The best horror movies on Netflix UK
The spookiest season of all is approaching and that means that film fans will be looking for the perfect Halloween films to cosy up under a blanket and watch from behind your fingers.
Halloween films do not however need to be scary, there can be great Halloween movies for the whole family, for date night, or even just for adults who don't fancy the jump scares and gore. Whether this be because of the film having a spooky vibe or just being a fitting cosy watch for Autumn, there are tonnes of options for Halloween films that aren't terrifying, along with the obvious inclusion of some of the most terrifying horrors around.
Netflix UK has far more than 13 great options for this considering it's the most popular streamer in the world, but we have collated the 13 best options to watch towards the end of October.
Don't you worry either, this is not one of the many lists online where you go and check and half of them aren't actually on Netflix. Every single option on this list has been checked against Netflix UK at the time of writing (29 September, 2026) and features some of the most terrifying films ever made, along with some great choices for the whole family.
The 13 best Halloween movies on Netflix UK right now
13 – The Sixth Sense, 1999
The most iconic twist in cinema history makes for a great Halloween watch (Disney)
Kicking off the list with style, The Sixth Sense is well known for having one of the best plot twists in film history.
Advert
What is less talked about however is that the M Night Shyamalan film has a haunting vibe that makes it perfect for the spookiest time of year.
Legendary film critic Roger Ebert said he was ‘blind-sided’ by the movie’s iconic ending, saying: “The solution to many of the film’s puzzlements is right there in plain view, and the movie hasn’t cheated, but the very boldness of the storytelling carried me right past the crucial hints and right through to the end of the film, where everything takes on an intriguing new dimension.”
12 - The Ritual, 2017
This is out choice for the Best 90 Minute Halloween film right now. The Ritual is a lesser-known Netflix horror that is just an hour and 34 minutes long. Its setting of a Scandinavian forest with a terrifying underlying secret is a perfect movie watched under a blanket on a cold October night.
Starring the vastly underrated Rafe Spall alongside Sam Troughton (the iconic Much from BBC’s Robin Hood), it follows four friends who attempt to reconnect by travelling into the Swedish wilderness. What they instead find is much darker and more terrifying, with a wicked twist.
11 - Creep, 2014
Creep is an undeniable cult classic, with scenes featuring the unsettling Mark Duplass seemingly going viral on X and Instagram about every other week.
The found footage horror is a speedy 82 minutes long, and if you want to make a whole night of it you can also watch the sequel and subsequent TV series The Creep Tapes.
Andy Webster of the New York Times said of the film: “The film is remarkable, considering its minimal means and surprising lack of bloodshed, given the genre.”
10 – Overlord, 2018
Overlord fulfils an incredibly simple Halloween criteria. Do you want to watch a simple, dumb, but exciting film where Nazis are shot in the head? Would it make it even more fun for you if some of those Nazis were also zombies? If the answer is yes, Overlord is your perfect Halloween watch.
Starring Wyatt Russell and Jovan Adepo, J.J. Abrams produced the film which received largely positive reviews. The pair star as American soldiers deployed behind enemy lines on D-Day who encounter monstrous zombie creatures created by Nazi experimentation.
One popular post on the r/movies subreddit said: “I saw Overlord a few years ago and thought it was pretty good, but something about watching it in October hit different for me this time around. It's fun, gory, silly, and has plenty of horror vibes even though I wouldn't necessarily classify it as a horror movie. Who would've thought a Nazi zombie movie would actually make a great Halloween watch?”
9 – The Fear Street trilogy, 2021
Now, I’m technically cheating here, but the Fear Street trilogy of films is a hugely underrated series, and I will recommend it any chance I get.
Netflix in 2021 released three films just a week apart, set in 1994, 1978, and 1666.
Fear Street Part Two: 1978 is my personal favourite with a starring performance from Sadie Sink, but all three films are speedy watches and effective slasher films that make great Halloween viewing.
Across the trilogy there are some high profile names who appear in the cast, including fellow Stranger Things alumni Maya Hawke, with Gillian Jacobs also appearing in part three.
A standalone fourth film was also released, but the initial trilogy are the best watches.
8 - Practical Magic, 1998
Our top choice for the Best Date Night film for Halloween. This recommendation comes with a large caveat, this is the cosy Autumn type of date night I’m recommending, not the similarly great ‘hide together under a blanket and watch a horrible film through our fingers together’ type of date night.
Practical Magic is the quintessential autumnal film, and with its recent sequel seeing the return of Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman now is the perfect time to rewatch the original.
The pair star as sisters (even if they sparked viral social media discussion for how… close they play the characters) and one five-star review of the movie on Letterboxd said: “God I just want to crawl into this movie and live in it.”
