Directed by Richard Kelly • 2001 • United States
Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, James Duval

Described by director Richard Kelly as “‘The Catcher in the Rye’ as told by Philip K. Dick,” this cult classic is a mind-altering experience whose metaphysical enigmas are still being unraveled. T...

Direcyed by Na Hong-jin • 2016 • South Korea
Starring Chun Woo-hee, Hwang Jung-min, Kwak Do-won

In this unrelentingly tense supernatural thriller, a foreigner’s mysterious appearance in a quiet, rural village unleashes a wave of suspicion among the locals—a gathering mistrust that quickly turns ...

Directed by Takashi Miike • 1999 • Japan
Starring Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Miyuki Matsuda

In one of the most notorious horror films ever made, recent widower Shigeharu (Ryo Ishibashi) sets out to find a new wife by staging an “audition.” Interviewing a series of women, Shigeharu becomes encha...

Directed by Jack Hill • 1967 • United States
Starring Lon Chaney Jr., Carol Ohmart, Jill Banner

Something like THE ADDAMS FAMILY meets THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, this gloriously schlocky cult classic from exploitation legend Jack Hill (SWITCHBLADE SISTERS, FOXY BROWN) tells the demented and d...

Directed by Jennifer Kent • 2014 • Australia
Starring Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Daniel Henshall

An instant cult classic of psychological horror, the feature debut from Jennifer Kent packages a disquieting exploration of trauma, grief, and healing in the form of a spellbinding fairy-tale nightma...

Directed by Takashi Shimizu • 2002 • Japan
Starring Megumi Okina, Misaki Ito, Takashi Matsuyama

A cursed house—where years earlier a woman, her son, and cat were murdered—has some seriously spooky surprises in store for all who pass through its door. When social worker Rika (Megumi Okina) is sen...

Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa • 2001 • Japan
Kumiko Aso, Haruhiko Kato, Koyuki

In Tokyo, a group of young people begin to experience strange phenomena involving missing coworkers and friends, technological breakdown, and a mysterious website that asks them, “Do you want to meet a ghost?” After th...

Directed by David Cronenberg • 1977 • Canada
Starring Marilyn Chambers, Frank Moore, Joe Silver

David Cronenberg cemented his reputation as one of the most daring directors of his generation with his deeply disturbing second foray into the body-horror genre. After undergoing radical emergency su...

Directed by George A. Romero • 1985 • United States
Starring Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander, Joseph Pilato

In the third film in writer-director George A. Romero’s Living Dead saga (after NIGHT and DAWN), a small group of scientists and soldiers have taken refuge in an underground missile silo, w...

Directed by Dario Argento • 1975 • Italy
Starring David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi, Gabriele Lavia

From Dario Argento, maestro of the macabre and the man behind some of the defining works of Italian horror, comes DEEP RED—the ultimate giallo movie. One night, musician Marcus Daly (BLOW-UP’s David...

Directed by Sergio Martino • 1972 • Italy
Starring Edwige Fenech, George Hilton, George Rigaud

After suffering the loss of a child, a woman joins a Satanic cult with the hope of ridding herself of nightmarish dreams—but rather than easing her trauma, she soon finds her darkest, most disturbing ...

Directed by Hideo Nakata • 1998 • Japan
Starring Nanako Matsushima, Hiroyuki Sanada, Miki Nakatani

The film that launched the craze for J-horror in the West, director Hideo Nakata’s international sensation melded traditional Japanese folklore with contemporary anxieties about the spread of techn...

Directed by Claire Denis • 2001 • France
Starring Vincent Gallo, Tricia Vessey, Béatrice Dalle

Claire Denis’s poetic take on the body-horror genre is an atmospheric reverie of blood and lust that lays bare the filmmaker’s core artistic concerns around power, desire, and delirium. Newlyweds Shane...

Directed by Věra Chytilová • 1987 • Czechoslovakia
Starring Miroslav Machácek, Tomás Palatý, Stepánka Cervenková

Věra Chytilová’s subversive take on the 1980s teen-horror movie assembles a gaggle of bratty adolescents for a mysterious skiing retreat at a snowbound cabin where they find themselve...

Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa • 1997 • Japan

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s arresting international breakthrough established him as one of the leaders of an emerging new wave of Japanese horror while pushing the genre into uncharted realms of philosophical and existential exploration. A string of shocking, s...

Directed by Jayro Bustamante • 2019 • Guatemala
Starring María Mercedes Coroy, Margarita Kénefic, Sabrina de la Hoz

A country’s bloody history stains the present in the Guatemalan auteur Jayro Bustamante’s transfixing fusion of folk horror and searing political commentary, inspired by the real-l...

Directed by Ricky Lau • 1985 • Hong Kong
Starring Lam Ching-Ying, Ricky Hui, Chin Siu-Ho

The film that, along with producer Sammo Hung’s SPOOKY ENCOUNTERS, launched an entire hopping-vampire horror-comedy subgenre is Hong Kong cinema at its most gleefully inventive and gloriously unrestrained. T...

Directed by David Cronenberg • 1981 • Canada
Starring Stephen Lack, Jennifer O’Neill, Michael Ironside

With SCANNERS, David Cronenberg plunges us into one of his most terrifying and thrilling sci-fi worlds. After a man with extraordinary—and frighteningly destructive—telepathic abilities is nabb...

Directed by Guillermo del Toro • 1993 • Mexico
Starring Federico Luppi, Ron Perlman, Claudio Brook

Guillermo del Toro made an auspicious and audacious feature debut with CRONOS, a highly unorthodox tale about the seductiveness of the idea of immortality. Kindly antiques dealer Jesús Gris (Federi...

Criterion Collection Edition #539

How to describe Nobuhiko Obayashi’s indescribable 1977 movie HOUSE (HAUSU)? As a psychedelic ghost tale? A stream-of-consciousness bedtime story? An episode of “Scooby-Doo” as directed by Mario Bava? Any of the above will do for this hallucinatory head trip abou...

Criterion Collection Edition #584

Directed by Kaneto Shindo • 1968 • Japan
Starring Kichiemon Nakamura, Nobuko Otowa, Kei Sato

In this poetic and atmospheric horror fable, set in a village in war-torn medieval Japan, a malevolent spirit has been ripping out the throats of itinerant samurai. Whe...

Directed by Brian De Palma • 1973 • United States
Starring Margot Kidder, Jennifer Salt, Charles Durning

Margot Kidder is Danielle, a beautiful model separated from her Siamese twin, Dominique. When a hotshot reporter (Jennifer Salt) suspects Dominique of a brutal murder, she becomes dangerously...

Directed by Carl Th. Dreyer • 1932 • France, West Germany
Starring Julian West, Maurice Schutz, Rena Mandel

With VAMPYR, Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer channeled his genius for creating mesmerizing atmosphere and austere, unsettling imagery into the horror genre. The result—a chilling film...

Directed by Georges Franju • 1960 • France
Starring Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, François Guérin

At his secluded chateau in the French countryside, a brilliant, obsessive doctor (Pierre Brasseur) attempts a radical plastic surgery to restore the beauty of his daughter’s disfigured countenance—a...