CineBrawlBest horror movie
The 32 movies of the “Best horror movie” bracket, with year, director, runtime and rating for each — then play the knockout tournament and let your own duels pick the winner.
▶ Play this tournamentWhat is in this bracket
The bracket spans 64 years of cinema, from 1960 to 2024, with an average TMDB rating of 7.4/10. The dominant genres are Horror (31 movies), Thriller (15 movies), Mystery (14 movies), Drama (7 movies). James Wan appears 3 times, John Carpenter appears 2 times, Ari Aster appears 2 times — a good sign of how much one filmography weighs on the outcome. Watching the whole line-up back to back would take about 59 hours. The 2010s are the best represented decade with 13 entries.
The highest-rated entry going in is Psycho (1960) at ★ 8.4/10 — but a bracket is not a ranking: it only takes one duel against a favourite of yours for it to go out in the first round.
The full line-up (32 movies)
Seeded in the order they enter the bracket. 32 titles means 5 rounds and 31 duels to a champion.
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The Shining
Jack Torrance accepts a caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, where he, along with his wife Wendy and their son Danny, must live isolated from the rest of the world for the winter. But they aren't prepared for the madness that lurks within.
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The Exorcist
When a mysterious entity possesses a young girl, her mother seeks the help of two Catholic priests to save her life.
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Alien
During its return to the earth, commercial spaceship Nostromo intercepts a distress signal from a distant planet. When a three-member team of the crew discovers a chamber containing thousands of eggs on the planet, a creature inside one of the eggs attacks an explorer. The entire crew is unaware of the impending nightmare set to descend upon them when the alien parasite planted inside its unfortun
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Psycho
When larcenous real estate clerk Marion Crane goes on the lam with a wad of cash and hopes of starting a new life, she ends up at the notorious Bates Motel, where manager Norman Bates cares for his housebound mother.
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The Thing
A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.
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Halloween
Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween Night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.
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The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Five friends head out to rural Texas to visit the grave of a grandfather. On the way, they stumble across what appears to be a deserted house, only to discover something sinister within. Something armed with a chainsaw.
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The Silence of the Lambs
Clarice Starling is a top student at the FBI's training academy. Jack Crawford wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into a case and that Starling, as an attractive young woman, may be just the bait to draw him ou
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Jaws
When the seaside community of Amity finds itself under attack by a dangerous great white shark, the town's chief of police, a young marine biologist, and a grizzled shark hunter embark on a desperate quest to kill the beast before it strikes again.
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Hereditary
Following the death of the Leigh family matriarch, Annie and her children uncover disturbing secrets about their heritage. Their daily lives are not only impacted, but they also become entangled in a chilling fate from which they cannot escape, driving them to the brink of madness.
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Get Out
Chris and his girlfriend Rose go upstate to visit her parents for the weekend. At first, Chris reads the family's overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter's interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he never could have imagined.
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The Conjuring
Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren work to help a family terrorized by a dark presence in their farmhouse. Forced to confront a powerful entity, the Warrens find themselves caught in the most terrifying case of their lives.
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Scream
A year after the murder of her mother, a teenage girl is terrorized by a masked killer who targets her and her friends by using scary movies as part of a deadly game.
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Saw
Two men wake up to find themselves shackled in a grimy, abandoned bathroom. As they struggle to comprehend their predicament, they discover a disturbing tape left behind by the sadistic mastermind known as Jigsaw. With a chilling voice and cryptic instructions, Jigsaw informs them that they must partake in a gruesome game in order to secure their freedom.
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The Witch
In 1630, a farmer relocates his family to a remote plot of land on the edge of a forest where strange, unsettling things happen. With suspicion and paranoia mounting, each family member's faith, loyalty and love are tested in shocking ways.
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The Ring
Journalist Rachel Keller investigates a strange videotape that may be behind the untimely deaths of four teenagers. There is an urban legend about this tape: the viewer will die seven days after watching it. Rachel tracks down the video... and watches it. Now she has just seven days to unravel the mystery of the Ring in order to save herself and her son.
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Rosemary's Baby
A young couple, Rosemary and Guy, moves into an infamous New York apartment building, known by frightening legends and mysterious events, with the purpose of starting a family.
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It
In a small town in Maine, seven children known as The Losers Club come face to face with life problems, bullies and a monster that takes the shape of a clown called Pennywise.
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A Quiet Place
A family is forced to live in silence while hiding from creatures that hunt by sound.
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Midsommar
Several friends travel to Sweden to study as anthropologists a summer festival that is held every ninety years in the remote hometown of one of them. What begins as a dream vacation in a place where the sun never sets, gradually turns into a dark nightmare as the mysterious inhabitants invite them to participate in their disturbing festive activities.
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Us
Husband and wife Gabe and Adelaide Wilson take their kids to their beach house expecting to unplug and unwind with friends. But as night descends, their serenity turns to tension and chaos when some shocking visitors arrive uninvited.
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The Blair Witch Project
In October of 1994 three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found.
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The Babadook
A grieving single mother and her child fall into a deep well of paranoia when an eerie children's book manifests in their home.
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28 Days Later
Twenty-eight days after a killer virus was accidentally unleashed from a British research facility, a small group of London survivors are caught in a desperate struggle to protect themselves from the infected. Carried by animals and humans, the virus turns those it infects into homicidal maniacs -- and it's absolutely impossible to contain.
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Train to Busan
When a zombie virus pushes Korea into a state of emergency, those trapped on an express train to Busan must fight for their own survival.
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The Cabin in the Woods
Five friends set out for a weekend at a remote cabin in the woods, expecting nothing more than fun and relaxation. As night falls, they discover that something far more unsettling is at work and that nothing about their getaway is what it seems.
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The Conjuring 2
Lorraine and Ed Warren travel to north London to help a single mother raising four children alone in a house plagued by malicious spirits.
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[REC]
A television reporter and cameraman follow emergency workers into a dark apartment building and are quickly locked inside with something terrifying.
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Night of the Living Dead
A ragtag group barricade themselves in an old Pennsylvania farmhouse to remain safe from a horde of flesh-eating ghouls ravaging the Northeast.
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The Descent
After a personal tragedy, Sarah joins her friends on a caving expedition in the Appalachian Mountains. But when a rockfall traps them deep underground, their adventure turns into a nightmare. As they search for a way out, the group discovers they are not alone—lurking in the darkness are savage, cave-dwelling creatures. With rising tension and dwindling trust, the women must fight to survive again
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Sinister
True-crime writer Ellison Oswalt is in a slump; he hasn't had a best seller in more than 10 years and is becoming increasingly desperate for a hit. So, when he discovers the existence of a snuff film showing the deaths of a family, he vows to solve the mystery. He moves his own family into the victims' home and gets to work. However, when old film footage and other clues hint at the presence of a
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Nosferatu
A gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.
How this tournament works
- 32 movies enter a knockout bracket.
- Two titles face off at a time — you pick the one you would rather watch.
- Winners advance round by round until one champion is left: your pick for tonight.
There is no “right” answer and no algorithm deciding for you: the bracket only forces a series of small, easy comparisons instead of one impossible choice in front of a catalogue. You can also play it with friends — everyone votes the same duels from their own phone in a Brawl Room.
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Prefer to build your own? Create a custom tournament from any films or shows, or browse all community tournaments.