The best Halloween movies split into two kinds of night. For a family night, start with Hocus Pocus, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline; for a horror night, start with John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) and The Exorcist, both chosen by the Library of Congress for preservation. This list covers both, plus newer films up to Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, which set a record with 16 Oscar nominations.
Halloween 2026 falls on a Saturday, October 31. Every film below gets the same details: release year, director, MPA rating, runtime and one distinction, followed by a 4K, Blu-ray or DVD edition. The first five are rated PG and work for kids. Of the other ten, nine are rated R and A Quiet Place is PG-13.
| # | Film | Year | Rating | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hocus Pocus | 1993 | PG | Family movie night |
| 2 | The Nightmare Before Christmas | 1993 | PG | Younger kids who like songs |
| 3 | Coraline | 2009 | PG | Older kids ready for real chills |
| 4 | Ghostbusters | 1984 | PG | Horror comedy for the whole family |
| 5 | Beetlejuice | 1988 | PG | Kids who like dark comedy |
| 6 | Psycho | 1960 | R | Black-and-white suspense |
| 7 | The Exorcist | 1973 | R | Supernatural horror fans |
| 8 | Halloween | 1978 | R | Watching on October 31 |
| 9 | The Shining | 1980 | R | Slow-burn psychological horror |
| 10 | A Nightmare on Elm Street | 1984 | R | An 1980s slasher night |
| 11 | Scream | 1996 | R | Horror fans who like a whodunit |
| 12 | Trick ‘r Treat | 2007 | R | A Halloween night anthology |
| 13 | Get Out | 2017 | R | Social thriller fans |
| 14 | A Quiet Place | 2018 | PG-13 | Teens moving past PG |
| 15 | Sinners | 2025 | R | Vampire horror with live music |
Halloween Movies for Kids: 5 PG Family Picks
All five family picks carry a PG, but their scares are not equal. The rating notes for each one are collected in the ratings guide further down.
1. Hocus Pocus (1993)
Year: 1993 · Director: Kenny Ortega · Rated: PG · Runtime: 1 hr 36 min · Distinction: Saturn Award for Best Costumes
Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy play the Sanderson sisters, three witches accidentally brought back to life by a teenage boy on Halloween night in Salem, Massachusetts. Most of the film was shot on sound stages in Burbank, California, but the daytime scenes were filmed in Salem and nearby Marblehead.
Disney released it in July 1993, and it flopped in theaters before years of October TV airings turned it into a cult classic. When Disney brought it back to 2,570 theaters in October 2020, it finished the weekend second, behind Tenet. The MPA rated it PG for some scary sequences and for language.
2. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Year: 1993 · Director: Henry Selick · Rated: PG · Runtime: 1 hr 16 min · Distinction: National Film Registry, 2023
Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, stumbles through a door into Christmas Town and decides to run the holiday himself. Henry Selick directed the stop-motion musical from a poem Tim Burton wrote in 1982, and Danny Elfman composed the songs and sang Jack’s part.
Disney first released it under its Touchstone label because the studio thought its Gothic tone might be too dark and scary for children. The MPA rated it PG for some scary images, and at 76 minutes it is the shortest film here. It was also the first animated film nominated for the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.
3. Coraline (2009)
Year: 2009 · Director: Henry Selick · Rated: PG · Runtime: 1 hr 40 min · Distinction: Oscar nominee, Best Animated Feature
Based on Neil Gaiman’s 2002 novella, Coraline follows a girl, voiced by Dakota Fanning, who finds a door in her new home leading to an idealized copy of her life with something sinister behind it. Laika animated it in a warehouse in Hillsboro, Oregon, and shot every frame from two camera positions for the 3D release.
Its PG comes with more warnings than the other family picks: thematic elements, scary images, some language and suggestive humor. Re-releases made it the third-highest-grossing stop-motion film, though its total is a small fraction of what the computer-animated hits on the list of highest-grossing animated movies earned, all of them above a billion dollars.
