Horror is a distinctive genre with a guaranteed audience—people love the thrill of being scared. This enduring appeal gives filmmakers a lot of creative freedom. However, horror often draws influence from within the genre itself. Films from different eras tend to share common traits, whether in style, theme, or both, making each era’s contributions feel interconnected.

Horror can take us on a thrill ride, just getting our adrenaline pumping. It can reveal the creatures that lurk within our darkest nightmares—sometimes, it can haunt those nightmares, especially when you stay up late to watch them on TV when you’re probably too young to. Horror can tell us about ourselves, the world we live in, and our collective fears and anxieties. Throughout the existence of cinema, it’s been doing these things on a near-constant basis.

With this list, I want to highlight five different films from different eras that exemplify the individual aspects that make horror such an interesting, versatile genre. I’ve selected a handful of movies that I feel were specifically influential, kicking off specific filmmaking movements within the genre.

Five horror movies that changed cinema:

• The Invisible Man (1933) – Horror as box office gold
• Rosemary’s Baby (1969) – Horror as arthouse cinema
• Suspiria (1977) – Horror as surrealist
• Scream (1996) – Horror as metafiction
• Get Out (2017) – Horror is the zeitgeist