Horror monsters have been a big part of movie history since the silent era. Since that time, movie monsters have appeared in countless films, with some specific monsters appearing almost nonstop for the past 100 years. This started with the Universal Horror Monsters of the 1930s, which introduced the world to Dracula and Frankenstein.
While Godzilla was very prominent from the 1950s onward, it seemed that horror picked up again with the slasher movies of the 1980s, which introduced several iconic monsters who carried the genre through long-running franchises. From serial killers to supernatural monsters, many creatures have been in double-digit movies.
The Wolf Man – 9
The Wolf Man was one of the last original Universal Monsters to get a movie, other than the Gill-Man. However, the Wolf Man was arguably the greatest of all the Universal Monsters thanks to the fact that the man behind the monster was such a tragic story. Larry Talbot never wanted this and mostly wished he could die and end his torment.
This, sadly, wasn’t enough to match his fellow horror monsters like Frankenstein and Dracula, who received non-stop movies based on their characters. In all, there were only eight movies featuring the Wolf Man, although there were many more featuring werewolves.
The Wolf Man himself appeared in five movies in the original Universal Classic Monsters series. In the 2000s, he appeared in Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet the Wolfman, Van Helsing, and House of the Wolf Man. Fans also can’t forget about the ’80s comedy classic The Monster Squad.He also appeared in a remake, The Wolfman, in 2010 and a reboot, Wolf Man, in 2025. While Hammer Films made its Dracula and Frankenstein movies, it created a unique werewolf movie.
Freddy Krueger – 9
Freddy Krueger stands alongside Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees as one of the most iconic slasher villains to appear in the 1980s. Freddy was a dream demon who was killed and returned to hunt down the children of his murderers in their dreams. This opened up more chances to return than almost any other horror monster.
However, Freddy only appeared in nine movies throughout history. His debut was in A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984, and he had seven movies in the original franchise. He also starred in a mash-up film, Freddy vs. Jason, and then got a reboot in 2010, which was critically panned.
While many of his movies were not appreciated by critics, he had two genuine masterpieces in the first movie and the third, Dream Warriors, and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare is an overlooked classic that was a few years ahead of its time. He has been absent for 15 years and counting, thanks to the failed reboot.
The Mummy – 10
The Mummy was one of the original Universal Horror Monsters. He hit theaters one year after Dracula and Frankenstein, with The Mummy debuting in 1932. In this original run, there were five solo Mummy movies, with Boris Karloff and Tom Tyler playing the monster before Lon Chaney Jr. took on the role for three films.
He also appeared in the 1955 comedy-horror film Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy. The original 1932 film featured ImH๏τep (played by Karloff), while the subsequent films (1940-1944) featured Kharis as the Mummy, an ancient Egyptian priest resurrected and seeking the reincarnation of his lost love.
In 1999, The Mummy returned as a new franchise, starring Brendan Fraser as an adventurer named Rick O’Connell. Here, the mummy was named ImH๏τep, a callback to the original 1932 film. After these three movies, Universal tried to revive the franchise in 2017 with a new mummy named Ahmanet. It was a box office flop.
Jason Vorhees – 10
There have actually been 12 movies in the Friday the 13th franchise, but interestingly, Jason Voorhees has only been in 10 of them. However, that is still one more than Freddy Krueger had in the Nightmare on Elm Street series. The two omissions are the first movie and the fifth one.
The first movie had Pamela Voorhees as the killer, and the final scene was arguably a nightmare sequence just to shock audiences, and likely wasn’t the actual Jason. The fifth movie had a copycat killer pretending to be Jason, so while it was a “Jason” killing people, it wasn’t really him.
However, the other 10 movies saw Jason Voorhees killing people at Camp Crystal Lake, in New York City, on Elm Street, and in outer space. What is most impressive is that Jason sits so high on the number of appearances, but he hasn’t been seen since 2009, remaining absent from the big screen for 16 years and counting.
Cenobites – 11
The Cenobites get their own spot because, unlike zombies, vampires, or werewolves, the Cenobites are their own unique species of monsters and are not interchangeable in movies. The leader in most of the films was Pinhead, also known as the Hell Priest.
Of course, the Cenobites’ first appearance came in Hellraiser in 1987, which remains the best film in the series, although the sequel, Hellbound: Hellraiser II, was also quite good. The original movie was based on Clive Barker’s novella The Hellbound Heart, but as the franchise moved on, it veered far from the source material.
