In addition to creative costumes, copious amounts of sweet treats, and pumpkin spice everything, another essential of the season is a good Halloween movie marathon. Even if you’re averse to scary films, there are plenty of options that will get you into the spirit of the holiday without causing nightmares. Whether you’re looking for a few chuckles, something to enjoy with the whole family, or a movie to truly scare your socks off, you’ll find something on our Halloween movies list that will have you howling with either laughter or fear–your choice.
Funny Halloween Movies
1. Hocus Pocus
The Sanderson sisters (played by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy) are three witches from the 17th century that accidentally get resurrected in the 20th century in Salem, Massachusetts. They try to regain their youth, leaving a trail of comedic antics in their wake. You only need to take one look at the Sandersons’ outfits to know this movie will be a witchin’ good time.
2. Practical Magic
Practical Magic is about two witch sisters who are burdened by a family curse where any man they fall in love with meets an untimely death. It sounds dark, but we promise, it’s actually a rom-com. Plus Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman star.
3. Beetlejuice
Tim Burton has a knack at making Halloween-appropriate movies you want to watch all year round. Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis are a recently deceased couple trying to haunt the family that moved into their old house. When they are unsuccessful, they call on an annoying, possibly deranged poltergeist named Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) to give them a hand. He’s a ghost with the most, and you can’t help but be entertained.
4. What We Do In the Shadows
You probably know director Taika Waititi for his recent successful movies such as Thor: Ragnarok and Jojo Rabbit, but before both of those, he co-directed this mockumentary about a group of centuries-old vampires trying to live in modern-day—er, night—Wellington, New Zealand. Waititi and his co-director Jemaine Clement both star in the movie and it is ridiculous and bitingly funny. The movie was also adapted into a TV series for FX.
5. Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters has everything you need in a Halloween movie: ghosts, ghostbusters, possession by ghosts, and…a giant marshmallow man terrorizing the city. The original 1984 version has an all-star cast that includes Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, and Sigourney Weaver, who all make cameos in the also impressively cast 2016 version starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristin Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones.
Family-Friendly Halloween Movies
6. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
No Halloween movies list would be complete without this cartoon classic! Linus spends Halloween night in the pumpkin patch waiting for the Great Pumpkin to show up, while Charlie Brown and the rest of the gang go trick-or-treating. Charlie Brown gets rocks instead of candy, Snoopy has the coolest costume around, and there is good clean fun to be had all around.
7. The Nightmare Before Christmas
We know “Christmas” is in the title, but this Tim Burton stop-motion film belongs on your Halloween movies list. Enjoy it on both Halloween and Christmas–and all the days in between. Jack Skellington is the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, where every day is Halloween. Tired of the same old routine, Jack discovers a portal to Christmas Town and tries, fairly unsuccessfully, to bring some merrier festivities into town.
8. Hotel Transylvania
Humans may be tired of being scared of monsters, but sometimes monsters need a break from humans as well. In this animated movie, Count Dracula (voiced by Adam Sandler) runs Hotel Transylvania, a five-star resort where monsters can relax away from human persecution, until one day a human stumbles upon the hotel. There are kid-friendly werewolves, mummies, vampires, and more, as well as two movie sequels and a TV series.
9. Casper
Not all ghosts are scary—Casper is just looking for a friend, and his uncles, the Ghostly Trio, are more troublemaking than terrifying. They befriend the Harveys (Bill Pullman and a young Christina Ricci) in this live-action and CGI film.
10. The Addams Family
They’re creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and spooky… The Addams family has been around for decades, from a TV series to the ‘60s to movies in the ‘90s, and an animated movie in 2019. Watching the adventures of Gomez, Morticia, Wednesday, Pugsley, and Uncle Fester will make your family seem a lot more normal.
11. Halloweentown
In this Disney Channel Original Movie, a young girl named Marnie discovers she comes from a family of witches. She discovers her grandmother (the late, great Debbie Reynolds) lives in Halloweentown, a magical place where witches and monsters coexist but are facing the threat of an evil creature.
Scream-worthy Halloween Movies
12. It
There’s a reason why people are afraid of clowns, and this movie will not make you feel any more comfortable around them. Based on the novel of the same name by King of Horror, Stephen King, It features a bloodthirsty clown named Pennywise that lures kids into sewers. Warning: If you didn’t have nightmares about clowns before watching It, you will afterward.
13. Get Out
Jordan Peele’s directorial debut is a horror movie that’s also a commentary on racism. When a white woman (Allison Williams) brings her Black boyfriend (Daniel Kaluuya) home to meet her parents, he uncovers a frightening family secret. It was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars and won for Best Original Screenplay.
14. Scream
The first Scream movie came out over 20 years ago (there have since been three sequels, with Scream 5 scheduled for 2022), but that white mask will be forever imprinted in our brains. Part slasher film and part mystery, Scream is full of twists and turns, jumpy scares, and a very memorable cameo by Drew Barrymore as the town (and you) try to figure out who’s the killer behind the Ghostface mask.
15. A Quiet Place
This movie will make you want to scream out loud, even if no one in the film can make a single noise. John Krasinski and Emily Blunt are a couple with kids living in a post-apocalyptic world where silence is not just golden, it’s life-saving—there are deadly creatures that hunt and kill based on sound.
16. Silence of the Lambs
Hannibal Lecter remains one of the most unnerving villains in movie history because he’s as intelligent as he is sociopathic. Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), an imprisoned cannibalistic serial killer and Claire Starling (Jodie Foster), an FBI trainee, develop a strange relationship as Starling tries to track down a violent serial killer on the loose. You’ll never think of fava beans in the same light.
Classic Scary Halloween Movies
17. Halloween
What better way to celebrate October than watching the original 1978 Halloween movie? Michael Myers (not the Austin Powers/Shrek actor) is a serial killer who, as a child, murdered his sister on Halloween night and committed to a sanitarium. Fifteen years later, he escapes and goes back home to continue his murderous ways. For scary movie lovers, there are 11 Halloween movies in the franchise, with two additional sequels on the way.
18. The Shining
Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson agrees to be the winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, which is closed for the season, and moves in with his family. He hopes to use the solitude to work on his writing, but the hotel’s haunted past slowly drives him insane.
19. Child’s Play
TBH, a Chucky doll is pretty terrifying, with his out of control red hair and crazed smile, just sitting around doing nothing. But when Chucky starts murdering people—because a serial killer transferred his soul into the doll—he becomes even more nightmarish.
20. The Nightmare on Elm Street
Even if you haven’t seen the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, you likely know what Freddy Krueger looks like. In the 1984 film and subsequent sequels, he’s a child killer who was burned alive and came back from the grave, who now invades people’s dreams and kills them in their sleep, causing them to die in real life.
21. The Exorcist
A twelve-year-old girl is possessed by demons and her mother tries to save her by performing an exorcism. The girl’s mutilated face itself is enough to cause night terrors, but wait until you see her walking down the stairs upside down and backward (this spider walk scene is not in the 1973 version but is included in the 2000 re-release) or her head spin 360 degrees. Don’t watch this one late at night–or by yourself.
How many flicks from our Halloween movies list have you seen? Tell us in the comments–and for an extra stylish season, shop our fall fashion picks!
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