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Best Horror Movies of the 1950s, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
82 horror films from the 1950s are in our catalog; the 50 best are ranked below. Top of the list is Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), at 7.7 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 6.6. Biggest split between audiences and critics: The Bad Seed, 7.4 on IMDb against 51 on Metacritic.
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| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Invasion of the Body Snatchers '1956 | Sci-Fi / Horror / Thriller | 7.7 | 97% | 92 | 7.5 | Don Siegel |
| 2 | Godzilla '1954 | Thriller / Horror / Sci-Fi | 7.6 | 94% | 79 | 7.6 | Ishirō Honda |
| 3 | The Incredible Shrinking Man '1957 | Sci-Fi / Horror | 7.6 | 83% | 73 | 7.5 | Jack Arnold |
| 4 | The Bad Seed '1956 | Drama / Horror / Thriller | 7.4 | 66% | 51 | 7.1 | Mervyn LeRoy |
| 5 | Night of the Demon '1957 | Fantasy / Horror / Mystery | 7.4 | 100% | - | 7.0 | Jacques Tourneur |
| 6 | Them! '1954 | Sci-Fi / Horror | 7.2 | 93% | 74 | 6.8 | Gordon Douglas |
| 7 | The Tell-Tale Heart '1953 | Animation / Horror / Crime | 7.5 | - | - | 7.2 | Ted Parmelee |
| 8 | Dracula '1958 | Horror | 7.2 | 89% | 67 | 7.2 | Terence Fisher |
| 9 | The White Reindeer '1952 | Fantasy / Horror | 6.9 | 100% | - | 6.6 | Erik Blomberg |
| 10 | The Fly '1958 | Sci-Fi / Horror / Drama | 7.1 | 95% | 62 | 7.0 | Kurt Neumann |
| 11 | The Curse of Frankenstein '1957 | Horror / Sci-Fi | 7.0 | 85% | 59 | 6.8 | Terence Fisher |
| 12 | The Thing from Another World '1951 | Drama / Horror / Sci-Fi | 7.0 | 87% | - | 6.7 | Christian Nyby |
| 13 | House of Wax '1953 | Horror / Crime | 7.0 | 93% | 68 | 6.9 | André de Toth |
| 14 | Lust of the Vampire '1957 | Horror / Mystery / Sci-Fi | 6.5 | - | - | 6.3 | Riccardo Freda |
| 15 | Dementia '1955 | Horror / Drama | 6.7 | 78% | - | 6.8 | John Parker |
| 16 | Creature from the Black Lagoon '1954 | Horror / Sci-Fi | 6.9 | 81% | 68 | 6.8 | Jack Arnold |
| 17 | Quatermass 2 '1957 | Sci-Fi / Horror | 6.7 | 83% | - | 6.4 | Val Guest |
| 18 | Ghost Story of Yotsuya '1959 | Horror | 7.0 | - | - | 6.5 | Nobuo Nakagawa |
| 19 | The Hound of the Baskervilles '1959 | Mystery / Thriller / Horror | 6.9 | 95% | - | 6.8 | Terence Fisher |
| 20 | The Hunchback of Notre Dame '1956 | Drama / Horror | 6.6 | - | - | 6.7 | Jean Delannoy |
| 21 | Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Invisible Man '1951 | Horror / Comedy / Sci-Fi | 6.6 | 80% | - | 6.3 | Charles Lamont |
| 22 | Not of This Earth '1957 | Sci-Fi / Horror | 6.1 | - | - | 5.7 | Roger Corman |
| 23 | The Monolith Monsters '1957 | Horror / Sci-Fi | 6.4 | - | - | 6.5 | John Sherwood |
| 24 | The Revenge of Frankenstein '1958 | Horror / Sci-Fi | 6.7 | 87% | 68 | 6.6 | Terence Fisher |
| 25 | The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms '1953 | Drama / Horror / Sci-Fi | 6.6 | 91% | - | 6.6 | Eugène Lourié |
| 26 | The Quatermass Xperiment '1955 | Sci-Fi / Horror | 6.6 | 91% | - | 6.5 | Val Guest |
| 27 | The Abominable Snowman '1957 | Horror | 6.4 | - | - | 6.2 | Val Guest |
