Best Horror Movies of 2023 Ranked

It didn’t take long for 2023 to find its new scream queen: M3GAN, the Certified Fresh horror hit released the first week of the year, representing another strike of success for Blumhouse. But actress Jenna Ortega (who we proclaimed a Golden Year winner in our Golden Tomato Awards for her contributions to the dark genre arts) took back the crown with Scream VI in March (see where it ranks in the Scream franchise). In this guide to the newest scary movies, we’ll rank every week the best horror movies of 2023, which through the early months saw Knock at the Cabin (from director M. Night Shyamalan), Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool, and viral curiosity Skinamarink.

April revved things up with the return of Evil Dead in Rise, and May saw the latest in the long factory line of Stephen King adaptations, The Boogeyman. But, for critics, the one to beat this year is Mexico’s Huesera: The Bone Woman, the body-horror directorial debut of Michelle Garza Cervera.

Then it was a summer of screams with another A24 breakout, Australia’s Talk to Me, as the major studios chugged along with Haunted Mansion, Insidious: The Red Key, and The Blackening.

With the fall came more from The Conjuring universe with The Nun 2, Saw X, David Gordon Green’s The Exorcist: Believer, and then Five Nights at Freddy’s breaking records Halloween weekend.

Check back weekly as we rank the best new horror movies of the 2023, with Certified Fresh films first, followed by Fresh and then the morbidly Rotten.

Recently added: Thanksgiving, Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor, Sister Death, Suitable Flesh, Five Nights at Freddy’s, The Exorcist: Believer, Totally Killer, The Conference, When Evil Lurks.