Turn off the lights, grab a blanket, and settle in with our picks for the best serial killer films ever made.

The 30 most disturbing serial killer movies of all time, ranked

Turn off the lights, grab a blanket, and settle in with our picks for the best serial killer films ever made.

By Declan Gallagher

June 9, 2026 6:00 p.m. ET

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'Memories of Murder,' 'M,' 'The Silence of the Lambs'. Credit:

Neon/Courtesy Everett; Courtesy Everett; Ken Regan/Orion/MGM

Serial killer movies occupy a uniquely unsettling corner of cinema, blending psychological tension with the darkest edges of human behavior. The genre has evolved dramatically over the decades and remains popular in an era when true crime stories have become increasingly ubiquitous."

Early standouts like *10 Rillington Place* and Michael Powell’s controversial *Peeping Tom* grounded their visceral horror in realism, exposing audiences to the quiet banality that masks monstrous impulses. David Fincher’s masterful *Zodiac* turned procedural investigation into a slow-burning descent into madness and uncertainty, while Mary Harron’s *American Psycho* skewered consumerist ’80s culture through the singular lens of Patrick Bateman’s unraveling mind.

And, of course, no exploration of the genre would be complete without acknowledging the seismic impact of *Halloween* and *Scream*, two films that reshaped the slasher landscape and influenced generations of filmmakers.

This list of the 30 best serial killer movies celebrates the most gripping, innovative, and culturally defining entries — films that continue to haunt, provoke, and captivate audiences around the world.

The Pledge (2001)

Jack Nicholson in 'The Pledge'.

Warner Brothers/Courtesy of Everett Collection

Sean Penn directed this haunting, revisionist adaptation of György Fehér’s *Twilight* (1990). Jack Nicholson is Jerry Black, a just-retired homicide detective who becomes unmoored when he begins looking into the unsolved murder of a young girl in his rural Nevada community.

*The Pledge* is a tough movie not just for its subject matter but because it withholds easy answers to its central mystery. Penn is more concerned with creating the ambience of a local community ripped apart by devastating crimes than constructing a straightforward thriller.

Featuring one of Nicholson’s best late-era performances and wonderful work from Robin Wright and Patricia Clarkson, *The Pledge* is a dark, disturbing tale of the lasting consequences murder leaves in its wake.

Where to watch *The Pledge*: Peacock

10 Rillington Place (1971)

Richard Attenborough has ulterior motives with tea in '10 Rillington Place'.

Courtesy Everett Collection

Richard Fleischer’s blood-chilling true-crime drama charts the exploits of John Christie (Richard Attenborough). One of England’s most infamous criminals, this meek, soft-spoken, working-class Englishman left a trail of bodies undiscovered for years.

The key figures here are Beryl (Judy Geeson) and Timothy Evans (John Hurt) — not to mention infant daughter Geraldine — who rent a flat from Mr. Christie. The arrangement ends in tragedy for the Evans family in ways we won't spoil, but the case would go on to have significant legal consequences in the U.K.

*10 Rillington Place* is an enraging story, but also a high point — along with Fleischer’s earlier *The Boston Strangler* (1968) — n the formative years of the serial killer film.

Where to watch *10 Rillington Place*: Prime Video (to rent)

Frailty (2001)

Matthew McConaughey in 'Frailty'. Everett Collection

Bill Paxton directed and starred in this exceptional psychological thriller. A man (Matthew McConaughey) who calls himself Fenton Meiks walks into an FBI office and confesses to the agent in charge (Powers Boothe) that, as children, he and his brother helped their father (Paxton) kill people he believed to be demons. Dad was convinced he had some sort of warped higher calling. As Fenton spins his yarn, both past and present get more complicated than they initially appear.

Powerful and underseen, *Frailty* earns its crime-fiction bonafides, but sets itself apart with its supernatural, spiritual overtones. Paxton gives true gravity to the film’s ideas about evil.

