The horror genre has often prompted fans to discuss what the scariest movies of all time are. While the debate has always been subjective, some researchers have attempted to make an objective argument, one which includes the scientific method. Now a scientific study has revealed the 10 scariest movies of all time.
According to its methods, the study involves numerous screenings dictated by a list of English language horror movies. Test subjects are then monitored according to the “Science of Scare Score” which includes a combination of “heart rate (measured in beats per minute BPM), and heart rate variance (measured in milliseconds, or m/s).”
Based on these scores, as shared via the Science of Scare experiment page on MoneySupermarket, the ten scariest movies of all time have been listed as follows based on their 2025 study:
- 10. Talk To Me
- 9. The Exorcism of Emily Rose
- 8. Smile
- 7. Smile 2
- 6. Hereditary
- 5. The Conjuring
- 4. Insidious
- 3. Skinamarink
- 2. Host
- 1. Sinister
The 2012 horror movie Sinister is listed as the scariest horror movie of all time. Interestingly, the film has held the spot in the past, having been crowned as such in their initial 2020 study. In 2021, it lost to Host, but now it seems to have regained the title.
It’s interesting to see Sinister from Black Phone director Scott Derrickson rank so highly especially with so many new additions to the study, including both of the Smile films which broke into the Top 10, but it seems as though there’s something about Sinister that makes it perfect for this experiment.
It’ll be exciting to see which horror movies continue to make it into the list with follow-up studies. For now, however, 2025’s Top 10 list has been confirmed and there are some solid choices from the last few decades that found their way beating out so many other true and tried classics.
Interestingly, the list includes films both old and new, with this year’s big hit Weapons at the #50 spot and the 1974 classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre at the #28 spot. While the scientific method was applied to create this list, it looks like fans will still have to decide subjectively what the scariest horror movies of all time really are. This just adds another exciting argument to the discussion.