4. Ghostbusters (1984)
Year: 1984 · Director: Ivan Reitman · Rated: PG · Runtime: 1 hr 45 min · Distinction: National Film Registry, 2015
Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis play three parapsychologists who start a ghost-catching business in New York City, with Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis, Annie Potts and Ernie Hudson alongside them. It was the second-highest-grossing film of 1984 in the US and Canada, and Ray Parker Jr.’s theme song was a number-one hit.
The original and its 1989 sequel, Ghostbusters II, are both rated PG. The 2016 remake is a different case: it is PG-13 for supernatural action and some crude humor, so check which version you are queuing up for younger viewers.
5. Beetlejuice (1988)
Year: 1988 · Director: Tim Burton · Rated: PG · Runtime: 1 hr 32 min · Distinction: Oscar winner, Best Makeup
Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis play Adam and Barbara Maitland, a newly dead couple stuck haunting their house in Winter River, Connecticut, who call in the “bio-exorcist” Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) to scare off the Deetz family that buys it. Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara play Lydia and Delia Deetz, and the soundtrack leans on Harry Belafonte’s calypso records.
Besides its Oscar, it won three Saturn Awards, including Best Horror Film. The 1988 film is PG, but the 2024 sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, is PG-13 for violent content, macabre and bloody images, strong language, some suggestive material and brief drug use.
Classic Halloween Movies From 1960 to 1984
All five classics are rated R, and all five have been selected for the National Film Registry, which the Library of Congress uses to preserve films it judges culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.
6. Psycho (1960)
Year: 1960 · Director: Alfred Hitchcock · Rated: R (1984 re-rating) · Runtime: 1 hr 49 min · Distinction: National Film Registry, 1992
Janet Leigh plays Marion Crane, an embezzler on the run who checks into a motel run by the shy Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) and his disturbed mother. Hitchcock adapted Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel and shot it in black and white on a small budget, using the crew of his TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Its shower scene became one of the best-known scenes in film, and Psycho is counted among the earliest examples of the slasher film. It earned four Oscar nominations, including Best Director for Hitchcock and Best Supporting Actress for Leigh. The film predates the MPA ratings, which took effect on November 1, 1968; its R comes from a 1984 re-rating.
7. The Exorcist (1973)
Year: 1973 · Director: William Friedkin · Rated: R · Runtime: 2 hr 2 min · Distinction: National Film Registry, 2010
William Peter Blatty adapted his own 1971 novel about the demonic possession of 12-year-old Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair). Ellen Burstyn plays her mother, Chris, and Max von Sydow and Jason Miller play the two Catholic priests who attempt the exorcism.
Some viewers fainted or vomited during its first run, and many children were let in, which led to charges that the MPAA had accommodated the studio with an R instead of an X. It became the first horror film nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture, received 10 nominations in all, and won for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound.
8. Halloween (1978)
Year: 1978 · Director: John Carpenter · Rated: R · Runtime: 1 hr 31 min · Distinction: National Film Registry, 2006
Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween, Michael Myers escapes a sanitarium and returns to Haddonfield, Illinois, where he stalks babysitter Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis, in her film debut) on Halloween 1978 while his psychiatrist, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence), hunts for him. Carpenter directed and scored it and co-wrote it with producer Debra Hill.
It was filmed in 20 days in May 1978, with South Pasadena and other Southern California towns standing in for Illinois, and became one of the most profitable independent films ever made. Critics credit it with pioneering the slasher genre, and it grew into a 13-film franchise.
9. The Shining (1980)
Year: 1980 · Director: Stanley Kubrick · Rated: R · Runtime: 2 hr 26 min · Distinction: National Film Registry, 2018
Jack Nicholson plays Jack Torrance, a recovering alcoholic and aspiring novelist who takes a winter caretaker job at the remote Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rockies with his wife (Shelley Duvall) and their clairvoyant son (Danny Lloyd). Kubrick co-wrote the adaptation of Stephen King’s 1977 novel with Diane Johnson.