Where to watch *Frailty*: Prime Video

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)

A slasher-legend-in-the-making explains his techniques in 'Behind the Mask'. Everett Collection

This clever faux-documentary is something of a companion piece to *Man Bites Dog* as it finds a journalistic camera crew chronicling the titular wannabe killer (Nathan Baesel) as he mounts his first massacre.

Part slasher parody, part meta commentary on the structure of horror movies, and fully riotous, *Behind the Mask* is a dreadfully under-appreciated contribution to the subgenre that would have made for a terrific franchise. Unfortunately, we just got the one.

Still, it’s a spectacularly entertaining comedic thriller that follows through on the intent of its premise.

As of this writing, *Behind the Mask* is sadly not available to stream.

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Pieces (1982)

A police officer tries to put together the, ahem, pieces of a crime-scene puzzle in 'Pieces'.

Arrow Video/YouTube

One of the best “so bad it’s good” movies, Juan Piquer Simon’s gore epic follows the exploits of a chainsaw killer terrorizing a Boston college in search of body parts for a human jigsaw puzzle. On the case is a cop (Christopher George), a tennis pro-turned-undercover investigator (Lynda Day George), and the campus stud (Ian Serra).

*Pieces*’ acting and writing* *are ridiculous and often incompetent, though the film is notably not lacking in style. The practical effects are astonishingly explicit, somewhere between vintage giallo and Japanese slasher. There are also some genuinely suspenseful beats amid the more outrageous flourishes, which include the killer concealing a chainsaw under their cloak and a karate instructor blaming a violent assault on having ingested bad chop suey.

Where to watch *Pieces*: Tubi

Man Bites Dog (1992)

Benoît Poelvoorde in 'Man Bites Dog'.

*Man Bites Dog* follows a documentary crew tracking an increasingly mad serial killer (Benoît Poelvoorde) who kills anyone and everyone in his path. An exceptionally uncomfortable mockumentary, *Man Bites Dog* presaged our current fascination with true crime; its success stems from how it makes the audience complicit in the crimes.

There’s also a sharp wit to the way it questions the proclivities of filmmakers who are inclined to chronicle such horrible crimes in the first place, a metatextual flourish that finds directors Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, and Poelvoorde self-consciously second-guessing their own motivations.

Where to watch *Man Bites Dog*: HBO Max

Creep (2014)

An under-appreciated serial killer (Mark Duplass) pulls one of his many pranks in 'Creep'. Blumhouse Productions/ Duplass Brothers Productions

Patrick Brice directed this playfully suspenseful found-footage flick about an amateur filmmaker, Aaron (Brice), hired by Josef (Mark Duplass), a man who claims he’s dying and wants to make a video for his young son — the old “something to remember me by” — while he still can. As it turns out, he harbors darker intentions for his new guest.

Now that it’s become a franchise, with *Creep 2* (2016) and the small-screen extension *The Creep Tapes*, Brice’s initial feature stands as a stellar example of confined-space horror. The film maintains a steady degree of sweaty-palmed tension all the way to its conclusion. It possesses a keen sense of humor that never throws off the situational terror or discomfort.

Where to watch *Creep*: Netflix

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)

Michael Rooker in 'Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer'. Everett Collection

John McNaughton’s brutal picture of slow-witted Henry (Michael Rooker) and his compulsive yet detached crime spree — often alongside his old prison cohort Otis (Tom Towles) — set the template for the simmering, unvarnished studies of serial killer ideology that followed in ensuing decades.

*Henry* is a very tough movie, built on disturbingly casual violence and a characterization of the title character that is uniquely bleak even by horror standards. Though its purported real-life model, Henry Lee Lucas, was largely a fabulist, the film stands on its own as an exceptionally well-made chiller that has often been imitated, but rarely bested.

Where to watch *Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer*: Prime Video

Maniac (1980)

Kelly Piper in 'Maniac'.

Joe Spinell stars as the eponymous killer, a sweaty and sleazy denizen of New York City who spends his nights stalking and scalping women, taking their hair back to his apartment to adorn his mannequins.

