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Horror films have existed for almost as long as there have been motion pictures. From the beginning, the genre attracted viewers who were curious to see things they had never considered wanting to see. A century ago, as they are now, vampires, horrifying apparitions, and deformities in humans were all the stuff of nightmares.

This list of the best black-and-white horror films includes a number of well-known classics, some lesser-known cult favorites, and a few more recent productions by filmmakers that recognize the possibilities of black-and-white film. However, it’s worth going over them all again at Halloween.

Dr. Caligari’s Cabinet (1920)

Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, often regarded as the first horror film and the embodiment of German expressionism, is a stylized nightmare with sharp angles, abstract settings, diagonal stairs, and horrific landscapes. The sharp contrasts between the black-and-white hues are visually startling and give the audience’s psychological delusions a deeper intensity. The visual stimuli distort perceptions of the surrounding environment, creating a terrifying film that effectively conveys the mistrust and terror of the isolated post-World War I civilization that gave rise to it.

A Symphony of Horror, Nosferatu (1922)
Nosferatu was an unapproved remake of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that was released during the height of German expressionist film. After Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaptation and a judge ordered that all copies of the film be burned, the film was all but lost. Thankfully, some of the movie’s copies made it out alive. Filmmaker F.W. Murnau was a trailblazer, blending actual settings with constructed sets to give the vampire story a new level of realism and using trick photography to make Count Orlok appear genuinely alien. It’s a notorious piece of art whose themes of political turmoil and disease outbreaks mark the start of horror in terms of social critique.

The Laughing Man (1928)
The Man Who Laughs by Paul Leni is, by definition, a love drama in the vein of The Hunchback of Notre Dame rather than a horror film. Still, The Man Who Laughs’ significance goes far beyond its debut as a German romantic picture, serving as a significant inspiration for the Joker’s comic book artwork in DC Comics and a big effect on the following Universal Monster films. Viewers are left feeling deeply uneasy by the film’s images, largely because of the stunning features of the titular guy and the ominous atmosphere surrounding him.

Classic Monsters from Universal (1931–1954)

The Universal Monster Movies talkies (Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, Creature From the Black Lagoon, and Bride of Frankenstein) are among the most recognizable of all black-and-white horror films. They all laid the foundation for later horror film genres. Stories concerning xenophobia, sexuality, doubting one’s identity, testing God, the inherent cruelty of humanity, and fear of the unknown have all been told through the lens of creatures. The Universal Classic Monsters depicted terrifying worlds even in monochrome tones, using avant-garde cinematic methods to evoke fear instead of depending on the gore or splatter that would later come to define the genre.

Freaks (1932)
Tod Browning’s Freaks, which was released right after the success of Dracula, is regarded as one of the most controversial and morally dubious films of the genre. It was banned in Britain until the 1950s and examines the monstrous extremes of human nature, challenging viewers’ preconceived notions of people who don’t look like the “norm.” The movie’s climactic scene, which continues to be one of the most surprising in pre-code horror history, adopts a perspective that is increasingly prevalent in the genre: sometimes the worst monsters are those that lurk among us and go unnoticed.

Murders at the 1933 Zoo
Murders in the Zoo, one of the first horror films featuring “animals gone mad,” was incredibly violent for its day and, even by modern standards, is still quite upsetting because of the imagery that depicts the miserable conditions of zoos in the 1930s. Pets are confined in impenetrable cages, where they cry out for food and occasionally engage in genuine fights. The film, which is barely over an hour long and tries unsuccessfully to blend comedy and horror, centers on a maniacal zoologist who becomes increasingly jealous of his unfaithful wife and decides to use live animals as a weapon to carry out “the perfect murder.” It does, however, feature one of the most startling opening sequences of any movie from this era, involving a man’s mouth, a needle, and some thread.

