Ranking: 10 Highest-Grossing Horror Movie Franchises

4. Hannibal Lecter ($921.4 Million)

Though the Hannibal Lecter series began with the 1986 movie Manhunter, it didn't become a fully-fledged pop-culture hit until 1991's Silence of the Lambs annihilated the box office and swept the Academy Awards.

While it doesn't seem likely that another Hannibal Lecter movie will be releasing any time soon, don't be surprised if the part is recast and the franchise rebooted once Anthony Hopkins is no longer with us.

Best Movie: The Silence of the Lambs is a masterclass in slow-building suspense, and remains one of just three movies to win the Oscars' Big Five awards, Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay. Everyone brings their A-game here, and the result is an uncommonly cerebral horror movie.

Worst Movie: 2006's wildly unnecessary prequel Hannibal Rising made the classic mistake of over-explaining why Hannibal Lecter is the way that he is. Aren't horror icons so much scarier when their behaviour can't be neatly dissected with pop psychology?

Nobody needed this film, and a lot of fans simply pretend that it doesn't exist within their own head-canon.