Horror movies are often unfairly destroyed by critics, but occasionally they come close to reaching absolute perfection on Rotten Tomatoes. As a genre, horror gets a bad rap from movie critics, with movies in the genre rarely getting nominated for prestigious awards. However, not only are some horror movies Academy Award nominated, but they can end up dominating the charts on RottenTomatoes.com, coming quite close to the coveted 100% mark.

Horror movies that have found favor on the review compilation website tend to either tackle sensitive subjects that bait critical analysis or are simply old and iconic enough to warrant positive feedback. Scary movies with deep, sociopolitical themes or meticulous global presences commonly reach the 97%, 98%, and even 99% mark. That being said, some classic creature features have also held up strongly, pulling favor in the eyes of retrospective reviewers.

10

Get Out

98%

The horror movie directorial review of Jordan Peele, better known at the time for being one half of the irreverent Key & Peele sketch comedy duo, Get Out was a veritable phenomenon at the time of its release. The film stars Daniel Kaluuya as an inner-city pH๏τographer who steps outside of his cultural comfort zone when he visits his rich white girlfriend’s affluent suburban family for the first time. Before long, his feelings of unease and subtle racial tension begin to thaw away to something much more sinister lurking under the surface.

Get Out isn’t just an effective psychological thriller and mystery, but a scathing commentary on American racial relations that manages to strike the delicate balance of subtlety and statement. The film certainly isn’t afraid to mince words about its themes, earning it enough critical praise to reach the 98% mark. Even compared to Peele’s later horror releases, Get Out has still fares the best.

9

Let The Right One In

98%

Foreign horror films have a great sH๏τ at ascending the rankings of Rotten Tomatoes’ percentage system, with a new cultural viewpoint attracting criticism that might normally gloss over standard Hollywood releases. A Swedish production, Let the Right One In is a great working example of this thesis statement, accruing an impressive 98% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The story follows a lonely, bullied 12-year-old boy who begins an adolescent romance with his new next-door neighbor who is secretly a vampire.

Reviews of Let The Right One In praise the inspired storytelling, fresh takes on well-worn vampire tropes, and brilliant child acting. The themes of coldness and social isolation seem to resonate with its native Swedish audience, who may have inflated the film’s percentage with a slew of warm reviews. Regardless, Let the Right One In deserves its accolades as one of the best modern vampire movies.

8

The Babadook

98%

Some of the best-reviewed horror movies are those that can push the genre to its limits narratively, marrying a very real, very human dilemma with an abstract monster. The Babadook is one such film, an Australian horror movie drawing heavily from German expressionism. The film centers on a recently widowed single mother struggling to raise her son, all the while being stalked by a mysterious and terrifying enтιтy known as the Babadook.

What makes The Babadook so genius is the eponymous villain’s status as a visual metaphor, standing in for the very real sense of grief all people endure upon losing a loved one. The slow-burn horror, deep psychological themes, and clear appreciation for the films of antiquity grant The Babadook a heightened critical profile compared to most horror movies. That’s not even to mention The Babadook‘s status as an LGBTQ icon as designated by Netflix.

7

The Wailing

99%

Another international horror venture, The Wailing may not have been the film to put South Korean horror on the map, but it certainly solidified the country’s place as a thrilling horror gold mine. Set in a small village in the mountains of South Korea, The Wailing unfolds from the point of view of a lone police officer tasked with uncovering a series of mysterious events triggered by the arrival of a Japanese stranger. When his daughter becomes possessed, he’s forced to take a very personal stake in the supernatural goings-on.

The Wailing meshes together multiple genres, cultural sensibilities, and storytelling styles into a rich stew, somehow weaving every conflicting element together with expert dexterity. Critics seem to be aghast with the way twists and turns of the intriguing narrative, which merges the horror sensibilities of the East and West. The cross-cultural experiment left a strong enough impression to maintain an impressive 99% freshness rating, even 9 years later.

6

Bride Of Frankenstein

98%

One of the classic Universal monster movies might not be what one expects to find in a compilation of Rotten Tomatoes highest-ranked horror movies. Yet it’s at the lofty 98% freshness mark that Bride of Frankenstein remains, still incredibly influential all these decades later. A sequel to the original Frankenstein, the 1935 film was among the first to introduce the idea of “Frankenstein’s Bride” in the flesh, a concept that’s only ruminated on in the Mary Shelley novel.

