The 10 Scariest Psychological Horror Movies Ever, Ranked

Sanity, mental illness, mind control, paranoia, conspiracy, gaslighting, grief and trauma.

Tim Robbins in Jacob’s Ladder (1990).

Psychological horror movies focus on emotional and mental states to scare the audience rather than a concrete villain like a monster or masked killer. This doesn’t mean that monsters or killers are never in a psychological horror movie, just that they are not the primary focus of the film. The real focal point is at least one of the character’s state of mind.

Like the more well-known subgenre of psychological thriller, psychological horror movies are almost always mysteries and frequently utilize twist-endings and/or unreliable narrators. The difference between a thriller and a horror movie comes down to how scary it is meant to be — is blood and gore shown on screen? Or does the film focus more on suspense and implied danger? Common themes for psychological horror movie are sanity, mental illness, mind control, paranoia, conspiracy, gaslighting, grief and trauma.

Here are the scariest psychological horror movies ever made, ranked from least to most scary.

10. Jacob’s Ladder (1990)

Adrian Lyne directed this psychological horror movie about a troubled Vietnam veteran, Jacob (Tim Robbins). While in Vietnam, Jacob’s unit fell prey to a surprise attack that resulted in the deaths of many of his fellow soldiers. The survivors (including Jacob) were left with psychological injuries like catatonia, hallucinations and flashbacks. Home in Brooklyn, Jacob struggles to move on with his life, and becomes suspicious when he realizes aspects of his time in Vietnam don’t add up.

9. The Haunting (1963)

Shirley Jackson’s original novel was also adapted for film in 1999 and as a series in 2018.

Based on Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting is a haunted house movie that takes a strong psychological approach to horror. In the film, Dr. Markway investigates a supposedly haunted house with Luke, the heir to the house, Theo, a psychic, and Eleanor, a timid woman sensitive to the paranormal. It seems as if Eleanor may be the focus of the strange occurrences in the house, and viewers experience that haunting largely from her perspective. The Haunting creates a tense and frightening atmosphere without actually showing the audience almost anything in the way of supernatural activity. Most of the scares come from the way the film is shot and through Eleanor’s increasingly fearful state of mind.

8. Saint Maud (2019)

*Saint Maud* is an incredibly disturbing dive into the psyche of a fanatical Christian.

A British horror movie directed by Rose Glass about a young hospice nurse, Maud (Morfydd Clark). Maud is a fanatical Christian who becomes obsessed with saving the soul of her dying patient (Jennifer Ehle), who is an atheist. It becomes clear that Maud is unwell and has recently endured trauma. When she is fired by her patient, her grasp on sanity slips away.

7. American Psycho (2000)

Artists such as Kanye West and Maroon 5 have paid tribute to some of *American Psycho*‘s iconic horror scenes in their music videos.

Feminist filmmaker Mary Harron co-wrote the screenplay and directed this psychological horror movie satirizing toxic masculinity. Based on the controversial Bret Easton Ellis novel of the same name, American Psycho also provides funny (and violent) commentary on the 80s, capitalism, drugs, fashion and yuppie life. Christian Bale stars as Patrick Bateman a New Yorker who splits his time between working on Wall Street and serial killing, his grip on reality deteriorating as the film goes on.

6. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

As an agnostic, Roman Polanski deliberately wove a thread of ambiguity into his adaptation of the original novel. That ambiguity heightened the psychological aspect of *Rosemary’s Baby*.

When a young couple, Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and Guy (John Cassavetes), move to an apartment in New York City, they befriend an older couple in the building (Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer). Soon after, Guy’s career as an actor takes off and Rosemary becomes pregnant. As the delivery date draws closer, Rosemary’s increasing paranoia may be due to mental illness, or it might be due to something sinister going on within the apartment building. Rosemary’s Baby is a masterwork of psychological horror that became greatly influential within this subgenre.

5. Midsommar (2019)

*Midsommar* (2019) was a huge commercial success for A24.

With elements of psychological horror, Midsommar can also be considered a folk horror movie and director Ari Aster has said he sees it as a dark fairy tale. It follows a troubled young woman named Dani (Florence Pugh) who joins her gaslighting boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) and his anthropology grad student friends on a trip to Sweden to experience a commune’s midsummer festival which occurs only once every 90 years. The commune’s customs alternate between wholesome and barbaric.

4. Session 9 (2001)

*Session 9* was filmed at Danvers State Mental Hospital in Massachusetts, a massive abandoned building that was built in the 1880s.

An underrated horror movie about a man named Gordon (Peter Mullan) who is hired to remove asbestos from an abandoned insane asylum. Gordon’s crew member Mike (Stephen Gevedon) discovers a box of session tapes from a patient with dissociative identity disorder and he listens to them to pass the time on the job. Strange things start happening to the crew and their numbers dwindle as Mike gets closer to finishing the tapes.

3. A Tale of Two Sisters (2003)

This movie was inspired by the Korean folktale “The Story of Janghwa and Hongryeon.”

A South Korean psychological horror movie about a teen girl, Su-mi (Im Soo-jung), who returns from a psychiatric institution to live with her father, stepmother and sister, Su-yeon (Moon Geun-young). Su-mi uncovers secrets about her deceased mother and the stepmother she has never liked, and sees her mother’s ghost. When the girls’ aunt and uncle visit, the aunt has a seizure caused by seeing a ghost. Su-mi struggles to put the pieces together and figure out what or whom is haunting her family home.

An American remake, titled The Uninvited (2009), was released with a fairly negative reception.

2. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Anthony Hopkins plays a cannibalistic psychiatrist turned prisoner.

The Silence of the Lambs is a suspenseful psychological horror film that was a massive commercial success and swept the top five Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. The film is about the search for the identity of a serial killed nicknamed Buffalo Bill. As little progress has been made, an FBI trainee, Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), is tasked with consulting the incarcerated genius serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) with the hopes that he will help the FBI capture the killer.

1. Hereditary (2018)

*Hereditary* is full of very disturbing scenes.

Ari Aster’s feature directorial debut is this psychological horror movie that is widely considered to be one of the scariest films ever made. When a sudden death traumatizes the Graham family, they fracture and endure psychological torment individually. Meanwhile, the family matriarch discovers her recently deceased mother had a secret life as the leader of a local coven. Both plots converge in a horrifying climax of both supernatural and psychological horror.

Meet The Author

Chrissy Stockton

Chrissy is the co-founder of Creepy Catalog. She has over 10 years of experience writing about horror, a degree in philosophy and Reiki level II certification.