(Photo by Neon. Thumbnail: Blumhouse/Everett Collection.)
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 expect actress Jenna Ortega (who we proclaimed a Golden Year winner in our Golden Tomato Awards for her contributions to the dark genre arts) back for the crown with Scream VI in March. In this guide to the newest scary movies, we’ll rank best horror movies of 2023 every week, which so far notably includes Knock at the Cabin (from director M. Night Shyamalan), Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool, and viral curiosity Skinamarink.
(See the best horror movies of previous years with our guides to 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018.)
On the horror calendar for 2023: Evil Dead Rise (April), Nicolas Cage‘s gothic wishes coming true in Renfield (April), Chris Stuckmann’s directorial debut Shelby Oaks (July), Disney’s return to the Haunted Mansion (August), more from The Conjuring universe with The Nun 2 (September), and David Gordon Green’s The Exorcist (October).
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: Scream franchise), Cocaine Bear (hey, enough headlines were calling it a horror-comedy so we’re going with it), Children of the Corn (the latest in a long ignoble line of Stephen King adaptations), and Swallowed (with Jena Malone).
#1
Adjusted Score: 103505%
Critics Consensus: A bone-chilling body horror, Huesera offers genre fans a twisted take on What to Expect When You're Expecting.
Synopsis: Valeria's joy at becoming a first-time mother is quickly taken away when she's cursed by a sinister entity. As danger...
[More]
#2
Adjusted Score: 96563%
Critics Consensus: A possession thriller that knows the devil's in the details, Attachment scares some fresh angles out of a well-worn horror subgenre.
Synopsis: ATTACHMENT is a horror romance about Maja, a has-been actress in Denmark, who falls in love with Leah, a young,...
[More]
#3
Adjusted Score: 113058%
Critics Consensus: Unapologetically silly and all the more entertaining for it, M3GAN is the rare horror-comedy that delivers chuckles as effortlessly as chills.
Synopsis: M3GAN is a marvel of artificial intelligence, a life-like doll programmed to be a child's greatest companion and a parent's...
[More]
#4
Adjusted Score: 98632%
Critics Consensus: Turbulent waters even for strong swimmers, Infinity Pool provides a visceral all-inclusive retreat of Cronenbergian perversion for those wanting to escape commercial sundries.
Synopsis: While staying at an isolated island resort, James (Alexander Skarsgård) and Em (Cleopatra Coleman) are enjoying a perfect vacation of...
[More]
#5
Adjusted Score: 89082%
Critics Consensus: Smart, self-aware, and all too timely, this slasher co-written by Kevin Williamson is Sick in all the best ways.
Synopsis: As the pandemic steadily brings the world to a halt, Parker and her best friend Miri decide to quarantine at...
[More]
#6
Adjusted Score: 79074%
Critics Consensus: Within the outline of its fairly standard story, The Offering puts a unique -- and often genuinely scary -- spin on demonic possession horror tropes.
Synopsis: In the wake of a young Jewish girl's disappearance, the son of a Hasidic funeral director returns home with his...
[More]
#7
Adjusted Score: 94464%
Critics Consensus: Certain aspects of horror's most murderously meta franchise may be going stale, but a change of setting and some inventive set pieces help keep Scream VI reasonably sharp.
Synopsis: Following the latest Ghostface killings, the four survivors leave Woodsboro behind and start a fresh chapter....
[More]
#8
Adjusted Score: 76860%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Amy, a young woman is on the run with her young son Adrian from her abusive ex-girlfriend. When the past...
[More]
#9
Adjusted Score: 89337%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Two playwrights, George and Charlie, are tasked with the challenge of creating the next "avant-garde, surrealistic, mind-bending neo-noir thriller". As...
[More]
#10
Adjusted Score: 84158%
Critics Consensus: Although its second half is difficult to digest, Swallowed is an admirably unusual -- and overall effective -- mixture of body horror and romance.