The Cat People (1942)

The lifesaver for the bankrupt RKO Studios, it was also one of the first genuine low-budget horror success stories. The film’s most memorable sequence is the “bus scene,” which is still regarded as one of the scariest moments in horror history. It is so intense that it serves as the first instance of what would later be known as “jump scares.” Cat People, which debuted unknown actors and marked the beginning of horror producer extraordinaire Val Lewton’s career, was a groundbreaking work of horror film.

1943’s The Seventh Victim
Lesbianism and satanism coexist in this other masterwork by Val Lewton. One of the first horror films to treat women as fully realized individuals with their own ideas and aspirations is The Seventh Victim, a noir/horror hybrid. This film gives women complete agency. In this pulp staple, the ladies are abnormally brash, mouthy, and strong-willed. In the end, it’s implied that these women’s strength stems from their membership in a Satanic cult, but since the movie essentially ignores male involvement, it’s worth seeing again from a modern perspective.

1944’s The Uninvited

The British-produced movie, which is arguably among the first haunted home movies to acknowledge ghosts as real dangers and causes of terror, has not received much attention from American viewers. That’s a crime: Guillermo del Toro lists that as one of the movies that had a significant influence on his own oeuvre. Excellent acting performances and, most importantly, realistic in-camera ghost effects that depend on wind turbines, lighting, and sound are features of The Uninvited. Even while it might not be as scary now as it was back then, a second viewing reveals its enduring influence. It’s dark and eerie.

Dead of Night, 1945
Dead of Night from Ealing Studios existed before horror anthologies were recognized as a distinct category. The film, which connects five distinct stories from British filmmakers and has a wrap-around, is a psychological horror thriller that features some of director Charles Crichton’s best work to date. The story of a ventriloquist dummy is presented to us in the film’s dramatic conclusion, and it essentially set the foundation for all subsequent films in which an inanimate item is genuinely alive. The eerie dummy’s lifeless, frigid eyes are still a source of nightmare fuel.

Dorian Gray’s Portrait (1945)
The Picture of Dorian Gray, which uses four-color inserts of three-strip Technicolor for Dorian’s portrait as a special effect in a black-and-white world, is among the first movies to present black-and-white as an aesthetic choice rather than a technical requirement for filmmaking. I may be cheating by including this movie on the list. Seeing Dorian age in his painting while he is still young makes it even more terrifying to witness that one solitary instance of Technicolor. The movie is a masterwork of deep focus photography, and it brought Angela Lansbury her first Golden Globe prize in the same category in addition to her second Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Frankenstein Meets Abbott and Costello (1948)
The film industry tried to revive one of its most lucrative segments as the public’s interest in and love for horror films started to decline. The horror-comedy begins now. A lot of older films tried to lighten the horror genre, but Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein established the benchmark for horror-comedies and had a lasting influence that is being imitated decades later. Universal struck gold and created a franchise by bringing in Bud Abbott and Lou Costello to hang out with well-known monsters like Lon Chaney Jr. and Bela Lugosi.

They! 1954

Them!, the first “big bug” feature and one of the earliest “nuclear monster” movies of the 1950s! was one of the best instances of the future science-fiction subgenre and a huge hit for Warner Bros. Pictures. Drawing inspiration from Japanese kaiju films and incorporating aspects of horror, Them! is among the first instances of a genre fusion falling within the horror genre. The movie presents the terror as genuine and treats the enormous ant creatures as real threats, eschewing the clichés that would later become common in B-movie cinema.

The Hunter’s Night (1955)
Unfortunately, The Night of the Hunter by Charles Laughton is one of the greatest horror films ever filmed and also one of the most overlooked. It is the only film that Laughton has ever directed and stars Robert Mitchum, a well-known noir movement anti-hero who frequently took a backseat role. But The Night of the Hunter is also incredibly exciting, visually intriguing, and captivating. The movie seems so much ahead of its time that audiences today would enjoy it more than they did in the mid-1950s.

