Ranking: 20 Highest Grossing Horror Movies Of All Time
From pure schlock to instant classics.
The horror genre is a fascinating beast for a number of reasons, not least that it's a low-risk, high-yield genre for movie studios, as these types of films can be quickly cranked out on small budgets to high returns from audiences looking to be scared out of their wits.
These 20 films, having raked in hundreds of millions of dollars each on sensibly modest budgets at most, are the biggest cinematic successes the horror genre has ever seen, be they widely-celebrated all-time classics or disposable schlock you've probably dismissed following terrible reviews.
The diversity of films in the line-up at least shows just how varied audience tastes are, from CGI-fuelled nonsense to satirical horror films made on relative shoestring budgets, and some more conventional genre entries in-between.
It's time to hold audiences accountable for the films they've thrown their money at, and figure out which of the horror genre's biggest successes are also actually worth watching...
20. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
Box Office: $312.2 million (ranked #9 out of 20)
The sixth and apparently final entry into Paul W.S. Anderson's video game movie franchise is a perhaps the most proudly stupid of all the Resident Evil movies, a summation of everything fans of the games have suffered through up to this point.
Milla Jovovich is still a hoot as protagonist Alice, but the action is even more eye-rolling than usual thanks to some atrocious editing, while Anderson has clearly tried to ape the post-apocalyptic aesthetic of Mad Max: Fury Road (and largely failed).
The third act is hilariously bonkers but ultimately unfurls a cheap plot twist that totally changes the meaning of the entire series, and not for the better.
Whether it's the worst of the franchise is up for debate, but it's definitely terrible either way.