01
Pan's Labyrinth 2006
Jumps6 Gore6 Dread8 8.7/10
Best 2000s Horror Movies
The 2000s get remembered for J-horror remakes and torture porn. The decade's actual best horror, by aggregate rating across 41 films from 2000–2009 in this catalog, is Pan's Labyrinth — and 19 of the films below are ones the usual 2000s lists never mention.
Dead Silence rates 1.7 higher on Douban than IMDb — Chinese audiences consistently read this kind of horror differently, and the gap is often the most interesting signal on the page. 6 are currently streaming on Shudder.
02
03
The Devil's Backbone 2001
Jumps6 Gore4 Dread6 8.2/10
04
Save the Green Planet! 2003
Jumps4 Gore6 Dread6 8.1/10
05
06
07
The Others 2001
Jumps6 Gore2 Dread8 8.0/10
08
28 Days Later 2002
Jumps8 Gore8 Dread8 8.0/10
09
10
11
The Host 2006
Jumps6 Gore6 Dread4 7.8/10
12
American Psycho 2000
Jumps4 Gore6 Dread6 7.8/10
13
Timecrimes 2007
Jumps4 Gore4 Dread6 7.8/10
14
Thirst 2009
Jumps6 Gore8 Dread6 7.5/10
15
Dawn of the Dead 2004
Jumps8 Gore8 Dread4 7.5/10
16
Shadow of the Vampire 2000
Jumps4 Gore4 Dread4 7.4/10
17
Saw 2004
Jumps6 Gore6 Dread6 7.4/10
18
Inside 2007
Jumps8 Gore10 Dread8 7.3/10
19
The Happiness of the Katakuris 2001
Jumps2 Gore4 Dread2 7.3/10
20
Gozu 2003
Jumps4 Gore6 Dread6 7.3/10
21
The Mist 2007
Jumps8 Gore8 Dread10 7.3/10
22
23
24
25
Cloverfield 2008
Jumps8 Gore4 Dread6 7.2/10
26
13B: Fear Has a New Address 2009
Jumps6 Gore2 Dread6 7.2/10
27
28
29
Three... Extremes 2004
Jumps6 Gore8 Dread8 7.0/10
30
31
The Eye 2002
Jumps8 Gore2 Dread8 6.8/10
32
Dumplings 2004
Jumps4 Gore6 Dread8 6.8/10
33
Martyrs 2008
Jumps8 Gore10 Dread10 6.8/10
34
Orphan 2009
Jumps6 Gore4 Dread4 6.8/10
35
The House of the Devil 2009
Jumps6 Gore6 Dread8 6.7/10
36
37
Session 9 2001
Jumps6 Gore2 Dread10 6.5/10
38
The Ring 2002
Jumps8 Gore4 Dread8 6.4/10
39
Double Vision 2002
Jumps6 Gore8 Dread8 6.1/10
40
41
How these are scored
Every film carries three separate 1–5 ratings — jump scares, gore and dread — because they measure different things. A film can be a 5 for dread and a 1 for gore. Scores are editorial, not aggregated from other platforms, which is the point: review aggregates tell you whether a film is good, not what it will do to you.
What is the best horror movie of the 2000s?
By mean rating across IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and Douban, the best-reviewed horror film of 2000–2009 in our catalog is Pan's Labyrinth (2006), followed by Let the Right One In (2008) and The Devil's Backbone (2001).
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