1956’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers
The original 1956 adaptation of Body Snatchers, while not the greatest telling of the story, is among the best instances of a realistic sci-fi horror movie that plays on people’s fear of real-life terror and the realization that we are far more susceptible to destruction than we would like to admit. Body Snatchers, which was released during the height of the Cold War and Red Scare, successfully cemented the link between politics and horror. Its political underpinnings were significantly less murky than those of its predecessors.

1959’s The House on Haunted Hill
One of the best haunted house films ever made is William Castle’s masterpiece, The House on Haunted Hill. A perfectly portrayed eccentric millionaire, played by Vincent Price, is offering $10,000 to anyone who can stay overnight in the titular mansion—the scene of numerous murders—for a night. The participants are confronted by a blood-streaked ceiling, a decapitated head, an acid vat in the dungeon, and the recognizable, independently moving skeletal apparitions. Even while The House on Haunted Hill is an excellent film in and of itself, its most notable legacy stems from Castle’s decision to target the teenage audience with his horror flicks, a move that other horror filmmakers adopted.

1960’s Eyes Without a Face
The horrifying yet surreal study of remorse, the societal importance placed on women’s beauty, and the pursuit of physical perfection by Georges Franju. Dr. Genessier, who was once a well-respected surgeon, is now isolated and experiments on defenseless women and animals that he attracts with the help of Louise, his devoted nurse and girlfriend. Startlingly explicit and dripping with art-house characteristics, the movie had a big impact on later filmmakers. Although Eyes Without a Face is presented in harsh black and white, the chaotic horror within is given a muted gentleness by the bizarre visual design.

Sunday, Black (1960)
Mario Bava, the king of horror, made his name with Black Sunday, an Italian gothic classic that is arguably his most well-known piece. Bava creates a horrifying world with seductive allure, enhancing it with deft camera technique and striking black-and-white contrasts. The movie tinkers with the myths of witchcraft and vampires, culminating in a woman having a spiked mask driven into her face. An famous image from classic horror, Barbara Steele’s pale skin covered in deep, black holes brilliantly captures her dual roles as desired and repulsive, as well as beautiful and awful.

Psycho (1960)

Indeed, it is the most impactful horror movie ever made. However, it is important to stress that Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho revolutionized the horror film genre. Psycho gave rise to slasher films in the future and upended the bucolic 1950s environment. The image and sound of Marion Crane meeting her doom is synonymous with what one imagines when hearing the words “horror movie.” The fast-cutting editing style, one of the best tunes ever composed, and Norman Bates’s obsession have cemented Psycho’s status as a classic in both the horror and all-time cinematic canons.

1961’s The Innocents
This extremely eerie psychological horror movie from Jack Clayton, which is based on Henry James’s 1898 horror tale The Turn of the Screw, is still regarded as one of the best British horror movies. It’s also among the best and oldest instances of the subgenre known as “creepy children.” The Innocents’ plot, which deals with the mental pain of someone who is trying frantically to make sense of the world around them while also dealing with their own personal torment, is quite dark. The film’s legendary conclusion earned an X-certificate at the time of its premiere, and scholars are still delving into the film’s undercurrent of horrifying possession, sexual inhibition, and their interactions.

1962’s Carnival of Souls
Carnival of Souls, regarded by many as an independent classic, functions more like a stretched-out Twilight Zone episode than a traditional blue horror movie. A low-budget project with art-house sensibilities, the film’s dramatic light play and peculiar visual imagery are what give it its scary quality. In addition, director Herk Harvery portrays the terrifying specter that torments the lead actress in her dreams, representing her suppressed anxieties as an evil entity from which she is powerless to free herself. Carnival of Souls is an eerie peek into a full-blown mental breakdown that is dark, atmospheric, experimental, and unsettling.

Dementia 13 (1963)
This Psycho ripoff is directed by Francis Ford Coppola and marks the non-pornographic feature debut of B-movie legend Roger Corman. Dementia 13 was critically and popularly disapproved of despite having a notably hurried script that included genuine moments of shock. Even so, the film is a significant contribution to the pantheon of black-and-white horror films because of its shameless emulation of Hitchcock’s classic. From this point on, horror movies openly appropriated scenes from earlier movies, a precursor to the culture of remakes.

