"Georges Melies' 1896 film "Le Manior du Diable" is believed to be the very first horror movie ever, and though filmed in France, it was released in the United States as "The Haunted Castle," establishing deep roots for the horror genre in American cinema. While horror films are often deemed a lower cultural form of filmmaking, they have been popular mainstays all the way back to the Golden Age of Hollywood, when Universal Pictures made a series of celebrated monster movies that audiences still love today.
Stacker compiled data on horror films from They Shoot Zombies, Don't They?, a horror-centric site that has weighed and aggregated rankings from over 2,900 editorial lists to create the most definitive ranking of horror movies. From there, Stacker ranked the top 100 American films on the list. Nearly 7,900 films were considered in total. IMDb user ratings and Metascores are presented for popular and critical context. The list represents data gathered through May 2020."
