How the Horror Movies bracket works
Horror movie tier list without dragging anything into rows. You get one matchup at a time — The Shining or Get Out? Scream or The Exorcist? — and after 31 picks the bracket has a champion, with everything else placed by how far it got. Comparing two films is far easier than sorting 32 of them at once, which is why the finished list tends to survive a second look.
This bracket runs 5 rounds at the default 32-slot size (Round of 32, Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final Four, Championship), with every one of the 32 films in the field. Because the draw is shuffled, two people playing the same bracket rarely face the same matchups. You can also play it at 8 or 16 slots for a shorter or longer run.
31 picks, 5 rounds
- Round of 3216 matchups
- Sweet 168 matchups
- Elite 84 matchups
- Final Four2 matchups
- Championship1 matchup
Roughly 2-4 minutes start to finish.
All 32 entrants
All 32 entrants are listed below, including The Shining, Get Out, Scream and The Exorcist.
The Shining
1980
Get Out
2017
Scream
1996
The Exorcist
1973
Halloween
1978
A Nightmare on Elm Street
1984
Hereditary
2018
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
1974
Psycho
1960
It
2017
The Conjuring
2013
Alien
1979
Midsommar
2019
The Ring
2002
Us
2019
The Silence of the Lambs
1991
Jaws
1975
The Thing
1982
Rosemary's Baby
1968
The Babadook
2014
The Witch
2015
A Quiet Place
2018
Friday the 13th
1980
The Omen
1976
Nope
2022
Poltergeist
1982
Candyman
1992
28 Days Later
2002
Saw
2004
The Cabin in the Woods
2012
Paranormal Activity
2007
Suspiria
1977
Would rather group them than rank them? Open all 32 in the tier list maker and sort them into S, A, B, C, D and F tiers instead — same entrants, no matchups.
How everyone else ranked them
Aggregated from 25 completed Horror Movies brackets. Win rate is the share of head-to-head matchups each entrant has won across every play.
- 1
Hereditary
44W - 23L · won 1 bracket
66%
win rate
- 2
Scream
37W - 20L · won 3 brackets
65%
win rate
- 3
The Silence of the Lambs
37W - 20L · won 3 brackets
65%
win rate
- 4
The Conjuring
34W - 19L · won 3 brackets
64%
win rate
- 5
The Shining
31W - 21L · won 1 bracket
60%
win rate
- 6
Get Out
32W - 22L · won 1 bracket
59%
win rate
- 7
The Thing
28W - 20L · won 4 brackets
58%
win rate
- 8
Midsommar
28W - 20L · won 2 brackets
58%
win rate
- 9
Saw
27W - 20L · won 2 brackets
57%
win rate
- 10
Halloween
28W - 22L · won 1 bracket
56%
win rate
Getting a ranking you actually agree with
- 1Pick the film you would actually rewatch tonight, not the one with the better reputation.
- 2The default run puts all 32 films in the draw. Short on time? Drop to 16 slots — a quicker run over a random 16 of them.
- 3Use undo the moment you regret a pick. One reflex answer in an early round can knock out a favourite before it gets going.
Horror Movies bracket FAQ
How many films are in the Horror Movies bracket?
The pool holds 32 films. A default run puts all of them in the draw and takes 31 picks across 5 rounds: Round of 32, Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final Four, Championship. Other field sizes are available too — 8, 16, 32 slots.
Which films are included?
The Shining, Get Out, Scream, The Exorcist, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Hereditary, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Psycho, It, The Conjuring and Alien, plus 20 more. Every entrant is listed further down this page with its artwork.
How long does the horror movie tier list take?
About 2-4 minutes — 31 choices at the default size, or 7 if you drop to a 8-slot bracket. It works the same on a phone as on a desktop, and no login is involved.
How does this compare to a drag-and-drop tier list maker?
Both are here, and the bracket is closer to a tier list than it looks. It ends with a champion, a runner-up and then every other film grouped by the round it went out in — which is exactly a set of tiers, decided by 31 direct comparisons rather than by your first guess at a layout. What it deliberately does not do is claim a precise gap between two films that never met. If you would rather place the films into S through F rows yourself, the tier list maker loads all 32 of them at bracketranker.com/tier-list-maker.
How did everyone else rank these films?
Every completed bracket feeds the Horror Movies community results page, which aggregates win rates across all plays and tracks how often each of the 32 entrants takes the title. It updates continuously, so it moves as more people play.
Can I build my own horror movies bracket?
Use the bracket maker: add your own films, name it, and share the link so other people play the same field. That is the route to take when this pool of 32 is missing something you would have picked, or when you want a version scoped to one era, label or franchise.