The 40 most popular 1960s horror movies, ranked. Click any film for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


Psycho
1960 · 1h 49m · US
When larcenous real estate clerk Marion Crane goes on the lam with a wad of cash and hopes of starting a new life, she ends up at the notorious Bates Motel, where manager Norman Bates cares for his housebound mother.


Night of the Living Dead
1968 · 1h 36m · US
A ragtag group barricade themselves in an old Pennsylvania farmhouse to remain safe from a horde of flesh-eating ghouls ravaging the Northeast.


The Birds
1963 · 1h 59m · US
Thousands of birds flock into a seaside town and terrorize the residents in a series of deadly attacks.


Rosemary's Baby
1968 · 2h 18m · US
A young couple, Rosemary and Guy, moves into an infamous New York apartment building, known by frightening legends and mysterious events, with the purpose of starting a family.


Repulsion
1965 · 1h 45m · UK
Beautiful young manicurist Carole suffers from androphobia (the pathological fear of interaction with men). When her sister and roommate, Helen, leaves their London flat to go on an Italian holiday with her married boyfriend, Carole withdraws into her apartment. She begins to experience frightful hallucinations, her fear gradually mutating into madness.


Dr. Satan
1966 · 1h 32m · MX
Dr. Satan, a mad scientist and sorceror, plans to take over the world. In order to do so, he wakes up three zombie slaves from the dead and attempts to make a deal with the devil. He sends his zombie servants to do harm to anyone who stands in his way. Will anyone be able to stop him?


What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
1962 · 2h 15m · US
A former vaudeville child star viciously torments her paraplegic sister in their decaying Hollywood mansion.


The Haunting
1963 · 1h 52m · UK
Dr. John Markway recruits three strangers for a sleep-disorder study at the eerie and isolated Hill House. It soon becomes clear his real interest lies in the mansion itself and its sinister history, as they are forced to confront the nature of its horror…


Frankenstein Conquers the World
1965 · 1h 30m · JP
During WWII, Germans obtain the immortal heart of Frankenstein's monster and transport it to Japan to prevent it being seized by the Allies. Kept in a Hiroshima laboratory, it is seeming lost when the United States destroys the city with the atomic bomb. Years later a wild boy is discovered wandering the streets of the city alone, born of the immortal heart.


Macabre Serenade
1968 · 1h 29m · MX
Relatives of a recently deceased man meet at his eerie castle for a reading of the will. They encounter a sinister piano player who turns out to be a toy maker, and his toys are imbued with murderous intentions.


The Last Man on Earth
1964 · 1h 27m · US
When a disease turns all of humanity into the living dead, the last man on earth becomes a reluctant vampire hunter.


Eyes Without a Face
1960 · 1h 24m · FR
Dr. Génessier is riddled with guilt after an accident that he caused disfigures the face of his daughter, the once beautiful Christiane, who outsiders believe is dead. Dr. Génessier, along with accomplice and laboratory assistant Louise, kidnaps young women and brings them to the Génessier mansion. After rendering his victims unconscious, Dr. Génessier removes their faces and attempts to graft them on to Christiane's.


Hour of the Wolf
1968 · 1h 28m · SE
While vacationing on a remote German island with his younger pregnant wife, an artist has an emotional breakdown while confronting his repressed desires.


Kwaidan
1965 · 3h 3m · JP
Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup.


Hangman
1964 · 11m · US
The people of a town are condemned to die one by one by a mysterious stranger who erects a gallows in the town square.


Switchin' Kitten
1961 · 9m · US
Tom becomes fearless when he feels like going into the eerie castle.


The Fearless Vampire Killers
1967 · 1h 48m · UK
A noted professor and his dim-witted apprentice fall prey to their inquiring vampires, while on the trail of the ominous damsel in distress.


Viy
1967 · 1h 16m · SU
A seminary student on monastery holiday kills an old witch in a remote village. The hag then transforms into a beautiful young woman whose dying wish is for him to watch over her wake for three nights. With terrors occurring and his faith waning, he reads prayers on the overnight watch and tries to survive the supernatural encounters.


Peeping Tom
1960 · 1h 41m · UK
Loner Mark Lewis works at a film studio during the day and, at night, takes racy photographs of women. Also he's making a documentary on fear, which involves recording the reactions of victims as he murders them. He befriends Helen, the daughter of the family living in the apartment below his, and he tells her vaguely about the movie he is making.


Seconds
1966 · 1h 47m · US
An unhappy middle-aged banker agrees to a procedure that will fake his death and give him a completely new look and identity; one that comes with its own price.


The Curse of the Fly
1965 · 1h 26m · UK
The son of the inventor of a matter-transporter, which turned him into a monster when he tried to transport himself along with a tiny housefly, continues to pursue his father's experiment, while his own two sons attempt to extricate him, themselves and the family name from further disaster and scandal.


Onibaba
1964 · 1h 45m · JP
While her son, Kichi, is away at war, a woman and her daughter-in-law survive by killing samurai who stray into their swamp, then selling whatever valuables they find. Both are devastated when they learn that Kichi has died, but his wife soon begins an affair with a neighbor who survived the war, Hachi. The mother disapproves and, when she can't steal Hachi for herself, tries to scare her daughter-in-law with a mysterious mask from a dead samurai.


Toby Dammit
1968 · 45m · FR
During a trip to Rome, a debauched Shakespearian actor is tormented by the Italian film industry, fans, the press and the Devil, who appears as a little girl seeking to collect his head. This short is part of the anthology film Spirits of the Dead (1968).


