HBO Max has quietly put together one of the strongest horror catalogues on any streaming platform, and 2025 made it significantly better. Between Ryan Coogler’s vampire film that nobody saw coming and Zach Cregger following up Barbarian with something even more unsettling, the last year has dropped several films onto the service that deserve your full attention. Whether you are after something with genuine cultural weight or just want to be properly scared on a Friday night, here are the films worth your time right now.
Sinners (2025)
Ryan Coogler set his vampire film in 1932 Mississippi, and the result is probably the best horror movie of last year. Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers who come back to the Jim Crow South hoping to start fresh, only to find something far worse waiting for them. The musical sequences are extraordinary. At 97 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, $365 million at the global box office, four Academy Awards and a Ludwig Goransson score that stays with you for days, Sinners earns every word written about it.
Weapons (2025)
Seventeen children from one classroom vanish at 2:17am. This is the premise of Zach Cregger’s second horror film, featuring Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, and Alden Ehrenreich in a fractured, multi-perspective story that continuously unveils new angles of that terrible night. Empire gave it five stars. It made $267 million on a $38 million budget. Cregger is clearly no one-trick director.
Companion (2025)
Drew Hancock’s debut kicks off as a thriller featuring a weekend getaway for Josh (Jack Quaid) and his robot companion Iris (Sophie Thatcher), but then completely flips the script on what you expect. What appears to be a sci-fi romance quickly turns into something much more intense and way bloodier than the initial setup hints at. Cregger produced it, which should tell you something about the sensibility at work here.
Final Destination Bloodlines (2025)
The franchise returns with a cleaner premise than most of its sequels: a college student discovers her grandmother once escaped death, and now the tally is coming due for her entire bloodline. It sits at 92 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, which nobody expected from a sixth entry in a series built on elaborate kill sequences. It does what the franchise does, only better than it has in years.
Bring Her Back (2025)
This Australian horror landed on Max in July 2025 with 89% on Rotten Tomatoes. A grieving couple take in two foster children after a tragedy. Strange and increasingly disturbing things follow. The film is intentionally creepy right from the start. It focuses more on psychological horror than on blood and guts. If you thought The Babadook was too slow, this one will give you a similar challenge.
The Substance (2024)
Demi Moore stars as an ageing aerobics instructor who discovers a black-market drug that produces a younger version of herself. What sounds like a body horror gimmick turns into a corrosively funny, genuinely disgusting satire about how women are treated by the entertainment industry. The third act goes further than most films would dare. You will not be able to look away.
Get Out (2017)
Jordan Peele’s debut film established socially conscious horror in American cinema. Daniel Kaluuya portrays a young Black man visiting his white girlfriend’s family, leading to a nightmarish experience. The film earned Peele the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, silencing critics.
Heretic (2024)
Hugh Grant plays a quietly menacing man who traps two Mormon missionaries inside his home and begins picking apart their faith. It is a film that takes its dialogue as seriously as its dread, and Grant gives a performance so against type that the wrongness of it becomes part of the unease. Very much worth the two hours.
The Witch (2015)
Robert Eggers set his debut in 17th-century New England, where a Puritan family cast out of their village tries to build a life on the edge of a dark wood. Folk horror is rarely this patient or this committed to its period setting. Anya Taylor-Joy appears here before anyone knew her name. The film earns everything it puts you through.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Made with a budget of only $114,000 in rural Pennsylvania, it tackled themes of American racism and Cold War fears within a tense storyline that didn’t focus much on character development. This film set the stage for the zombie genre, and not many have reached the same level as Romero’s work.
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