7 - Smile 2, 2024
If you watched the first Smile you might be surprised the sequel is so high up on this list, but the sequel far surpasses the film with superior acting, plot, and all round scares.
The concept for the Smile films is simple, an It Follows style curse in which an entity spreads by forcing people to kill themselves in front of a witness, spreading the curse to the unlucky person watching.
The first seven minutes takes places in just one single shot with an incredibly brutal sequence which many fans have said stayed with them long after watching.
DiscussingFilm’s James Preston Poole said in their four-star review: “Smile 2 is a triumph. Not just a good horror sequel, but a superior one.”
6 – The Cabin in the Woods, 2011
Hear me out here. In my opinion, Cabin in the Woods is the most hilarious horror film of all time.
Between its bizarre death scenes, nonsensical character decisions, and utterly ridiculous ending, if you take Cabin in the Woods entirely seriously you’re in for a bad watch.
Starring Chris Hemsworth and directed by Cloverfield director Drew Goddard, Cabin in The Woods is the funniest possible watch for horror fans.
Whilst there are still a few decent scares, it is a parody of the horror genre in a more effective way than films like Scary Movie, and is a great Halloween watch if you’re after a good laugh.
5 - Twilight, 2008
If you think you’re too good for a Halloween viewing of Twilight, frankly, you’re wrong.
The melodramatic Young Adult film spawned one of the greatest actors of the 21st century… and, also, Robert Pattinson (Kristen Stewart was robbed of an Oscar for Spencer if you ask me.)
An adaption of the beloved book series, Twilight led to a further four films, endless memes, and if you’ve never seen it a cold October night is the perfect time to try Twilight for the first time.
Anne Cohen of Refinery29 said in her retrospective on the film in 2018: “Ten years after its release, Twilight stands as a powerful, darkly stylish depiction of teen female desire.”
4 - Night at the Museum, 2006
If you are looking for a Halloween-themed movie the entire family can enjoy, the first Night at the Museum, rated as PG by the BBFC, is an excellent choice.
The movie stars Ben Stiller as the new night guard at the Museum of Natural History who discovers that the exhibits come to life when it goes dark.
Whilst not set at Halloween, its spooky vibes are exceptionally fitting for the end of October.
It didn’t receive the greatest reviews at the time but has remained a beloved film over the years, and if you’re looking for something both the kids and parents will enjoy, go with Night at the Museum.
3 - Final Destination 2, 2003
Netflix UK has several of the Final Destination films, but for my money the second is by far the gnarliest.
If you think of the Final Destination series many will think of the logging truck disaster scene, which many forget is in the sequel and not the original.
Just as with the first movie, the sequel follows a woman who receives a vision of her death, causing death to hunt her and her friends down for escaping its grasp.
David Hunter of The Hollywood Reporter summed up this simple yet effective horror in his review, saying: “A gory good show for fans of R-rated horror mayhem.”
2 - Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Story, 2025
A great choice for Halloween if you don’t like actual horror films. Netflix has all three of the Knives Out films, but Wake Up Dead Man is not only the best of the trilogy.
Wake Up Dead Man features Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc teaming up with a young priest played by Josh O’Connor to solve a seemingly impossible murder. O’Connor gives the best performance of the whole trilogy in this film, and it is a great cosy autumnal movie if you can’t hack jump scares or gore.
Bob Mondello of NPR said of the film: “There are twists enough to tangle a spider in its own web, jokes and sight gags aplenty, and Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc is as sharply etched as ever, in what is, to my mind, the most rewarding episode in the series.”
1 - The Blair Witch Project, 1999
This should come as no surprise for horror fans, but 1999’s The Blair Witch Project is by far the best scary film to watch on Halloween.
The Blair Witch Project was made for a measly $60,000, earning nearly a quarter of a billion across its run in cinemas.
The found footage horror starred a series of unknown actors who had to sign NDAs and agree not to appear in public in the lead up to its release, giving the illusion that they were not only real people, but that they’d genuinely died in the movie.
Full of easter eggs, such as the witch actually appearing and no one spotting it, the movie has stood the test of time in its revival of the found footage genre.
Set for a remake soon, the classic horror makes you feel like you are really there being hunted by a terrifying Witch and is easily the best movie to scare yourself with on Halloween.
How we chose the best Halloween movies on Netflix UK
Selecting this list involved checking a huge number of Halloween movies against the Netflix UK catalogue, and only including films which I have personally watch.
This took into consideration quality (sorry Hubie Halloween), Halloween atmosphere, and having a variety of different tones to make sure that different age groups and tolerance levesl for horror were included.
This list will be updated and change as Netflix UK's catalogue changes, with films regularly being added or removed from the platform.
Whilst Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb ratings supported these decision (sorry again Hubie Halloween), they were not the only deciding factor.
Michael Slavin