Ranking The A Nightmare On Elm Street Films From Worst To Best

It may be the original, it may be a classic, but for our money, this is the second-best film that the series has to offer.

Revolutionary for its time, this film completely turned the slasher genre on its head, imbuing the standard stalk-and-slash tropes with a fantasy edge that some tried to replicate but could never quite get it right.

Featuring a relatively small cast of characters compared to its contemporaries, this film takes its time to develop its core players before gruesomely dispatching them, something that would inevitably be lost in the slew of the sequels. Even Freddy himself is given plenty of time away from the screen, and he's built up to be a much more intimidating presence as a result, often appearing out of seemingly nowhere to take both the characters and audience by surprise.

Even on a technical level, this film is far above many others in its ilk. Wes Craven's smart direction and Charles Bernstein's deeply unnerving soundtrack blend together so seamlessly that you do well and truly feel like you're trapped in a nightmare with the characters.

It's well and truly iconic within the genre, but there's one film that just surpasses it for sheer quality...