Quiet horror, no jump scares

TB

The Babadook

Jennifer Kent, 2014

A monster that is also a reading of grief and parenting, and the film never lets you decide which one you are watching. The pop-up book does the work most films give to a score.

TS

The Shining

Stanley Kubrick, 1980

Every frame is doing something and almost none of it is explained. Rewatch value is the highest on this list because the geography never stops being wrong.

RS

Rosemary’s Baby

Roman Polanski, 1968

The horror is that nobody believes her, and it works because the audience is not certain either. A film about pregnancy made by people who understood the fear.

DT

Don’t Look Now

Nicolas Roeg, 1973

Grief and a city shot out of order, assembled so the ending is in front of you the whole time. The editing is the monster.

TI

The Innocents

Jack Clayton, 1961

Daylight horror, which almost nobody attempts. The children are the threat and the victims and the film never resolves which.

K

Kwaidan

Masaki Kobayashi, 1964

Four ghost stories staged on painted sets, so the unreality is declared rather than hidden. The most beautiful film on this list by a wide margin.

P

Pulse

Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001

Loneliness transmitted through a dial-up connection, made before the internet was a subject anyone treated seriously. The static is the scariest thing in it.

TW

The Wailing

Na Hong-jin, 2016

Two and a half hours of a village that cannot work out who the villain is, and neither can you. The ambiguity is structural rather than a trick.

UT

Under the Skin

Jonathan Glazer, 2013

Almost no dialogue and a score that does the work, with real people filmed unaware. The horror is in how little the film explains.

LT

Let the Right One In

Tomas Alfredson, 2008

A vampire story that is really about a lonely child, in a Swedish winter that does most of the work. Cold in every sense and not cruel.

TO

The Others

Alejandro Amenábar, 2001

Light as the antagonist and a house where every rule is stated in advance, so the ending is fair. Old-fashioned in the best sense.

S9

Session 9

Brad Anderson, 2001

Shot in a real abandoned asylum, and it sounds like it. The dread comes from the building and from a tape recording rather than from anything on screen.

LM

Lake Mungo

Joel Anderson, 2008

A fake documentary about a drowning that is really about a family not knowing its own child. The single most frightening image arrives in a photograph.

NT

Noroi: The Curse

Kōji Shiraishi, 2005

A found-footage film that builds its case like an investigation, assembling clips until the pattern is undeniable. The format has rarely been used this patiently.

TV

The Vanishing

George Sluizer, 1988

A disappearance told from both sides, and the film is interested in the ordinary man who did it rather than in the mystery. The ending is genuinely unforgivable.

C

Cure

Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997

A detective film where the murders have no motive and the answer is worse than a motive. Made before the J-horror wave and better than most of it.

A

Audition

Takashi Miike, 1999

Two-thirds domestic drama and one third something else, which is exactly why the last act lands. Knowing what is coming ruins half of it.