William Lustig’s nasty piece of work is an ’80s grindhouse treasure enhanced by Tom Savini’s show-stopping gore effects (the special-effects maestro also appears as one of the victims). With a gritty milieu that makes you feel like you’re crawling through a cigarette-strewn gutter on 42nd Street circa 1980, *Maniac* is a must-see for horror and slasher devotees.

Where to watch *Maniac*: Tubi

Death Proof (2007)

Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) takes his murder weapon for a spin in 'Death Proof'.

Andrew Cooper/Weinstein Company

Originally released as one half of *Grindhouse*, Quentin Tarantino’s *Death Proof* is a throwback to the slasher and car-chase movies of the 1970s.

Stuntman Mike (a brilliantly against-type Kurt Russell) spends his off-hours hanging around local haunts and finding women to terrorize — sometimes by offering them rides in his reinforced car, sometimes with a game of road chicken. Either way, it results in their dismembered limbs being scattered across the road.

Eventually, Mike gets more than he bargains for when he picks on a female film crew (Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms, and Zoë Bell) that decides to give him a taste of his own medicine.

*Death Proof* is a rocket-powered action-thriller — prototypical Tarantino, albeit more straightforward than usual.

Where to watch *Death Proof*: Peacock

Opera (1987)

William McNamara is a bloody mess in 'Opera'. Everett Collection

Dario Argento’s unnerving thriller follows a young singer, Betty (Cristina Marsillach), who is given the opportunity of a lifetime to perform in a major production when the diva formerly assigned to the role is sidelined.

That blessing turns out to be a curse in disguise when Betty becomes the target of a crazed killer who murders people close to her — boyfriends and colleagues alike — while forcing her to watch. It only gets more lurid from there.

*Opera* is a classic Argento giallo and one of the genre maestro’s last great films. The Italian auteur behind *Suspiria* (1977) and *Tenebrae* (1982), known for his virtuosic and visually ambitious murder set pieces, lives up to that reputation here.

Where to watch *Opera*: Prime Video (to rent)

Angst (1983)

Silvia Rider and Erwin Leder in 'Angst'.

Amazon prime video

This disturbing Austrian film follows a murderer who gets released from a psychiatric hospital and immediately carries out his long-gestating desire — a *desperate *desire — to kill again. The “who” doesn’t particularly matter. He winds up stumbling upon an isolated house that gives him the opportunity to fulfill his needs.

As a forerunner to *Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Angst *may not be as explicitly violent, but it’s more grounded in reality — to the point of being messy and laborious, which makes the violence all the more disturbing.

Erwin Leder is revelatory in the unnamed lead role, and director Gerald Kargl effectively depicts the action with very little dialogue, aided predominantly by Leder’s voiceover and Klaus Schulze’s driving score.

Where to watch *Angst*: Prime Video

Halloween (1978)

Jamie Lee Curtis tries to survive the night in 'Halloween'.

Mary Evans/COMPASS INTERNATIONAL PICTURES/FALCON INTERNATIONAL PRODUC/Ronald Grant/Courtesy Everett

John Carpenter’s seminal slasher kicked off the subgenre’s boom — and we’ve never looked back. Years after slaying his sister on Halloween night as a 6-year-old boy, Michael Myers escapes Smith’s Grove Sanitarium and returns home to Haddonfield, where he makes a target of high-school wallflower Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her pals.

Meanwhile, Michael’s doctor (Donald Pleasence) is desperate to get his charge back in custody, and seemingly the only person who understands what Michael is capable of.

Carpenter’s spare slasher is remarkable for its restraint and its fusion of popcorn suspense with pure, undiluted terror.

Where to watch *Halloween*: AMC+

I Saw the Devil (2010)

Lee Byung-hun and Kim In-seo in 'I Saw the Devil'. © Magnet Releasing

After his pregnant girlfriend is abducted and murdered by a seemingly unassuming man (Choi Min-sik), former special forces officer Kim Soo-hyeon (Lee Byung-hun) sets out for revenge. After finding the killer in the first act, Soo-hyeon forces him to swallow a GPS tracking device and lets him go — then spends the rest of the movie tracking and tormenting him.

