Horror dominated 2025, but not every standout will endure. Which titles are just year-end favorites, and which have real staying power? Here’s where this year’s major releases landed. Cast your vote at the end of the article for the 2025 horror film you think will truly stand the test of time.
Category is: Flops
I loved every disgusting minute of Together with all of my heart: The wacky marketing campaign, the romantic realism, the fresh take on the “just moved to a haunted house” trope. But the consensus, whenever I talk about the film with others, was that the ending was deeply unsatisfying.
I don’t know how else it could have ended with some sort of lazy screenwriting cop-out. But unfortunately, I think the bad taste Together in viewers’ mouths means it’ll be brushed aside like the rat king in the light fixture.
Category is: Bops
Meanwhile, my clearly unpopular opinion on Bring Her Back is that it couldn’t touch Talk to Me. By contrast, I found Bring Her Back to be endlessly sad and needlessly gory — in a long, drawn-out way. And yet, the near-unanimous outpouring of love for the film tells me that the devastation and the gore cement it as one of the 2025 horror movies that will be a long-time fave.
Courtesy of A24
One aspect of the film’s brilliance that is undeniable to me is the dope way disability was handled in the film. Shout out to Sora Wong, who plays Andy’s sister Piper.
Whether you absolutely adored the storyline or not, Final Destination: Bloodlines was delightful, because of how it tied up loose ends and added the sparkle to a stagnant franchise. Most importantly, it also gave the indomitable Tony Todd a chance to self-eulogize and — like the sixth film did for the Final Destination series as a whole — end on a high note.
I’d be remiss to not mention one the 2025 horror movies living rent-free in everyone’s head right now: Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein.
For the people asking, “Do we really need another XYZ adaptation?” The answer is always yes, especially if an auteur can add something new to the film canon. See: Companion, actually. As for Del Toro’s version: Not only did he make the Creature a more sympathetic character, but he also made Frankenstein’s monster hot.
Category is: Cult classics
Now hear me out on M3GAN 2.0. It was almost universally trashed, but I think critics are afraid to look camp in the eye. There is something that is enduringly fun about smart-mouthed little kids raising hell. (We saw this with Abigail.)
Similarly, I Know What You Did Last Summer incurred the wrath of many, but the film was technically sound, from sound design to costuming to cinematography. The only thing that was wrong was that a lot of y’all don’t know how to have fun.
Courtesy of Columbia Pictures
When HIM was panned by critics, Marlon Wayans, who played nefarious, almost-washed-up star athlete Isaiah, implied that just like Scary Movie, this flop would go on to be a bop. At the time, it felt like Wayans was putting on a brave face and attempting to bolster box office turnout before HIM met an early grave. But now, I’m not so sure.
If I’m forced to say something positive about one of the more visuals-heavy, substance-light 2025 horror movies, it’s that the religious symbolism was undeniably rich. I don’t think that a lack of diversity in the horror canon means we have to platform Black-led mediocrity but, I do think HIM will have more subtext to mine over time than The Front Room or The Deliverance.
Category is: Instant Classics
Creepy, thoughtful, a beautiful exploration of grief and perfectly silly: Weapons was a hoot and a half. If you don’t think so, stand up, put your phone down, push your arms back behind you and start running. Come back when you feel differently.
To my great surprise, Sinners exceeded expectations. I knew it was good enough to see it opening night in theaters, but I didn’t imagine it would be one of my favorite 2025 horror movies. The meaning got richer when I saw it again at the perfect venue for a film about the power of blues: the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s theater. I’m big on theater etiquette, but I also don’t want silent companions — and BAM’s audience didn’t disappoint.
I loved hearing the gasps at the snake in the car, and Smoke shooting his car-jacker, Stack rising from the dead, and Remmick’s guitar to the face; the laughter at “so you rob trains and banks, but you can’t steal this pussy for a night;” the sounds of warm approval when Stack heard Sammy sing for the first time; that iconic ancestor scene that made Sinners. When you go to the theater and experience that kind of collective euphoria, you have an inkling that the film will be a forever classic.
And when you see the groundswell of memes and fan edits, when you see the cosplayers who relished saying “nah, we cousins” long before Spirit Halloween sold Smoke and Stack costumes, when you see the rich conversations that came out of Q&A’s the world over and the number of creatives saying it inspired to them to get back to work? You know that the film will have an impact on cinema — not just horror movies, not just the Black film canon — forever.
Even if you despised this 2025 horror release, you can’t deny the cultural impact of Sinners. To my die-hard Sinners haters: This world already left you for dead. Won’t let you build. Won’t let you fellowship. If you join us, we will do just that. Together. Forever.
Which of these 2025 horror movies do you think will stand the test of time?
Categorized: Editorials News