Most of it was filmed at EMI Elstree Studios in England, with Oregon’s Timberline Lodge as the hotel’s exterior, and the then-new Steadicam gave its tracking shots their gliding look. Reviews were mixed in 1980 and King criticized the changes to his book, but the film has since been reappraised as one of the greatest horror films. Its sequel, Doctor Sleep, arrived in 2019.
10. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Year: 1984 · Director: Wes Craven · Rated: R · Runtime: 1 hr 31 min · Distinction: National Film Registry, 2021
Robert Englund plays Freddy Krueger, an undead child killer who murders teenagers in their dreams as revenge on the parents who burned him alive. Heather Langenkamp leads the cast, and Johnny Depp makes his film debut.
Craven filmed it in Los Angeles on a low budget, and its success helped turn New Line Cinema, until then mostly a distributor, into a studio nicknamed “The House that Freddy Built.” The franchise grew to six sequels, a TV series, a crossover with Friday the 13th and a 2010 remake.
Scary Movies for Halloween Night: 5 Modern Picks
The newer films run from Wes Craven’s 1996 slasher revival to a 2025 vampire film that set an Oscar record. Four are rated R; A Quiet Place is the PG-13 option for teenagers.
11. Scream (1996)
Year: 1996 · Director: Wes Craven · Rated: R · Runtime: 1 hr 51 min · Distinction: Saturn Award for Best Horror Film
Neve Campbell plays Sidney Prescott, a high school student in Woodsboro, California, who becomes the target of a costumed killer on the anniversary of her mother’s murder. Kevin Williamson wrote it under the title Scary Movie, poking fun at the slasher clichés of films like Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Craven trimmed the violence to secure an R, and a December 20 release did not stop it from becoming one of 1996’s highest-grossing films. The series reached Scream 7 in 2026, and the killer’s Ghost Face robe and mask is still a Halloween staple: Fun World’s licensed version is one of the picks in our best Halloween costumes guide.
12. Trick ‘r Treat (2007)
Year: 2007 · Director: Michael Dougherty · Rated: R · Runtime: 1 hr 22 min · Distinction: Screamfest Audience Choice Award, 2008
Four Halloween night stories cross paths in the fictional town of Warren Valley, Ohio, tied together by Sam, a trick-or-treating demon in orange footie pajamas and a burlap sack mask who appears whenever someone breaks a Halloween tradition. Anna Paquin, Brian Cox and Dylan Baker star.
Its October 2007 theatrical release was pushed back, and after festival screenings it came out on home video from Warner Bros. on October 6, 2009. It was filmed in Vancouver and was Dougherty’s first film as a director.
13. Get Out (2017)
Year: 2017 · Director: Jordan Peele · Rated: R · Runtime: 1 hr 44 min · Distinction: Oscar winner, Best Original Screenplay
Daniel Kaluuya plays a young Black man who uncovers shocking secrets when he meets the family of his white girlfriend, played by Allison Williams. Jordan Peele wrote, co-produced and directed it as his first feature.
It received four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor for Kaluuya, and Peele became the first African-American winner of Best Original Screenplay. In 2021 the Writers Guild of America West named it the greatest screenplay of the 21st century.
14. A Quiet Place (2018)
Year: 2018 · Director: John Krasinski · Rated: PG-13 · Runtime: 1 hr 30 min · Distinction: Oscar nominee, Best Sound Editing
A family survives on an isolated farm in Millbrook, New York, after blind creatures that hunt by sound have killed most of humanity, so every footstep is a risk. Krasinski directs and plays the father opposite Emily Blunt, and Millicent Simmonds, who is deaf, plays their deaf daughter; the family talks in American Sign Language.
Its PG-13 is for terror and some bloody images, which makes it the only modern pick here rated below R. Blunt won the Screen Actors Guild Award for supporting actress, and a sequel, A Quiet Place Part II, followed.