Kim Jee-woon’s astonishing action-thriller is a fusion of ideas and genres, including a surprising but not-unwelcome slapstick comedy runner. *I Saw the Devil* is masterful suspense filmmaking that feels a fraction of its 144-minute length. The rewarding, unexpected structure eventually gives way to a cataclysmic finale that’s as cathartic as it is heartbreaking.

Where to watch *I Saw the Devil*: Philo

American Psycho (2000)

Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) has a diplomatic discussion with Paul Allen about Huey Lewis and the News.

Lions Gate/courtesy Everett Collection

Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) is a wealthy Manhattan yuppie with a taste for murder. Whether terrorizing sex workers or axing his corporate competition, Bateman takes the same fervor consummating his violent delights as he does… well, crafting the right business card, or developing the proper skin care routine.

Director Mary Harron worked wonders on this adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ 1991 novel. The source material is occasionally witty and obsessive, but also carries a tone of unremitting nastiness. Harron slyly transforms it into a savage social satire, using the narrator’s unreliable point of view to borderline absurdist effect. The result is a razor-sharp evisceration of ’80s American politics, sexism, and capitalism wrapped inside a hysterically entertaining mental meltdown.

Where to watch *American Psycho*: Prime Video (to rent)

Scream (1996)

Courteney Cox, Jamie Kennedy, and Neve Campbell in 'Scream'.

Dimension/courtesy Everett Collection

Wes Craven’s meta-slasher revived a waning subgenre thanks to Kevin Williamson’s crackling script and a terrific cast led by Neve Campbell as final girl Sidney Prescott. When a masked slasher in a Ghostface mask begins picking off kids at Sidney’s high school, everyone puts their heads together to pinpoint the killer. Might it have something to do with the murder of Sidney’s mother a year earlier?

*Scream* remains a high-water mark of teen horror. It’s one of Craven’s most successful films, creatively and financially, giving the director of *The* *Last House on the Left *(1972) and *A Nightmare on Elm Street* (1984) a chance to once again reinvent the genre wheel.

Where to watch *Scream*: Paramount+

Badlands (1973)

Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek in 'Badlands'. Everett Collection

Kit (Martin Sheen) and Holly (Sissy Spacek) hit the road for a crime spree after he guns down her father (Warren Oates) for opposing their ill-advised courtship.

Terrence Malick’s American odyssey is one of the most beautifully designed crime pictures, functioning as a more contemporary take on *Bonnie and Clyde *while fearlessly carving out its own niche in the genre. While not as ethereal as Malick’s more recent work, *Badlands* indicates the direction the filmmaker’s career would go while delivering one of his most straightforward narratives. It’s one of the very best films of the ’70s.

Where to watch *Badlands*: Hulu

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) gets in a few swings in 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Everett Collection

Tobe Hooper’s masterwork follows a group of extremely unlucky teens who pick up an unhinged hitchhiker (Edwin Neal) and wind up at a rundown country house. Soon, they find themselves at the mercy of chainsaw-wielding, skin-wearing Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) and his charming family.

Hooper’s best film is an adrenaline-fueled nightmare, as much an endurance test for its audience as it was for the cast and crew working in the midst of a sweltering Texas summer. The sticky heat and buzzing flies are so oppressive, they almost pop from the screen. It’s so humid and suffocating that, by the time Leatherface shows up, it’s practically a relief.

Where to watch *The Texas Chain Saw Massacre*: Peacock

Manhunter (1986)

Brian Cox as Hannibal the Cannibal in 'Manhunter'.

De Laurentiis Group/Courtesy Everett Collection

Michael Mann directed this fabulous thriller, the first movie to feature Hannibal *Lecktor *(yes, spelled that way, and played by Brian Cox) and one that's positively dripping in synthy ’80s atmosphere. As Will Graham (William Petersen) follows the trail of a brutal family murderer known as the Tooth Fairy (Tom Noonan), the detective works with Lecktor to identify the culprit.

