once and produced a decade of films that mistook referencing for wit.
WATCHcanonThe Birds
1963 · USA · 119m
No score, no explanation, no resolution. Hitchcock withholding everything and getting away with it.
WATCHcanonThe Conjuring
2013 · USA · 112m
Old-fashioned, extremely well made, and the reason there are now nine of these.
WATCHcanonThe Exorcist
1973 · USA · 122m
Ten Academy Award nominations and ambulances outside cinemas. Still the commercial ceiling for horror.
WATCHcanonThe Shining
1980 · UK/USA · 144m
King hated it. Everyone else was right. The geography of the hotel is deliberately impossible.
WATCHcanonThe Silence of the Lambs
1991 · USA · 118m
The only horror film to win Best Picture, and it wins the argument about whether it is one.
WATCHcanonThe Sixth Sense
1999 · USA · 107m
The twist made it famous and the film does not need it. It is about a boy nobody believes and a marriage that ended.
WATCHcanonThe Thing
1982 · USA/Canada · 109m
Flopped, was called empty and disgusting, and is now the most imitated horror film of its decade.
WATCHcanonTrain to Busan
2016 · South Korea · 118m
The best zombie film since Romero, and the only one that makes you cry.