Directed by David Cronenberg • 1988 • United States, Canada
Starring Jeremy Irons, Geneviève Bujold, Heidi von Palleske

In DEAD RINGERS, David Cronenberg tells the chilling story of identical twin gynecologists—suave Elliot and sensitive Beverly, bipolar sides of one personality—who share the sa...

Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto • 1989 • Japan
Starring Tomorowo Taguchi, Kei Fujiwara, Nobu Kanaoka

An ordinary Japanese salaryman undergoes a shocking metamorphosis in Shinya Tsukamoto’s legendary fusion of body horror and cyberpunk expressionism. A strange man known only as the “metal fetishist”...

Directed by Hideo Nakata • 1998 • Japan
Starring Nanako Matsushima, Hiroyuki Sanada, Miki Nakatani

The film that launched the craze for J-horror in the West, director Hideo Nakata’s international sensation melded traditional Japanese folklore with contemporary anxieties about the spread of techn...

Directed by Takashi Miike • 1999 • Japan
Starring Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Miyuki Matsuda

In one of the most notorious horror films ever made, recent widower Shigeharu (Ryo Ishibashi) sets out to find a new wife by staging an “audition.” Interviewing a series of women, Shigeharu becomes encha...

Directed by David Cronenberg • 1977 • Canada
Starring Marilyn Chambers, Frank Moore, Joe Silver

David Cronenberg cemented his reputation as one of the most daring directors of his generation with his deeply disturbing second foray into the body-horror genre. After undergoing radical emergency su...

Directed by Hideo Nakata • 2002 • Japan
Starring Hitomi Kuroki, Rio Kanno, Asami Mizukawa

After terrifying audiences worldwide with the J-Horror classic RING and its sequel, director Hideo Nakata returned to the genre for this atmospheric tale of the supernatural. Based on a short story by RING ...

Directed by John Carpenter • 1980 • United States
Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Adrienne Barbeau, Tom Atkins

Long-buried secrets come back to haunt a small town in this triumph of atmosphere and creeping unease from genre great John Carpenter. Drawing inspiration from the moody masterworks of Val L...

Directed by Jaromil Jireš • 1970 • Czechoslovakia
Starring Jaroslava Schallerová, Helena Anyžová, Petr Kopriva

A girl on the verge of womanhood finds herself in a sensual fantasyland of vampires, witchcraft, and other threats in this eerie and mystical movie daydream. VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WON...

Directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel • 1932 • United States
Starring Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Leslie Banks

One of the best and most literate movies from the great days of horror, THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME stars Leslie Banks as a big-game hunter with a taste for the world’s most exotic ...

Directed by Fritz Lang • 1931 • Germany

A simple, haunting musical phrase whistled offscreen tells us that a young girl will be killed. "Who Is the Murderer?" pleads a nearby placard as serial killer Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) closes in on little Elsie Beckmann... In his harrowing masterwork M, ...

Directed by Hiroshi Matsuno • 1968 • Japan

In this atmospheric tale of revenge from beyond the watery grave, a pirate-ransacked freighter's violent past comes back to haunt a young woman living in a seaside town. Mixing elements of kaidan (ghost stories), doppelgaÃànger thrillers, and mad-scient...

Directed by Hajime Sato • 1968 • Japan

After an airplane is forced to crash-land in a remote area, its passengers find themselves face-to-face with an alien force that wants to possess them body and soul, and perhaps take over the entire human race. Filled with creatively repulsive effects, incl...

Directed by Kazui Nihonmatsu • 1968 • Japan

The insects are taking over in this nasty piece of disaster horror directed by Kazui Nihonmatsu. A group of military personnel transporting a hydrogen bomb are left to figure out how and why swarms of killer bugs took down their plane; the answer is mo...

Directed by Michael Haneke • 1997 • Austria
Starring Susanne Lothar, Ulrich Mühe, Arno Frisch

Michael Haneke’s most notorious provocation, FUNNY GAMES spares no detail in its depiction of the agony of a bourgeois family held captive at their vacation home by a pair of white-gloved young men. ...

Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot • 1955 • France
Starring Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, Paul Meurisse

Before PSYCHO, PEEPING TOM, and REPULSION, there was DIABOLIQUE. This thriller from Henri-Georges Clouzot, which shocked audiences in Europe and the U.S., is the story of two women, the fragil...

Directed by Juraj Herz • 1969 • Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovak New Wave iconoclast Juraj Herz’s terrifying, darkly comic vision of the horrors of totalitarian ideologies stars a supremely chilling Rudolf Hrušínský as the pathologically morbid Karel Kopfrkingl, a crematorium manager in 1930s Prague ...

Directed by Claire Denis • 2001 • France
Starring Vincent Gallo, Tricia Vessey, Béatrice Dalle

Claire Denis’s poetic take on the body-horror genre is an atmospheric reverie of blood and lust that lays bare the filmmaker’s core artistic concerns around power, desire, and delirium. Newlyweds Shane...

Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa • 1997 • Japan

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s arresting international breakthrough established him as one of the leaders of an emerging new wave of Japanese horror while pushing the genre into uncharted realms of philosophical and existential exploration. A string of shocking, s...

Directed by George Sluizer • 1988 • Netherlands
Starring Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets, Johanna ter Steege

A young man embarks on an obsessive search for the girlfriend who mysteriously disappeared while the couple were taking a sunny vacation trip, and his three-year investigation dra...

Directed by Věra Chytilová • 1987 • Czechoslovakia
Starring Miroslav Machácek, Tomás Palatý, Stepánka Cervenková

Věra Chytilová’s subversive take on the 1980s teen-horror movie assembles a gaggle of bratty adolescents for a mysterious skiing retreat at a snowbound cabin where they find themselve...

Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi • 1977 • Japan
Starring Kimiko Ikegami, Miki Jinbo, Kumiko Oba

How to describe Nobuhiko Obayashi’s indescribable 1977 movie HOUSE (HAUSU)? As a psychedelic ghost tale? A stream-of-consciousness bedtime story? An episode of “Scooby-Doo” as directed by Mario Bava? Any...

Directed by David Lynch • 1977 • United States
Starring Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Judith Anna Roberts

David Lynch’s 1977 debut feature, ERASERHEAD, is both a lasting cult sensation and a work of extraordinary craft and beauty. With its mesmerizing black-and-white photography by Frederick El...

Directed by Peter Weir • 1975 • Australia
Starring Rachel Roberts, Vivean Gray, Helen Morse

This sensual and striking chronicle of a disappearance and its aftermath put director Peter Weir on the map and helped usher in a new era of Australian cinema. Based on an acclaimed 1967 novel by Joan Lin...

Directed by Federico Fellini, Louis Malle, and Roger Vadim • 1968 • France, Italy

Federico Fellini, Louis Malle, and Roger Vadim each direct a tale from Edgar Allan Poe in this haunting anthology film.