| 28 | A Bucket of Blood '1959 | Comedy / Horror | 6.7 | 69% | - | 6.6 | Roger Corman |
| 29 | Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde '1953 | Comedy / Horror / Mystery / Sci-Fi | 6.4 | 67% | - | 6.2 | Charles Lamont |
| 30 | House on Haunted Hill '1959 | Horror / Mystery | 6.7 | 80% | - | 6.7 | William Castle |
| 31 | The Tingler '1959 | Horror / Sci-Fi | 6.6 | 78% | - | 6.4 | William Castle |
| 32 | The Man Who Could Cheat Death '1959 | Horror / Sci-Fi | 6.3 | 60% | - | 5.8 | Terence Fisher |
| 33 | I Married a Monster from Outer Space '1958 | Horror / Sci-Fi | 6.3 | 92% | - | 6.1 | Gene Fowler Jr. |
| 34 | It Came from Outer Space '1953 | Sci-Fi / Horror | 6.5 | 81% | 68 | 6.3 | Jack Arnold |
| 35 | I Bury the Living '1958 | Mystery / Horror | 6.3 | 64% | - | 6.2 | Albert Band |
| 36 | The Mummy '1959 | Horror | 6.6 | 93% | 62 | 6.7 | Terence Fisher |
| 37 | X: The Unknown '1956 | Horror / Sci-Fi / Mystery | 6.1 | 71% | - | 6.1 | Leslie Norman |
| 38 | 20 Million Miles to Earth '1957 | Sci-Fi / Horror | 6.3 | 75% | - | 6.2 | Nathan Juran |
| 39 | The Return of Dracula '1958 | Horror | 5.7 | - | - | 5.6 | Paul Landres |
| 40 | Tarantula '1955 | Sci-Fi / Horror | 6.4 | 93% | - | 6.5 | Jack Arnold |
| 41 | The Man from Planet X '1951 | Sci-Fi / Thriller / Horror | 5.7 | 100% | - | 5.8 | Edgar G. Ulmer |
| 42 | Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy '1955 | Horror / Comedy / Fantasy | 6.2 | 25% | - | 5.9 | Charles Lamont |
| 43 | Invaders from Mars '1953 | Sci-Fi / Horror | 6.3 | 88% | - | 5.9 | William Cameron Menzies |
| 44 | Rodan '1956 | Horror / Sci-Fi | 6.2 | 75% | - | 6.5 | Ishirō Honda |
| 45 | Godzilla, King of the Monsters! '1956 | Sci-Fi / Horror | 6.3 | 85% | 61 | 6.5 | Terry O. Morse |
| 46 | 4D Man '1959 | Sci-Fi / Horror | 5.8 | 80% | - | 5.8 | Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. |
| 47 | The Black Scorpion '1957 | Sci-Fi / Horror | 5.4 | 67% | - | 5.2 | Edward Ludwig |
| 48 | Fiend Without a Face '1958 | Horror / Sci-Fi | 6.1 | 69% | - | 6.0 | Arthur Crabtree |
| 49 | Day the World Ended '1955 | Horror / Sci-Fi | 5.4 | - | - | 5.0 | Roger Corman |
| 50 | First Man into Space '1959 | Sci-Fi / Horror / Drama | 5.4 | - | - | 5.1 | Robert Day |
Our catalog covers roughly the 8,800 most-rated films on TMDB, so lesser-known titles may be missing. Order uses a confidence-weighted IMDb score so a perfect score from a handful of votes does not beat a well-established classic; the scores shown are the raw ones.
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Other genres in the 1950s
Action of the 1950s Animation of the 1950s Comedy of the 1950s Crime of the 1950s Drama of the 1950s Fantasy of the 1950s Musical of the 1950s Mystery of the 1950s Romance of the 1950s Sci-Fi of the 1950s Thriller of the 1950s War of the 1950s Western of the 1950s
Directors on this list
Don Siegel Ishirō Honda Jack Arnold Mervyn LeRoy Jacques Tourneur Terence Fisher Kurt Neumann André de Toth Val Guest Charles Lamont Roger Corman William Castle
Actors on this list
Dana Andrews James Mason Peter Cushing Christopher Lee Vincent Price Richard Carlson Brian Donlevy Gina Lollobrigida Anthony Quinn Bud Abbott Lou Costello Richard Boone