From 1987 to 2018, 10 movies were released in the franchise, with most of the later ones being straight-to-video and critically panned. In 2022, Hulu released a reboot of the franchise that received generally positive reviews, but nothing has been done since then, leaving these monsters with 11 movies.
Michael Myers – 12
While Black Christmas came out first, it was Halloween that popularized the slasher horror genre and introduced Michael Myers, the first-ever iconic slasher killer in the new genre. Halloween set most of the rules for the new genre, with a monstrous killer hunting down young adults, and often targeting those who “sin.”
Wearing a plain white mask, Michael Myers terrorized his hometown on Halloween night, and the body count began to pile up quickly. In all, Michael has appeared in 12 movies in the franchise, which is impressive since director John Carpenter wanted to retire him after the first movie and move on to tell other stories.
While most sequels after the second Halloween movie were hit-or-miss, the franchise had two sets of reboots. First, Rob Zombie brought his sensibilities to Michael Myers in the 2000s with two films (2007 and 2009).
Then, in 2018, a critically acclaimed sequel to the original movie arrived, ushering in a new trilogy that ended with Halloween Ends in 2022. It should be noted that there are 13 Halloween films, but Michael Myers does not appear in Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982).
The Invisible Man – 14
The Invisible Man is another Universal Horror Monster, first appearing in the 1933 film of the same name, with Claude Rains starring as Dr. Jack Griffin, a mᴀss murderer who could turn invisible. The character returned in four solo-movie sequels through 1944, though one of them featured the Invisible Woman.
The Invisible Man then returned in Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man in 1951. Unlike many horror monsters, Hammer Films didn’t bother with bringing him in when it re-imagined the Universal Horror Monsters.
However, there have been several other Invisible Man movies, including a Japanese version of the horror monster and a Russian film featuring him. The most recent has been the best critically acclaimed, with 2020’s The Invisible Man, starring Elisabeth Moss as the woman haunted by the monster.
Godzilla – 39
Godzilla has one of the best legacies of any monster movie character. The giant kaiju emerged as horror movies changed after World War II, with classical monsters falling out of favor in favor of the giant beasts born of nuclear fallout. The first Godzilla movie was released in 1954 as Gojira.
This led to several more films, mostly from Japanese movie studio Toho. Along the way, more giant monsters were created, with Godzilla becoming almost the hero in the franchise. He even battled King Kong, while names like Mothra and King Ghidorah became popular in their own right.
There were 32 Toho movies until the incredible Godzilla Minus One became the 33rd from the studio in 2024. There was a critically panned American remake in 1998, and the more popular MonsterVerse movies that began in 2014, bringing the total number of Godzilla movies to 39, with more on the way.
Frankenstein – 50+
Frankenstein was the second horror monster introduced by Universal Studios, based on Mary Shelley’s novel. The movie premiered in 1931, the same year as Dracula, and made Boris Karloff one of Hollywood’s most beloved horror icons of the Golden Age of cinema.
After that, Frankenstein returned for seven sequels for Universal Studios, although Karloff didn’t return for many of them. This is also one of the rare Universal franchises where the sequel was actually better than the original film, with Bride of Frankenstein a mᴀssive triumph for the studio.
Hammer Films also used Frankenstein for its horror output, casting Christopher Lee as the creature and Peter Cushing as Baron Frankenstein. He appeared in five movies in this franchise. This was only the start, as Frankenstein appeared in several films over the years, both on his own and as a supporting character.
Add in movies like The Spirit of the Beehive, which was about the film and not the character, and Young Frankenstein, which was a brilliant Mel Brooks spoof, and there have been over 50 adaptations of the character. In 2025, Guillermo del Toro brought Frankenstein back again for a new take on the character.
Dracula – 100+
No movie monster has appeared in more feature films than Count Dracula. There was an unofficial movie years before he became Universal Studios’ first monster with Nosferatu. However, for Dracula himself, it all started with Dracula in 1931. There was also a Spanish-language film the same year, which is technically a different movie.
Bela Lugosi played Dracula in that movie and created the template that later actors followed. Four Dracula sequels followed the English-language film, and then the Abbott and Costello mash-up release wrapped things up for the character at the time.
Hammer Films then brought the character back with nine films, with Christopher Lee playing Dracula in most of them, and Peter Cushing as Abraham Van Helsing. That was only the start; there have been over 100 movies featuring Dracula.
This includes comedies like Love at First Bite and The Monster Squad, re-imaginings like Blacula, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Dracula Untold, spinoffs like Renfield and Abigail, and even animated movies like H๏τel Transylvania. Dracula is the most famous movie monster of all time, and has appeared in more films than any other.