15. Sinners (2025)
Year: 2025 · Director: Ryan Coogler · Rated: R · Runtime: 2 hr 17 min · Distinction: 16 Oscar nominations, 4 wins
Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers Smoke and Stack, who come home to the Mississippi Delta in 1932 after seven years in Chicago and open a juke joint, only to face a supernatural evil in the form of the vampire Remmick. Coogler wrote, produced and directed it.
At the 98th Academy Awards in March 2026, it received a record 16 nominations and won four: Best Actor for Jordan, Best Original Screenplay for Coogler, Best Cinematography for Autumn Durald Arkapaw, the first woman to win that award, and Best Original Score for Ludwig Göransson. Four wins still leaves it well behind the films with the most Oscar wins.
MPA Ratings and Scare Levels Across These Halloween Movies
The MPA film rating system gives every film a letter: PG means some material may not be suitable for children, PG-13 warns that some material may be inappropriate for children under 13, and R means anyone under 17 needs a parent or adult guardian. The short reason printed with each rating is often more useful than the letter:
- Hocus Pocus (PG): some scary sequences, and language.
- The Nightmare Before Christmas (PG): some scary images.
- Coraline (PG): thematic elements, scary images, some language and suggestive humor.
- A Quiet Place (PG-13): terror and some bloody images.
- Scream (R): strong graphic horror violence and gore, and language.
- Trick ‘r Treat (R): horror violence, some sexuality/nudity and language.
- Get Out (R): violence, bloody images, and language including sexual references.
- Sinners (R): strong bloody violence, sexual content and language.
Older ratings carry no reason at all, so Ghostbusters, Beetlejuice, Psycho, The Exorcist, Halloween, The Shining and A Nightmare on Elm Street show only a letter. Age matters here too. Ghostbusters opened on June 8, 1984, three weeks before PG-13 was introduced on July 1, 1984, so a PG was the only rating between G and R it could receive.
For a mixed-age group, the PG films with the shortest rating notes, Hocus Pocus and The Nightmare Before Christmas, are the safest starting points. Coraline and Beetlejuice suit kids who already enjoy a scare, and A Quiet Place is the natural bridge for teenagers before any of the R-rated classics.
Halloween Movie Double Features for October 31
With Halloween on a Saturday, there is time for two films. These five pairings share a director, a setting or an award:
- Henry Selick stop-motion: The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline, 176 minutes combined and both rated PG.
- Wes Craven slashers: A Nightmare on Elm Street, then Scream, which pokes fun at the clichés the first film helped set.
- Set on Halloween night: Hocus Pocus while the kids are up, then Halloween (1978) or Trick ‘r Treat after they go to bed.
- Best Original Screenplay winners: Get Out and Sinners, which took the same Oscar eight years apart.
- Short on time: The Nightmare Before Christmas at 76 minutes and Trick ‘r Treat at 82 minutes are the two shortest films here.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the best Halloween movies for kids?
Hocus Pocus, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline, Ghostbusters and Beetlejuice are all rated PG. The Nightmare Before Christmas is the shortest at 76 minutes, and its rating cites only some scary images, while Coraline’s PG adds thematic elements, some language and suggestive humor.
Is The Nightmare Before Christmas a Halloween or a Christmas movie?
It is both. Its hero is Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, and the story follows his attempt to take over Christmas. It went into wide release on October 29, 1993, two days before Halloween.
Which of these movies take place on Halloween?
Hocus Pocus, Halloween (1978) and Trick ‘r Treat are all set on Halloween itself, in Salem, Massachusetts, Haddonfield, Illinois, and the fictional Warren Valley, Ohio. The Nightmare Before Christmas opens in Halloween Town as Jack leads its annual celebration.
What was the first horror movie nominated for Best Picture?
The Exorcist, at the 46th Academy Awards in 1974. It received 10 nominations and won Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound. Get Out and Sinners were later nominated for Best Picture as well.
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