I’m a horror expert – these are the 10 best films of the 2020s

The past five years really have been wonderful ones for horror fans. Beyond casual reboots of franchise flicks or shrug-worthy sequels, so-called “elevated horror” is having its time in the sun: serious arthouse and indie directors keep tackling the genre, and while the label itself might be nonsensical, the popularity of these films speaks for itself.

Far from the haunted house trope of his first movie, A24 darling Ari Aster’s Beau is Afraid is a horrific odyssey through anxiety made manifest, and soon his next film – the violent and peculiar Eddington – will be out in UK cinemas. That’s another film that is horror only in the truest sense (featuring Covid deniers, QAnon-esque conspiracy theorists, and American gun violence, naturally). Meanwhile, stand-out supernatural indie horror Talk to Me, made last year by Australian brothers Danny and Michael Phillipou, is due for an anticipated sequel this summer. 

And for the bravest among us, there’s the breakout success of the grotesque Terrifier franchise, where the sadistic Art the Clown has created a new generation’s worth of nightmares. I bring up all these varied honorary mentions because none have made it to my list of best horrors of the 2020s; that just goes to show you how tough the competition is. Watch if you dare…

10. Final Destination: Bloodlines, dir. Zach Lipovsky

It’s become de rigueur to scoff at horror franchises like these, but the latest Final Destination – number six – might be the most fun I’ve had at a cinema this year. Lipovsky’s film leans into the legacy of well-timed gas leaks, bridge collapses, falling knives, and jack-knifing log trucks with such vivacity and imagination that it’s impossible not to fall for. Carefully toeing the line between delightfully OTT carnage and occasional pathos (thanks to the late Tony Todd’s brief and final cameo onscreen), this is as satisfying as big mainstream horror comes.

9. Infinity Pool, dir. Brandon Cronenberg

It’s only right and proper that the son of David Cronenberg should be so good at making squishy, freak-out body horror about identity and technology. In his Infinity Pool, a writer on holiday is drawn into a murder plot. Cronenberg’s film tackles the 1 per cent and their increasing ability to escape punishment for misdeeds. Away on their luxury holidays in an otherwise impoverished and corrupt nation, Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth become capable of transcending all moral and legal boundaries through their money and power. Imagine White Lotus if it were about 1000 per cent weirder and grosser, and you’re getting close.

8. Nosferatu, dir. Robert Eggers

Robert Eggers, director of The VVitch and The Northman, has always obsessively pursued historical detail, distinguishing his horror films as a cut above your usual period pieces. But in this toweringly creepy and surprisingly sensual Nosferatu – a remake of the silent horror classic from 1930s Germany known for its long geometric shadows and clear parallels with Dracula – he uses historical realism as a great jumping-off point for gothic horror. Staying faithful to the source while drawing out the more perverse and sado-masochistic sexual elements of the vampire myth, this is a visual feast and an intellectually satisfying one, to boot.

7. X, dir. Ti West

Mia Goth, freaky/sexy woman that she is, makes a second appearance on my list of best 2020s horror; she’s a perfect scream queen with her girlish faux-innocence. In the first of Ti West’s period-set horror trilogy starring Goth (prefacing Pearl and then Maxxxine), there’s a clear loving homage to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Here, a group of eager pornographers of the 1970s, looking to shoot their latest skin flick, stumble upon the wrong elderly Texan couple in the deep woods. Filmed with a knowing, grimy reference to that era’s grindhouse and porno trends, X has some excellent, sicko kills – and one angry alligator you’re unlikely to forget.

6. Longlegs, dir. Oswald Perkins

Perkins pulls off a tonal and visual masterclass in his throwback to Silence of the Lambs with an unnerving occult twist, a film that is somehow both cheekily ironic and deadly solemn. Leaning into the popularity of true crime and fascination with serial killers, he casts Nicolas Cage as the demonic haunter of Maika Monroe’s dreams – a lifelong curse that the FBI agent has been plagued by since childhood. Punchy, stylish, and making up for any flaws with some genuinely terrifying details, Longlegs worked on me so well that it made me nervous walking home from the cinema.

5. Oddity, dir. Damian McCarthy

This Irish indie, which streamed on horror channel Shudder last Halloween, was a surprise highlight for me: a stomach-clenching, dread-inducing supernatural horror about a potential cursed object, a long night in an ominously empty modernist house, and one giant, demonic-looking wooden puppet that you spend the entire film looking at in the foreground, hoping to heaven that it doesn’t move of its own accord. Bad news: it does.

4. Barbarian, dir. Zach Creggar

Let’s be honest: has anyone ever thought about AirBnBs the same way ever since?

3. Nope, dir. Jordan Peele

For repetition’s sake, I didn’t list Jordan Peele’s latest rollicking vampire horror, Sinners, in this list. But if I’m being honest, it was hard to decide – Peele is a master of shifting tones, breathing new life into old genres and tropes, and here with Nope, essentially reworking Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind to tell a story about how genre filmmaking has excluded black people since the very beginning of cinema. Full of movie buff references to cinema history – but also an alien invasion and a horribly memorable face-ripping chimp attack – Nope is a weird horror movie bursting with ideas and metaphors. I love it.

2. Host, dir. Rob Savage

At a poetically slim 56 minutes – the length of a Zoom call, after all – Rob Savage used all the tools of our pandemic reality to make one of the scariest modern horrors of the 2020s. Imagining a Covid party video call between pals – we all did it at one point, didn’t we? – Savage taps into deep-rooted fears about our ability to stay connected and safe. When the party is torn asunder by strange events – and eventually, each caller disappearing one by one, seemingly haunted by an invisible poltergeist predator, Host relies on what we cannot see to frighten us most.

1. Titane, dir. Julia Ducournau

The Palme D’or-winning body horror about gender, femininity, and the violence we do to ourselves may not be the most straightforwardly “scary” on the list, but I do think it’s the most powerful. It tells the story of a young woman wanted for murder who goes on the run disguised as a man. It is full of moments of shocking violence and sudden heartbreaking tenderness, which tests audience limits but ultimately rewards viewers with something deeper than your usual body horror. It’s a cliche to say a film is “about what it means to be human”, but Titane is precisely that, and it’s excellent.