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


Psycho
1960 · 1h 49m
country: United States
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
country: United States
A ragtag group barricade themselves in an old Pennsylvania farmhouse to remain safe from a horde of flesh-eating ghouls ravaging the Northeast.


Africa Blood and Guts
1966 · 2h 18m
country: Italy
A chronicle of the violence that occurred in much of the African continent throughout the 1960s. As many African countries were transitioning from colonial rule to other forms of government, violent political upheavals were frequent. Revolutions in Zanzibar and Kenya in which thousands were killed are shown, the violence not only political; there is also extensive footage of hunters and poachers slaughtering different types of wild animals.


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


Rosemary's Baby
1968 · 2h 18m
country: United States
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.


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


Peeping Tom
1960 · 1h 41m
country: United Kingdom
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.


Kwaidan
1965 · 3h 3m
country: Japan
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.


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


The Haunting
1963 · 1h 52m
country: United Kingdom
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…


Repulsion
1965 · 1h 45m
country: United Kingdom
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.


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


Love and Crime
1969 · 1h 32m
country: Japan
Discover 4 famous Japanese murderers: Takahashi Oden, the last woman beheaded in Japan, Sada Abe, a crazy lover, Kunihiko Kodaira, a rapist-killer and finally, the Toyokaku case, a woman who did everything to own a hotel.


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


The Raven
1963 · 1h 26m
country: United States
A magician who has been turned into a raven turns to a former sorcerer for help.


Wait Until Dark
1967 · 1h 48m
country: United States
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.


Eyes Without a Face
1960 · 1h 24m
country: France
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.


The Tomb of Ligeia
1964 · 1h 21m
country: United Kingdom
Verden Fell is shattered after the death of his lovely wife. But, after an unexpected encounter with Lady Rowena Trevanion, Fell soon finds himself married again. Nevertheless, his late wife's spirit seems to hang over the dilapidated abbey that Fell shares with his new bride. Lady Rowena senses that something is amiss and, when she investigates, makes a horrifying discovery -- learning that Fell's dead wife is closer than she ever imagined possible.


Seconds
1966 · 1h 47m
country: United States
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.


Frankenstein Conquers the World
1965 · 1h 30m
country: Japan
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.


The Little Shop of Horrors
1960 · 1h 13m
country: United States
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.


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


Dracula: Prince of Darkness
1966 · 1h 30m
country: United Kingdom
Whilst vacationing in the Carpathian Mountain, two couples stumble across the remains of Count Dracula's castle. The Count's trusted servant kills one of the men, suspending the body over the Count's ashes so that the blood drips from the corpse and saturates the blackened remains. The ritual is completed, the Count revived and his attentions focus on the dead man's wife who is to become his partner; devoted to an existence of depravity and evil.


Viy
1967 · 1h 16m
country: Soviet Union
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.


The Innocents
1961 · 1h 40m
country: United Kingdom
In a mid-19th century Essex country house, a young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted by ghosts and that the children are being possessed.


Onibaba
1964 · 1h 45m
country: Japan
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.


Carnival of Souls
1962 · 1h 18m
country: United States
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 Brides of Dracula
1960 · 1h 22m
country: United Kingdom
A young teacher on her way to a position in Transylvania helps a young man escape the shackles his mother has put on him. In so doing she innocently unleashes the horrors of the undead once again on the populace, including those at her school for ladies. Luckily for some, Dr. Van Helsing is already on his way.


Dracula Has Risen from the Grave
1968 · 1h 32m
country: United Kingdom
In the shadow of Castle Dracula, the Prince of Darkness is revived by blood trickling from the head-wound of an unconscious priest attempting exorcism. And once more fear and terror strikes Transylvania as the undead Prince of Darkness stalks the village of Keineneburg to ensnare victims and satisfy his evil thirst.


The Haunted Palace
1963 · 1h 27m
country: United States
A man and his wife claim the mansion of his warlock ancestor burned alive in 1765.


Black Sabbath
1963 · 1h 35m
country: France
Three tales of supernatural horror include a woman plagued by threatening phone calls, a family targeted by vampiric monsters, and a deceased medium who wreaks havoc upon the living.


The Pit and the Pendulum
1961 · 1h 20m
country: United States
In the sixteenth century, Francis Barnard travels to Spain to clarify the strange circumstances of his sister's death after she had married the son of a cruel Spanish Inquisitor.


A Thousand and One Nights
1969 · 2h 10m
country: Japan
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.


Blood and Black Lace
1964 · 1h 28m
country: Germany
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.


Dr. Terror's House of Horrors
1965 · 1h 38m
country: United Kingdom
Five train passengers are joined by a mysterious fortuneteller who offers to read Tarot. A quintet of stories unfold: an architect returns to his ancestral home to find a vengeful werewolf; a doctor suspects his new wife is a vampire; an intelligent vine takes over a house; a jazz musician plagiarises music from a voodoo ceremony; and a pompous art critic is pursued by a disembodied hand.


Village of the Damned
1960 · 1h 17m
country: United Kingdom
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.


The Oblong Box
1969 · 1h 36m
country: United Kingdom
Evil lurks in the gloomy house at Markham Manor where a deranged Sir Edward is the chained prisoner of his brother Julian. When Sir Edward escapes, he embarks on a monstrous killing spree, determined to seek revenge on all those whom he feels have double-crossed him.


Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte
1964 · 2h 13m
country: United States
An aging, reclusive Southern belle plagued by a horrifying family secret descends into madness after the arrival of a lost relative.


Woman Despiser
1967 · 1h 30m
country: Turkey
A psychopath serial killer and a necrophiliac rapist wearing a Halloween mask and gloves chooses victims based on the fact that their first initial is the same as the district in which he kills them.


Marquis de Sade: Justine
1969 · 2h 4m
country: Germany
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 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.