20 Movies That Could've Been Horror Movies

20. No Country for Old Men

For anyone who says the Academy has a bias against horror movies, here's a horror-tinged western-thriller that went on to win Best Picture back in 2008.

The Coen Brothers' masterful No Country for Old Men may at first glance seem like a gritty crime yarn, but it nevertheless follows the basic narrative structure of a slasher film.

After all, Javier Bardem's terrifying antagonist, Anton Chigurh, stalks through the movie like a spectral merchant of death, dispassionately eliminating anyone who gets between him and the briefcase of cash he's been sent to acquire.

This isn't the first time the Coens have trojan-horsed horror elements into a neo-noir - their 1984 debut Blood Simple bears many hallmarks of the genre, for sure - but it's certainly their most successful to date.

Fascinatingly, though, we'll actually get to see a straight-up genre offering from the Coens soon enough, with the duo describing their next project together as a "pure" horror movie.