1. It (2017)

Director: Andrés Muschietti

Derry, 1989, one year after the disappearance of Georgie Denbrough, more and more kids have been going missing. Around this time, Georgie’s older brother, Bill, and his small group of outcast friends begin to experience strange and horrifying interactions with their own worst fears. After talking amongst the group, they discover that these experiences are all connected to one entity, Pennywise “the dancing clown.” They decide to attempt to defeat him, and in that process they have to face their own nightmares.

2. Us (2019)

Director: Jordan Peele

Adelaide, her husband, and their two kids, Jason and Zora, decide to take a vacation to Santa Cruz,  very significant location for Adelaide. Years ago as a child, she had experienced a traumatizing experience there that changed her forever. During their stay, one night, a family appears in the driveway of their home and attacks them. When they reveal themselves, to everyone’s horror, they are exact replicas of Adelaide and her family. Once they manage to escape the doppelgangers, each of them must fight off their own lookalikes, and as the family reunites, they realize that the horror has only begun.

3. The Omen (1976)

Director: Richard Donner

After Robert Thorn’s wife delivers a stillborn child, he adopts a newborn baby, later named Damien Thorn. “The Omen”  follows the peculiar family as tragedy seems to follow their son, with his first nanny dying from suicide after hanging herself proclaiming it’s “all for you Damien.” Tensions increase as warnings from a local priest and photographer suggest Damien may be the devil incarnate himself.

4. Smile (2022)

Director: Parker Finn

Rose Cotter, a psychiatric therapist, begins to experience terrifying hallucinations involving people with eerie smiles after witnessing a patient of hers brutally commit suicide. She has to rush to find out what the entity causing these hallucinations is, and how to kill it. Although, she only has one week to find out, and she is already reaching a point of insanity.

5. The Conjuring (2013)

Director: James Wan

Set in 1971, “The Conjuring” follows the story of a family with five daughters as they move into a new home, with strange supernatural occurrences becoming frequent just in the first few nights. After the family begins to feel threatened by the spiritual presence in the house, they call in the Warrens, a couple of paranormal investigators, to get to the bottom of the mystery.

6. The Shining (1980)

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Upon accepting his job at the Overlook Hotel in the winter, Jack is warned of a past incident at the hotel in which a man killed his wife and twin daughters. Thinking nothing of it, Jack brings his family with him. After the family arrives at the hotel, one of the staff members talks about his special gift, “The shining,” to one of Jack’s sons, claiming that they both possess it, and warns him to not enter room 237. As Danny experiences hallucinations of murders around the hotel and Jack seems more and more agitated, his wife worries for their safety.

7. Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Director: Wes Craven

After her best friend is mysteriously murdered by a seemingly invisible culprit, Nancy seeks answers. Recalling the conversation she’d had with her murdered friend before the incident, she begins to theorize that the mysterious monster both her and her friend saw in a dream the previous night may be responsible for the incident. As hallucinations and nightmares of this same being continue to haunt her, Nancy is determined to bring it all to an end once and for all.

Honorable Mentions

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre(1974), Friday the 13th(1980), Saw(2004), Midsommar (2019), Get Out(2019), The Exorcist(1973), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Halloween (1978), Candyman (2021), The Blair Witch Project (1999), Rosemarys baby (1968), The Hills have Eyes (1977), Invasion of the body snatchers (1978), Poltergeist (1982), Scream (1996), Hereditary (2018), Silence of the Lambs(1991), Ethan Hawkes the Black Phone (2021), His House(2020), The Grudge(2004), 28 Days Later(2002), Nope(2022), Pearl(2022)