Horror by Decade
The films that reshaped horror, plus the rest of the decade worth your time
After the slasher glut of the 1980s, 1990s horror split toward prestige and self-awareness. The Silence of the Lambs won Best Picture in 1991 and made the serial-killer thriller respectable. Five years later Scream took the slasher apart and rebuilt it for an audience that already knew the rules. By the end of the decade, Ring out of Japan and The Blair Witch Project had pointed the genre toward the international ghost story and the found-footage boom that would define the 2000s.
This page collects the 1990s horror worth your time, scored by a single Watch Darkly curator rather than a crowd average. The films that defined the decade come first, in release order, so the influence reads as a chain. The rest of the decade follows, ranked by curator score, so you can keep browsing past the canon.
Clarice Starling is a top student at the FBI's training academy. Jack Crawford wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into a case and that Starling, as an attractive young woman, may be just the bait to draw him out.
A demonic force has chosen Freddy Krueger as its portal to the real world. Can Heather Langenkamp play the part of Nancy one last time and trap the evil trying to enter our world?
An insurance investigator visits a small town while looking into the strange disappearance of a popular horror novelist. He soon finds that the impact of the author’s books is far more than inspirational.
Two homicide detectives are on a desperate hunt for a serial killer whose crimes are based on the "seven deadly sins" in this dark and haunting film that takes viewers from the tortured remains of one victim to the next. The seasoned Det. Somerset researches each sin in an effort to get inside the killer's mind, while his novice partner, Mills, scoffs at his efforts to unravel the case.
A year after the murder of her mother, a teenage girl is terrorized by a masked killer who targets her and her friends by using scary movies as part of a deadly game.
In 2047, a group of astronauts are sent to investigate and salvage the starship Event Horizon which disappeared mysteriously seven years before on its maiden voyage. However, it soon becomes evident that something sinister resides in its corridors.
A mysterious video has been linked to a number of deaths, and when an inquisitive journalist finds the tape and views it herself, she sets in motion a chain of events that puts her own life in danger.
A group of strangers find themselves trapped in a maze-like prison. It soon becomes clear that each of them possesses the peculiar skills necessary to escape, if they don't wind up dead first.
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In October of 1994 three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found.
Following an unexpected tragedy, child psychologist Malcolm Crowe meets a nine year old boy named Cole Sear, who is hiding a dark secret.
Mulder and Scully, now taken off the FBI's X Files cases, must find a way to fight the shadowy elements of the government to find out the truth about a conspiracy that might mean the alien colonization of Earth.
A small suburban town receives a visit from a castaway unfinished science experiment named Edward.
After an accident, acclaimed novelist Paul Sheldon is rescued by a nurse who claims to be his biggest fan. Her obsession takes a dark turn when she holds him captive in her remote Colorado home and forces him to write back to life the popular literary character he killed off.
After being hypnotized by his sister-in-law, Tom Witzky begins seeing haunting visions of a girl's ghost and a mystery begins to unfold around her.
Two hundred years after Lt. Ripley died, a group of scientists clone her, hoping to breed the ultimate weapon. But the new Ripley is full of surprises … as are the new aliens. Ripley must team with a band of smugglers to keep the creatures from reaching Earth.
When some very creepy things start happening around school, the kids at Herrington High make the chilling discovery that confirms their worst suspicions: their teachers really are from another planet!
A police chief in the war-torn streets of Los Angeles discovers that an extraterrestrial creature is hunting down residents - and that he is the next target.
An American village is visited by some unknown life form which leaves the women of the village pregnant. Nine months later, the babies are born, and they all look normal, but it doesn't take the "parents" long to realize that the kids are not human or humane.
In 1993, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence Project receives a transmission detailing an alien DNA structure, along with instructions on how to splice it with human DNA. The result is Sil, a sensual but deadly creature who can change from a beautiful woman to an armour-plated killing machine in the blink of an eye.
A spacecraft is discovered at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, presumed to be at least 300 years old and of alien origin. A crack team of scientists and experts is assembled and taken to the ocean floor to investigate. However, the ship is not as it seems and when a giant perfect sphere is discovered in the cargo bay, things begin to fall apart.
After escaping with Newt and Hicks from the alien planet, Ripley crash lands on Fiorina 161, a prison planet and host to a correctional facility. Unfortunately, although Newt and Hicks do not survive the crash, a more unwelcome visitor does. The prison does not allow weapons of any kind, and with aid being a long time away, the prisoners must simply survive in any way they can.
Researchers on the undersea lab Aquatica have genetically altered the brains of captive sharks to develop a cure for Alzheimer's disease. But there's an unexpected side effect: the sharks got smarter, faster, and more dangerous. After a big storm damages their remote research facility, they must fight for their lives.
Two years after the Woodsboro murders, Sidney Prescott acclimates to college life while someone donning the Ghostface costume begins a new string of killings.
When the crew of an American tugboat boards an abandoned Russian research vessel, the alien life form aboard regards them as a virus which must be destroyed.