Jacket Strait (1964)

While Baby Jane—whatever happened to her? began the subgenre known as “hagsploitation,” and Joan Crawford’s leading performance in William Castle’s Strait-Jacket is credited with perfecting it. While several critics considered the movie to be among the worst ever made, Castle’s theatrical flourishes made it a fan favorite, and Crawford’s transformation into a psycho-biddy set the standard for actors who are considered “washed up” to resort to horror movies after their Oscar-worthy performances are finished.

Repulsion (1965)
Even after more than half a century, Roman Polanski’s Repulsion is still regarded as one of the scariest movies ever made. Repulsion, the first in his “Apartment Trilogy,” is a hallucinogenic torture prison of the mind. A serene and relatively leisurely analysis of a bland woman swiftly devolves into a thorough psychological breakdown, a masterful portrayal of the nightmare chamber that is an ill woman with unresolved emotional scars.

1968’s Hour of the Wolf
Hour of the Wolf, the only horror film in Ingmar Bergman’s repertoire, is a psychological expedition into what is arguably the darkest place on earth: the dark corners of a person’s own internal demons and existential torment. There’s a constant sense of foreboding terror throughout this movie, often veering toward the paranormal. A dinner sequence that is truly extraordinary is among the ambitious and startling sights that surprise viewers, demonstrating that what many consider to be one of Bergman’s lesser works is actually one of his most intriguing.

1968’s Night of the Living Dead
Without a doubt, George A. Romero is the founder of modern horror film and the king of the undead. This indie, low-budget Pittsburgh movie created a monster that has ruled the horror genre for the past half-century and radically changed it. Horror movies used to frequently take place in remote, desolate places, but Romero introduced terror to the suburbs, where families were just one monster outbreak away from certain death. Romero’s choice to feature an African-American actor as the lead, Duane Jones, was undoubtedly one of the most daring decisions in horror film history, even if he insisted until his death that the casting was solely motivated by Jones’s acting prowess.

The 1977 film Eraserhead
Eraserhead, the first feature film from director David Lynch, is a surrealistic and alluring work of cinematic horror that features a lot of blood, erotica, stunning black-and-white photography, melodramatic acting, overly dark comedy, and a lot of gore. Nothing has even remotely matched its potency since. The moment “the child” is shown is among the most horrifying visual sequences ever captured on film in black and white. It’s absolutely unlike anything that came before it.

An English Field (2013)

Ben Wheatley is one of the few directors working today with a reputation as unique and remarkable as his. Throughout his career, he tackled many different genres, but his terrifying period piece, which takes place during the English Civil War, is arguably his best work. It investigates the psychotic collapse of guys under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs who have been entirely devastated by war. One of the best parts of the movie is the dialogue, which was written by Wheatley’s wife, Amy Jump. It is tucked in between magnificent moments of cosmic horror.

In 2014, a girl walks home alone at night.
The debut feature film by Iranian-American vampire-Western Ana Lily Amirpour is a furious work of feminist art. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is both fascinating and eerie, as well as beautiful and strange. Her talent lies in setting the mood, which is refreshing for a monster genre that usually feeds on high-octane action. One of the oldest subgenres of horror was given new life by this film, which has the sense of an erotic album cover from the 1980s (see: the second film featured on this list).

The Mother’s Eyes (2016)
It’s both incredibly beautiful and one of the most really screwed-up movies in recent memory, which is even more remarkable considering that it’s Nicolas Pesce’s first feature. With a slow, deliberate pace, the movie subtly gets under viewers’ skin and stays there long after the credits have rolled. Its extraterrestrial look is further enhanced by the black-and-white cinematography. Although The Eyes of My Mother is marketed as an art film, don’t let that deceive you—this is a genuinely bizarre and disturbing work of cinema.