*Manhunter* is the second-best movie in the franchise after *The Silence of the Lambs*. Mann directs with a dreamy, almost impressionistic hand that feels right at home alongside his more polished later work. Noonan is astounding, but it’s Joan Allen, as one of his intended victims, who makes the biggest impression.

Where to watch *Manhunter*: Prime Video

Cure (1997)

Yoriko Dôguchi in 'Cure'.

courtesy Everett Collection

In this neo-noir–psychological puzzler, Detective Takabe (Koji Yakusho) grows increasingly agitated while investigating a string of bizarre murders. The culprits have all been caught and confessed, yet the killings remain unexplained. They’re clearly connected, yet it’s the lack of motive that ties them together. Takabe and a colleague (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) discover that each killer crossed paths with the same man just before committing their crimes. Indeed, something altogether more sinister — if not supernatural — is afoot.

*Cure*’s mood is one of perpetual dread. That the killer is more or less an abstraction, rather than a simple mouse to Takabe’s cat, transforms this whodunit into something much more existentially terrifying. It's arguably Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s crowning achievement.

Where to watch *Cure*: Criterion Channel

Seven (1995)

Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt in 'Seven'.

David Fincher’s first great serial killer thriller is relatively popcorny, but no less brutal than his later contributions to the genre. Hotshot rookie cop David Mills (Brad Pitt) is paired with dour, soon-to-be-retired detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) in a rainy, crime-riddled city as they investigate a string of murders inspired by the seven deadly sins.

This is a genuinely queasy and discomforting horror movie which, though far more streamlined than *Zodiac*, is very much in conversation with the director’s later film. *Seven* is unmissable. If you still haven’t seen it, we won’t tell you what’s in the box.

Where to watch *Seven*: Tubi

Peeping Tom (1960)

Anna Massey and Carl Boehm in 'Peeping Tom'.

Everett Collection

This unsparing account of a quiet young man who uses his camera to film his murders basically ended Michael Powell’s directing career. Its intimate depiction of an obsessive, latently sexualized form of violence — which is old-hat to modern audiences — was shocking at the time. (This was 1960s England, after all.)

Many of the ideas Powell explores were so ahead of their time as to be truly revolutionary. Powell’s technique of discreetly making the audience complicit by placing us within the killer’s lens takes on new meaning in an era of true crime fascination. Rarely has a film been so keenly aware of the link between voyeurism and filmmaking itself.

Where to watch *Peeping Tom*: Tubi

Peter Lorre in 'M'.

Everett Collection

Fritz Lang’s haunting, impressionistic crime opus sees the residents of Berlin rattled by a recent spate of brutal child murders. As pressure from increasingly worried parents mounts, the authorities ramp up their efforts to identify the killer (a revelatory Peter Lorre). Having a serial killer around isn’t so good for business in the criminal underworld, either, a fact driven home by a confrontation scene that remains the film’s most iconic.

*M*, highly controversial in its day, eschews explicit violence or finer details about the killer’s crimes. But in Lang’s hands, it feels more horrifying than any number of modern horror films. The film has continued to influence similar movies for nearly a century, but few have matched it.

Where to watch *M*: HBO Max

The Vanishing (1988)

Johanna ter Steege in the original 'The Vanishing'.

Everett Collection

Rex (Gene Bervoets) and Saskia (Johanna ter Steege) are on a road trip when she mysteriously disappears without a trace at a rest stop. Years pass, but Rex remains preoccupied with finding out what happened, to the point that he makes an open plea to the responsible party. That man, as it happens, is happy to oblige.

The less you know about George Sluizer’s lithe and twisty thriller, the better. It’s terrifically suspenseful and deviously sadistic; you'd be hard-pressed to watch it without letting it get under your skin. Avoid spoilers as best you can — the ending is a wallop.

Where to watch *The Vanishing*: Criterion Channel

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Robert Mitchum has thoughts on LOVE and HATE in 'The Night of the Hunter'.

Courtesy Everett

Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) is both a serial killer and a preacher, and has an uncanny ability to charm his way into people’s good graces. So when he marries a small-town widow (Shelley Winters), you can be sure it’s not for love.

