Best horror films to watch in 2025

Everyone knows "if you make a half-decent horror movie, people will queue around the block to see it", said Time Out. That explains why there's a host of titles coming out in 2025, ranging from franchise sequels to brand-new screamers.

With the likes of "Nosferatu" featuring at the Oscars, the genre has "arguably never been in a better place", said Esquire. But what are the films that should be creeping onto your watchlist? Here's our choice of the titles to have you shaking in your seat.

Heart Eyes

If you're after "squelchy, visceral gore", Josh Ruben's "exuberantly grisly horror-rom-com mash-up" goes above and beyond, said Wendy Ide in The Guardian. Ally and Jay, played by Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding, find themselves the target of the "stab-happy romance-phobic Heart Eyes", a masked killer who attacks happy couples each Valentine's Day. However, "Heart Eyes" has got it wrong – the duo are work colleagues, not lovebirds, leading to a "tremendously knowing, fun romp" that shows how rom-coms and horror slashers "have more in common than you think", said Empire.

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In cinemas now

Sinners

Vampires may feature in Ryan Coogler's first attempt at horror, but the film "has a lot more going on" than that, said The Hollywood Reporter. "Dark, provocative and full of secrets", it stars identical twins – both played by Michael B. Jordan – who return to their Mississippi home town following the murder of their mother, said ShortList. The plot has largely been kept secret, but Coogler did say he'd been influenced by an episode of "The Twilight Zone" in which a man comes back to life at his own funeral. Add in a "stellar cast", including Hailee Steinfeld and Jack O'Connell, and this "blood-sucking horror" could be the year's best.

In cinemas 18 April

Final Destination: Bloodlines

Fourteen years after the fifth film in the franchise comes "Final Destination: Bloodlines" and the "gnarliest killing spree yet", said Empire. After previous fatalities included deaths by sunbed and barbecue, this time one of the victims meets their end "by nose piercing" in a "lethal chain-ceiling-fan-blazing-inferno combo". But judging by the trailer, "Bloodlines" is slightly different, said ScreenRant. Yes, people are still being killed in a variety of "absurd, cartoonishly convoluted" ways, but this time it appears Death is going after the family of survivors. Are these victims the children who should never have been born?

In cinemas 16 May

M3GAN 2.0

Roboticist Gemma and her orphaned niece Cady have moved on since defeating killer robot doll M3GAN in Gerard Johnstone's original film. But unknown to them, her blueprint has been used to create a new military-weapon version called Amelia, who – "as you might have suspected", said NBC – also decides humanity is not worth keeping around. And so Gemma resurrects M3GAN to fight back, giving her a few upgrades along the way "to even the odds". Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Amie Donald and Jenna Davis return, while Ivanna Sakhno joins as Amelia.

In cinemas 27 June

The Black Phone 2

Director Scott Derrickson has promised GamesRadar his sequel to "The Black Phone" will be "more graphic" and "scarier" than the original. In the 2021 horror, a masked assailant called the Grabber (Ethan Hawke) kidnaps and holds 13-year-old Finney (Mason Thames) in a soundproof basement. The boy escapes by using a black telephone to communicate with the Grabber's previous victims. This time, however, Finney is older and now in high school. Little is known about the plot, but both Thames and Hawke return – which will be "certainly be interesting", said the entertainment site, as the Grabber apparently died at the end of the first film.

In cinemas 17 October

Frankenstein

It's the film Guillermo del Toro said he'd been trying to make for decades – and the "Pan's Labyrinth" director "wasn't exaggerating", said US entertainment website IGN. Del Toro first started talking about remaking the classic horror in 2007, when he praised Frank Darabont's screenplay for Kenneth Branagh's 1994 version, but it wasn't until 2023 that Netflix signed up to the deal. Now del Toro's version of Mary Shelley's tale is finally being brought to life, with Oscar Isaac playing the life-giving-obsessed scientist and Jacob Elordi as his creation, complete, said Variety, with "stitched-up grey skin and a glint of red in his eyes".

Expected in November