The Greatest Horror and Suspense Books of All Time
Click to learn how this list is calculated.
This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 488 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books. For those interested in how these books are chosen, additional details can be found on the rankings page.
Rank | Book | Authors | Year | Country | Language | Actions |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
90 | The Picture of Dorian Gray | Oscar Wilde | 1890 | British | English | |
204 | The Haunting of Hill House | Shirley Jackson | 1959 | American | English | |
218 | The Turn of the Screw | Henry James | 1898 | American | English | |
230 | The Stand | Stephen King | 1978 | American | English | |
368 | The Silence of the Lambs | Thomas Harris | 1988 | American | English | |
539 | We Have Always Lived in the Castle | Shirley Jackson | 1962 | American | English | |
558 | Uncle Silas | Sheridan Le Fanu | 1864 | Irish | English | |
655 | Rosemary's Baby | Ira Levin | 1967 | American | English | |
752 | Salem's Lot | Stephen King | 1975 | American | English | |
831 | The Phantom of the Opera | Gaston Leroux | 1909 | French | French | |
860 | The Midwich Cuckoos | John Wyndham | 1957 | British | English | |
896 | Misery | Stephen King | 1987 | American | English | |
898 | Sandman | Neil Gaiman | 1989 | British | English | |
916 | Fantômas | Marcel Allain, Pierre Souvestre | 1911 | French | French | |
986 | The Killer Inside Me | Jim Thompson | 1952 | American | English | |
987 | It | Stephen King | 1986 | American | English | |
1024 | The Wasp Factory | Iain Banks | 1984 | British | English | |
1089 | The Queen Of Spades | Alexander Pushkin | 1834 | Russian | Russian | |
1109 | The Exorcist | William Peter Blatty | 1971 | American | English | |
1329 | Red Dragon | Thomas Harris | 1981 | American | English | |
1355 | Psycho | Robert Bloch | 1959 | American | English | |
1478 | And The Darkness Falls | Boris Karloff | 1943 | British | English | |
1512 | The Pit and the Pendulum | Edgar Allan Poe | 1842 | American | English | |
1548 | House of Leaves | Mark Z. Danielewski | 2000 | American | English | |
1587 | The Sleeping And The Dead | August Derleth | 1947 | American | English | |
1690 | Carrie | Stephen King | 1974 | American | English | |
1781 | The Cadaver Of Gideon Wyck | Alexander Laing | 1934 | American | English | |
1799 | The Land Of Laughs | Jonathan Carroll | 1980 | American | English | |
1822 | The Collector | John Fowles | 1963 | British | English | |
1924 | Night Has A Thousand Eyes | George Hopley | 1945 | American | English | |
1953 | Ghost Story | Peter Straub | 1979 | American | English | |
1966 | Swan Song | Robert R. McCammon | 1987 | American | English | |
2071 | The Track Of The Cat | Walter Van Tilburg Clark | 1949 | American | English | |
2072 | Invasion Of The Body Snatchers | Jack Finney | 1955 | American | English | |
2128 | Pet Sematary | Stephen King | 1983 | American | English | |
2379 | Carrion Comfort | Dan Simmons | 1989 | American | English | |
2509 | Burnt Offerings | Robert Marasco | 1973 | American | English | |
2609 | Quatermass And The Pit | Nigel Kneale | 1959 | British | English | |
2613 | The Damnation Game | Clive Barker | 1985 | British | English | |
2736 | Flicker | Theodore Roszak | 1991 | American | English | |
3007 | Black Easter | James Blish | 1968 | American | English | |
3140 | The Other | Thomas Tryon | 1971 | American | English | |
3223 | House Of Flesh | Bruno Fischer | 1950 | American | English | |
3334 | The Ceremonies | T. E. D. Klein | 1984 | American | English | |
3360 | The Woman In Black | Susan Hill | 1983 | British | English | |
3859 | Boy's Life | Robert R. McCammon | 1991 | American | English | |
3857 | All Heads Turn When The Hunt Goes By | John Farris | 1977 | American | English | |
3857 | In A Lonely Place | Karl Edward Wagner | 1977 | American | English | |
3877 | Lady Audley's Secret | M. E. Braddon | 1862 | British | English | |
3880 | I Spit On Your Graves | Boris Vian | 1946 | French | French | |
3917 | Sweetheart, Sweetheart | Bernard Taylor | 1977 | British | English | |
3955 | Falling Angel | William Hjortsberg | 1978 | American | English | |
4013 | The Wolfen | Whitley Strieber | 1978 | American | English | |
4101 | The Totem | David Morrell | 1979 | American | English | |
4117 | Harvest Home | Thomas Tryon | 1973 | American | English | |
4142 | The Terror | Dan Simmons | 2007 | American | English | |