Synopsis: After a drug run goes bad, two friends must survive a nightmarish ordeal of drugs, bugs and horrific intimacy....
[More]
#11
Adjusted Score: 75052%
Critics Consensus: The Outwaters may strike some viewers as frustratingly withholding, but it remains an ambitious -- and overall effective -- slice of found-footage horror.
Synopsis: Four travelers experience a mind-bending trip through terror while camping in a remote stretch of the Mojave desert....
[More]
#12
Adjusted Score: 78122%
Critics Consensus: Skinamarink can be more confounding than frightening, but for viewers able or willing to dial into its unique wavelength, this unsettling film will be difficult to shake.
Synopsis: Two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their father is missing, and all the windows...
[More]
#13
Adjusted Score: 42288%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: When two estranged friends reconnect, things buried deep down are bound to surface. Wannabe famous vlogger Andrew Castellano sets off...
[More]
#14
Adjusted Score: 88480%
Critics Consensus: Although it's often less than scary and parts of the story don't bear scrutiny, Knock at the Cabin is a thought-provoking chiller and upper-tier Shyamalan.
Synopsis: While vacationing at a remote cabin, a young girl and her parents are taken hostage by four armed strangers who...
[More]
#15
Adjusted Score: 70620%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: In 1987, a group of counselors accidentally unleash a decades’ old evil on the last night of summer camp. As...
[More]
#16
Adjusted Score: 62182%
Critics Consensus: Conceptually strong but uneven in execution, There's Something Wrong with the Children is a serviceable horror movie that could have been much more.
Synopsis: When Margaret (Alisha Wainwright) and Ben (Zach Gilford) take a weekend trip with longtime friends Ellie (Crew) and Thomas (Santos)...
[More]
#17
Adjusted Score: 49292%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: HUNT HER, KILL HER follows a lone night shift janitor during her first night on the job who finds herself...
[More]
#18
Adjusted Score: 55022%
Critics Consensus: Blood has a handful of solid scares, but a narrative that fails to truly coagulate makes this half-empty vial of vampire horror difficult to recommend.
Synopsis: Jess (Michelle Monaghan), a nurse and mother recently separated from her husband (Skeet Ulrich), moves her daughter Tyler (Skylar Morgan...
[More]
#19
Adjusted Score: 44859%
Critics Consensus: We Have a Ghost has a fun concept and a talented cast; unfortunately, this spookily uneven '80s pastiche also has very little idea of what to do with them.
Synopsis: Finding a ghost named Ernest haunting their new home turns Kevin's family into overnight social media sensations. But when Kevin...
[More]
#20
Adjusted Score: 44993%
Critics Consensus: Despite being blessed with Jena Malone in the lead, Consecration serves up Catholic-themed horror that's far more hoary than hallowed.
Synopsis: In CONSECRATION, after the suspicious death of her brother, a priest, Grace (Jena Malone) goes to the Mount Saviour Convent...
[More]
#21
Adjusted Score: 27542%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A powerful biotech company has breakthrough technology allowing them to clone history's most influential people with just a few fragments...
[More]
#22
Adjusted Score: 14135%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Trapped in a bunker during World War I, a group of soldiers are faced with an ungodly presence that slowly...
[More]
#23
Adjusted Score: 22281%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A year into living through a worldwide pandemic, a group of friends gather in the remote Tahoe Mountains, to stay...
[More]
#24
Adjusted Score: 12424%
Critics Consensus: Bereft of a single kernel of fear or excitement, this Children of the Corn suggests the franchise is irrevocably lost in a maize of sub-mediocrity.
Synopsis: Possessed by a spirit in a dying cornfield, twelve-year-old Eden recruits the other children in her small town to rise...
[More]
#25
Adjusted Score: 6807%
Critics Consensus: Oh, bother.
Synopsis: The days of adventures and merriment have come to an end, as Christopher Robin, now a young man, has left...
[More]