It’s hidden loot he’s after. Her husband stole and hid it, and only their two children know where it is. He intends to get that information out of them by any means necessary.

The sole film helmed by Oscar-winning actor Charles Laughton, *The Night of the Hunter* is one of the great one-off directorial efforts, a nervy chase movie drenched in Southern Gothic atmosphere.

Where to watch *Night of the Hunter*: Prime Video

Memories of Murder (2003)

Song Kang-ho and Kim Sang-kyung in 'Memories of Murder'.

Neon/Courtesy Everett Collection

In 1986, with South Korea under military rule, two in-over-their-heads cops (Song Kang-ho and Kim Roi-ha), attempting to solve a spate of local murders, are joined by a sophisticated detective from Seoul (Kim Sang-kyung) who’s been sent to help. Loosely based on a then-unsolved series of killings, Bong Joon Ho’s electric crime procedural is indebted to Fincher’s early work and, appropriately enough, Fincher’s *Zodiac* owes much to *Memories of Murder*. They’d make a terrific double bill.

*Memories*, anchored by Song’s masterfully understated work, is effortlessly authentic in its rural milieu, with an attention to detail that gives it the feeling of a docudrama.

Where to watch *Memories of Murder*: Prime Video (to rent)

Monster (2003)

Christina Ricci and Charlize Theron in 'Monster'. Everett Collection

Charlize Theron won an Oscar for her portrayal of since-executed Florida serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a sex worker who was convicted of robbing and killing seven of her male clients. Patty Jenkins’ picture is heart-wrenching and sometimes difficult to watch, but it’s notable for how it works to humanize its complex subject.

Theron is revelatory in the transformative lead role, giving what remains one of her fiercest and most committed performances.

Where to watch *Monster*: Prime Video (to rent)

Psycho (1960)

Anthony Perkins in 'Psycho'.

Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection

Alfred Hitchcock’s shocker stars Janet Leigh as Marion Crane, the world’s most unlucky secretary. After making off with a substantial stack of cash from her job to fund a new life with boyfriend Sam Loomis (John Gavin), she gets waylaid by a rainstorm and stops to spend the night at the Bates Motel, run by awkward mama’s boy Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins).

Most know the twists and turns of Hitchcock’s still-iconic thriller, but it’s worth reiterating how shocking the bifurcated structure was upon release. *Psycho* is just as potent as it was on opening night, a testament to Hitchcock’s enduring power as a filmmaker.

Where to watch *Psycho*: Prime Video (to rent)

Zodiac (2007)

Robert Downey Jr. and Jake Gyllenhaal in 'Zodiac'.

Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection

David Fincher, master of the dark and macabre, delivered a masterpiece with this chilling procedural about the eponymous Bay Area serial killer, who claimed at least five lives while taunting investigators for decades with their unsettling correspondences.

Seen through the eyes of detective Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo), journalist Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.), and cartoonist-turned-amateur sleuth Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), *Zodiac* is a kaleidoscopic knockout driven by the same shadowy, pound-the-pavement grit of *All the President’s Men* (1976). It’s a stunning investigative thriller with particular attention to real-life detail and a handful of truly hair-raising moments of suspense.

Where to watch *Zodiac*: Paramount+

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Anthony Hopkins loves Senator Martin's suit in 'The Silence of the Lambs'.

Jonathan Demme directed this exceptional adaptation of Thomas Harris’ 1988 novel of the same name. FBI tenderfoot Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is sent by her mentor to meet with incarcerated cannibal Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) to gain insight into a killer known as “Buffalo Bill.” Bill has a nasty habit of abducting young women and removing their skin, and his latest abductee happens to be the daughter of a U.S. senator.

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The rare horror movie to win the Best Picture Oscar (Foster and Hopkins took home trophies as well), *Silence *has earned its place in the pantheon of classics. With this rare foray into horror, Demme directs with his customary warmth, wit, and humanity, but never shies away from the icky details. In the process he (and Hopkins) immortalized Lecter in the popular imagination for generations to come.

Where to watch The *Silence of the Lambs*: Tubi

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Source: “EW Thriller”