4294 | The Cellar | Richard Laymon | 1980 | American | English | |
4403 | A Rose for Emily | William Faulkner | 1930 | American | English | |
4818 | Annihilation | Jeff VanderMeer | 2014 | American | English | |
4893 | The Complete Short Stories Of Ambrose Bierce | Ambrose Bierce | 1970 | American | English | |
5151 | Koko | Peter Straub | 1988 | American | English | |
5260 | A Nest Of Nightmares | Lisa Tuttle | 1986 | American | English | |
5306 | 14 | Peter Clines | 2012 | American | English | |
5580 | Mexican Gothic | Silvia Moreno-Garcia | 2020 | Mexican | English | |
5623 | The Little Stranger | Sarah Waters | 2009 | British | English | |
5907 | Lost Girls | Andrew Pyper | 2000 | Canadian | English | |
5941 | The Elementals | Michael McDowell | 1981 | American | English | |
6366 | Strangers | Dean R. Koontz | 1986 | American | English | |
6699 | The Bad Place | Dean R. Koontz | 1990 | American | English | |
6766 | The Girl Next Door | Jack Ketchum | 1989 | American | English | |
6845 | Bag Of Bones | Stephen King | 1998 | American | English | |
6912 | The House Next Door | Anne Rivers Siddons | 1978 | American | English | |
6946 | The Green Mile | Stephen King | 1996 | American | English | |
7015 | Incarnate | Ramsey Campbell | 1983 | British | English | |
7079 | A Sight for Sore Eyes | Ruth Rendell | 1999 | British | English | |
7537 | Nos4 A2 | Joe Hill | 2013 | American | English | |
7625 | My Soul To Keep | Tananarive Due | 1997 | American | English | |
7662 | Phantoms | Dean R. Koontz | 1983 | American | English | |
7696 | Lost Boy Lost Girl | Peter Straub | 2003 | American | English | |
8054 | The Passage | Justin Cronin | 2010 | American | English | |
8345 | Gideon The Ninth | Tamsyn Muir | 2019 | New Zealand | English | |
8452 | The Taking | Dean R. Koontz | 2004 | American | English | |
8587 | Watchers | Dean R. Koontz | 1987 | American | English | |
9030 | John Dies At The End | David Wong | 2007 | American | English | |
9100 | The Imago Sequence And Other Stories | Laird Barron | 2007 | American | English | |
9177 | The Influence | Ramsey Campbell | 1988 | British | English | |
9645 | We Used To Live Here | Marcus Kliewer | 2024 | Unknown | Unknown | |
9653 | A Head Full Of Ghosts | Paul Tremblay | 2015 | American | English | |
9980 | Murder Road | Simone St. James | 2024 | Canadian | English | |
10232 | Butcher | Joyce Carol Oates | 2024 | American | English | |
10438 | Middle Of The Night | Riley Sager | 2024 | American | English | |
10682 | Needful Things | Stephen King | 1991 | American | English | |
10718 | The Devil All The Time | Donald Ray Pollock | 2011 | American | English | |
10739 | Bird Box | Josh Malerman | 2014 | American | English | |
10743 | Broken Monsters | Lauren Beukes | 2014 | South African | English | |
10766 | The Cabin At The End Of The World | Paul Tremblay | 2018 | American | English | |
10822 | Duma Key | Stephen King | 2008 | American | English | |
10906 | Wizard And Glass | Stephen King | 1997 | American | English | |
10983 | Dreamcatcher | Stephen King | 2001 | American | English | |
11097 | Doctor Sleep | Stephen King | 2013 | American | English | |
11108 | Alice | Christina Henry | 2015 | American | English | |
11796 | Rage | Steve Gerlach | 2006 | Australian | English | |
12015 | Lunar Park | Bret Easton Ellis | 2005 | American | English | |
12635 | Later | Stephen King | 2021 | American | English | |
12660 | Anita Blake | Laurell K. Hamilton | 1993 | American | English | |
12676 | Authority | Jeff VanderMeer | 2014 | American | English | |
12707 | Mine | Robert R. McCammon | 1990 | American | English | |
12707 | Creepers | David Morrell | 2005 | American | English | |
12707 | Ararat | Christopher Golden | 2017 | American | English | |
12936 | The Ruins | Scott Smith | 2006 | American | English | |
13080 | To Wake The Dead | Ramsey Campbell | 1980 | British | English | |
13080 | Cujo | Stephen King | 1981 | American | English | |
13080 | The Long Lost | Ramsey Campbell | 1993 | British | English | |
13080 | The Ritual | Adam Nevill | 2011 | British | English | |
13080 | Last Days | Adam Nevill | 2012 | British | English | |
13080 | No One Gets Out Alive | Adam Nevill | 2014 | British | English | |
13080 | Rawblood | Catriona Ward | 2015 | British | English | |
13080 | Little Eve | Catriona Ward | 2018 | British | English | |
13080 | The Reddening | Adam Nevill | 2019 | British | English | |
13080 | The Last House On Needless Street | Catriona Ward | 2021 | British | English |