Here, the scientist necromancer Henry Frankenstein is persuaded to follow through with creating a female companion for his unᴅᴇᴀᴅ monster, only to suffer the consequences of not learning his lesson with the first iteration. While Bride of Frankenstein was certainly looked upon favorably by contemporaneous critics, time has been even kinder to the film, which has since itself as a horror movie icon. With all sorts of interpretations of the themes Christianity and Sєxuality, Bride of Frankenstein might be the best film to feature Boris Karloff as The Monster.

5

The Ring

98%

While Gore Verbinski’s remake might be more familiar to Western audiences, it’s 1998’s original The Ring, sometimes known as Ringu, that’s managed to capture an impressive 98% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Like the Western version, The Ring chronicles a reporter’s efforts to research a cursed videotape that kills those who watch it after seven days. It’s not long before the culprit behind the curse, Sadako, is flushed out of hiding and ready to vengefully attack those looking into her wrath.

The elements of The Ring that has sH๏τ it to such acclaim on Rotten Tomatoes are its simplicity, effective scares, and cultural purity. The Ring was single-handedly responsible for inspiring a Western craze for Japanese horror, leading to remakes like the Verbinski version as well as other cross-cultural reboots like The Grudge series. Taking a more responsible, subtle approach to a genre that had long been dominated by gaudy slasher movies, The Ring‘s high freshness rating is indicative of its broad cinematic influence.

4

Under The Shadow

99%

Despite being such a recent and relatively unknown entry in the horror genre, Under the Shadow has earned critical acclaim for obvious reasons, just one percentage point shy of a perfect freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The Persian-language film describes a mother and daughter caught amid the throes of the First Gulf War in Iran. Their circumstances go from bad to worse when a bomb unleashes not just explosives, but a fearful ancient evil spirit.

Under the Shadow makes the bold choice to marry the very real horrors of war with the fantastical horrors of Middle-Eastern mythology, bringing the very real struggle that many families faced in the conflict to grisly light. Critics have continually congratulated Under the Shadow for defying genre conventions at every turn. After all, most movies featuring genies, or Djinn, are fun, family-friendly affairs, but Under the Shadow examines their terrifying real-world origins straight from the source.

3

Vampyr

98%

Vampire movies have been around for a very long time, but some of the oldest entries in the horror subgenre still manage to remain some of the best. Enter Vampyr, an incredibly influential gothic horror film from 1932 that was among the first to describe the vampire legend for the screen. The plot follows a young student of the occult who finds himself in a remote village in the French countryside plagued by a living vampire.

Despite getting mixed and even overtly negative reviews at the time of its release, Vampyr has slowly aged into a quiet favorite of many knowledgeable critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Praise has been offered for the film’s dreamlike visuals, gradual building of dread, and philosophical quandaries on the nature of life, death, and the eroticism the vampire subgenre has come to be known for. Even if it’s overshadowed by its predecessor, Nosferatu, Vampyr is at the very least a critical darling.

2

Jaws

97%

One of the most influential films of all time, it’s no surprise that Jaws swims right up to the line of perfection on RottenTomatoes.com. If anything, it’s astonishing that Jaws isn’t able to float past the 100% mark, though it has admittedly aged in some ways. The film needs little introduction, taking place in a pleasant tourist town whose summer season is thrown into jeopardy in the wake of a series of grisly shark attacks carried out by a single man-eating great white.

The cultural impact of the film needs little introduction, as Jaws essentially invented the summer blockbuster. Beyond its mere influence on film as a medium, Jaws has also held up astonishingly well, pointed out as genuinely frightening, exciting, and memorable by modern reviews despite its relatively mundane subject matter by current standards. A rock-solid masterpiece of storytelling dressed up in all the spectacle of a gory creature feature, it’s no wonder Jaws made Spielberg a force to be reckoned with.

1

Psycho

97%

Another household name of a horror movie and the most famous film of legendary director Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho continues to be venerated with a lofty 97% freshness rating. Perhaps the first slasher movie, Psycho centers on a series of murders surrounding the mysterious Bates Motel. From there, the iconic antagonist Norman Bates, played by Anthony Perkins, takes the reigns as one of the most deliciously evil performances ever put to screen.

Though infamous for its suspenseful shower scene, Psycho is simply a masterpiece through-and-through. Hitchcock’s commitment to his craft is endlessly commendable as the film lays the foundations of the modern horror film as audiences know it today before their very eyes. Still horror movie royalty for a good reason, Psycho‘s combination of suspense, fear, tension and mystery is hard to replicate, even by modern moviemaking standards.