Homicidal
1961 · 1h 27m · US
A woman named Emily checks into a hotel and offers the bellboy $2000 to temporarily marry her. We soon find out Emily is the caretaker of a wheelchair-bound mute named Helga, who was the childhood guardian of a pair of siblings: Miriam Webster and her half-brother, Warren, who is about to inherit the estate of their late father. Who is the mysterious Emily and what are her intentions?


Village of the Damned
1960 · 1h 17m · UK
In a small English village everyone suddenly falls unconscious. When they awake every woman of child bearing age is pregnant. The resulting children have the same strange blond hair, eyes and a strong connection to each other.
Robert
Robert
1966 · 46m · DE
Miss Giehse, an elderly teacher in a boarding school, tries with a lot of good will for her student Robert. The boy seems strangely withdrawn and depressed to her. Robert, whose behavior can be traced back to his parental home, which lacks orderly family relationships, disrupts the lessons with his defiant and rebellious behavior. All her attempts to investigate the causes of this behavior, however, only lead to increasingly serious misunderstandings. In almost hysterical exaggeration, provoked by Robert's tormenting behavior, she finally believes that he is trying to poison her and knocks the boy down during a break. The principal of the boarding school inadvertently witnesses this incident and dismisses Miss Giehse after a heated controversy. The teacher does not overcome the shame of the dismissal and the pain of her own actions and dies on the day she has to leave the boarding school on a trip with the school bus.


Fanatic
1965 · 1h 37m · UK
A young woman is terrorized by her former fiance's demented mother who blames her for her son's death. Also known as Die! Die! My Darling!


Boom!
1968 · 1h 53m · UK
Secluding herself in an island mansion in the Mediterranean with her servants and nurses, the wealthy Flora "Sissy" Goforth prepares for her impending death -- and she isn't the only one who's waiting. Known for his attraction to the dying rich, poet Chris Flanders ingratiates himself with the wilting Sissy. Although her friend explains Flanders' "Angel of Death" nature to her, Sissy embraces the vulture-like Flanders.


The Rape of the Vampire
1968 · 1h 35m · FR
After a psychoanalyst unsuccessfully tries to convince four sisters that they are not 200 year old vampires, the Queen of the Vampires promulgates the cause of the Undead.


Raja Bersiong
1968 · 1h 48m · MY
Raja Bersiong, the Fanged King, is a cannibal monarch in the Kedah epic literature Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa (HMM). A king with an intense appetite for human blood that over time he grew fangs and began attacking his own people to feast on them.


Wait Until Dark
1967 · 1h 48m · US
After a flight back home, Sam Hendrix returns with a doll he innocently acquired along the way. As it turns out, the doll is actually stuffed with heroin, and a group of criminals led by the ruthless Roat has followed Hendrix back to his place to retrieve it. When Hendrix leaves for business, the crooks make their move -- and find his blind wife, Susy, alone in the apartment. Soon, a life-threatening game begins between Susy and the thugs.


Blood and Black Lace
1964 · 1h 28m · DE
Isabella, a young model, is murdered by a mysterious masked figure at a fashion house in Rome. When her diary, which details the house employees' many vices, disappears, the masked killer begins killing off all the models in and around the house to find it.


A Thousand and One Nights
1969 · 2h 10m · JP
Aldin, a vagabond water vendor, embarks of a series of fantastical and tragic misadventures through the Middle East in search of love, fortune, and power.


The Little Shop of Horrors
1960 · 1h 13m · US
Seymour works in a skid row florist shop and is in love with his beautiful co-worker, Audrey. He creates a new plant that not only talks but cannot survive without human flesh and blood.


Marquis de Sade: Justine
1969 · 2h 4m · DE
Without a family, penniless and separated from her sister, a beautiful chaste woman will have to cope with an endless parade of villains, perverts and degenerates who will claim not only her treasured virtue but also her life.


The Seducers
1969 · 1h 39m · IT
Ulla, a prostitute is hired by the despicable Mudy, mother of the shy and mentally disturbed 20-year-old Tony with a tendency toward pyromania. She is invited on a sea cruise where she is meant to "take" his virginity. Also invited on the cruise are the provocative Paula and her husband Aldo, who are constantly striving to win the favor of a wealthy woman in hope of obtaining an oil concession. Despite her efforts, Ulla has no effect on the young man until the yacht stops on a Mediterranean island inhabited only by a goat herder and his wife, Beba. Tony is attracted to her, but little by little his mental disorders arise, and the story ends in tragedy.


La Zarpa
1967
No overview available


Shogun's Joy of Torture
1968 · 1h 36m · JP
A young magistrate recalls three tales of heinous crimes committed by women, and the brutal punishments that ensued.


Quatermass and the Pit
1967 · 1h 37m · UK
A mysterious artifact unearthed below a London Underground station proves to have powerful psychic effects on the people around.


Carnival of Souls
1962 · 1h 18m · US
Mary Henry ends up the sole survivor of a fatal car accident through mysterious circumstances. Trying to put the incident behind her, she moves to Utah and takes a job as a church organist. But her fresh start is interrupted by visions of a fiendish man. As the visions begin to occur more frequently, Mary finds herself drawn to the deserted carnival on the outskirts of town. The strangely alluring carnival may hold the secret to her tragic past.
The 1960s broke the old rules everywhere at once — the French New Wave, the collapse of the Hollywood Production Code, and new waves across Europe and Japan reshaping what a film could show and say.
Horror is cinema's most reliable laboratory — cheap to make, endlessly reinvented, and unusually good at smuggling in subtext. Every few years a national wave redefines it: Italian giallo, Japanese J-horror, the Korean thriller, American indie horror.