The Greatest Horror Books Since 1980
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 759 '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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 511 | Perfume | Patrick Suskind | 1985 | German | German | |
| 578 | The Silence of the Lambs | Thomas Harris | 1988 | American | English | |
| 607 | House of Leaves | Mark Z. Danielewski | 2000 | American | English | |
| 981 | It | Stephen King | 1986 | American | English | |
| 1001 | Red Dragon | Thomas Harris | 1981 | American | English | |
| 1086 | Misery | Stephen King | 1987 | American | English | |
| 1210 | The Wasp Factory | Iain Banks | 1984 | British | English | |
| 1348 | Sandman | Neil Gaiman | 1989 | British | English | |
| 1531 | Jurassic Park | Michael Crichton | 1990 | American | English | |
| 1757 | Books of Blood | Clive Barker | 1984 | British | English | |
| 1813 | Swan Song | Robert R. McCammon | 1987 | American | English | |
| 1931 | The Witches | Roald Dahl | 1983 | British | English | |
| 1937 | Geek Love | Katherine Dunn | 1989 | American | English | |
| 2646 | Hurricane Season | Fernanda Melchor | 2017 | Mexican | Spanish | |
| 2688 | The Ceremonies | T. E. D. Klein | 1984 | American | English | |
| 2694 | Pet Sematary | Stephen King | 1983 | American | English | |
| 2731 | Lost Souls | Poppy Z. Brite | 1992 | American | English | |
| 2821 | The Damnation Game | Clive Barker | 1985 | British | English | |
| 2916 | The Woman In Black | Susan Hill | 1983 | British | English | |
| 2934 | Dolly City | Orly Castel-Bloom | 1992 | Israeli | Hebrew | |
| 2954 | The Dark Country | Dennis Etchison | 1981 | American | English | |
| 2984 | The Vampire Lestat | Anne Rice | 1985 | American | English | |
| 3048 | Fever Dream | Samanta Schweblin | 2014 | Argentinian | Spanish | |
| 3082 | Under the Skin | Michel Faber | 2000 | British | English | |
| 3137 | The Keep | F. Paul Wilson | 1981 | American | English | |
| 3147 | Carrion Comfort | Dan Simmons | 1989 | American | English | |
| 3153 | Dark Forces | Kirby McCauley | 1980 | American | English | |
| 3160 | Who Made Stevie Crye? | Michael Bishop | 1984 | American | English | |
| 3257 | Goosebumps | R. L. Stine | 1992 | American | English | |
| 3384 | The Plague-Sower | Gesualdo Bufalino | 1981 | Italian | Italian | |
| 3509 | Song Of Kali | Dan Simmons | 1985 | American | English | |
| 3510 | Alone With The Horrors | Ramsey Campbell | 1993 | British | English | |
| 3541 | Her Body and Other Parties | Carmen Maria Machado | 2017 | American | English | |
| 3853 | The Girl Next Door | Jack Ketchum | 1989 | American | English | |
| 3856 | Closer | Dennis Cooper | 1989 | American | English | |
| 3883 | The Cellar | Richard Laymon | 1980 | American | English | |
| 3886 | Lunar Park | Bret Easton Ellis | 2005 | American | English | |
| 4146 | The Dark Descent | David Hartwell | 1987 | American | English | |
| 4198 | The Elementals | Michael McDowell | 1981 | American | English | |
| 4284 | Boy's Life | Robert R. McCammon | 1991 | American | English | |
| 4458 | The Graveyard Book | Neil Gaiman | 2008 | British | English | |
| 4504 | Different Seasons | Stephen King | 1982 | American | English | |
| 4517 | When The Wind Blows | Raymond Briggs | 1982 | British | English | |
| 4533 | Annihilation | Jeff VanderMeer | 2014 | American | English | |
| 4639 | Prime Evil | Douglas Winter | 1988 | American | English | |
| 4654 | Coraline | Neil Gaiman | 2002 | British | English | |
| 4932 | The Terror | Dan Simmons | 2007 | American | English | |
| 4952 | Songs Of A Dead Dreamer And Grimscribe | Thomas Ligotti | 1985 | American | English | |
| 4997 | A Nest Of Nightmares | Lisa Tuttle | 1986 | American | English | |
| 4997 | The Pet | Charles L. Grant | 1986 | American | English | |
| 5010 | Zone One | Colson Whitehead | 2011 | American | English | |
| 5011 | The Hungry Moon | Ramsey Campbell | 1986 | British | English | |
| 5112 | Let The Right One In | John Ajvide Lindqvist | 2004 | Swedish | Swedish | |
| 5129 | The Influence | Ramsey Campbell | 1988 | British | English | |
| 5153 | Cursed Bunny | Bora Chung | 2021 | Korean | Korean | |
| 5231 | Dark Feasts | Ramsey Campbell | 1987 | British | English | |
| 5234 | Intensity | Dean R. Koontz | 1995 | American | English | |
| 5290 | Revenge | Yōko Ogawa | 1998 | Japanese | Japanese | |
| 5315 | The Vampire Tapestry | Suzy McKee Charnas | 1980 | American | English | |
| 5326 | A Storm Of Wings | M. John Harrison | 1980 | British | English | |
| 5462 | The Animals In That Country | Laura Jean McKay | 2020 | Australian | English | |
| 5517 | Dolores Claiborne | Stephen King | 1992 | American | English | |
| 5594 | World War Z | Max Brooks | 2006 | American | English | |
| 5618 | Our Share of Night | Mariana Enríquez | 2019 | Argentinian | Spanish | |
| 5656 | Soul Eater | K. W. Jeter | 1983 | American | English | |
| 5665 | New Terrors | Ramsey Campbell | 1980 | British | English | |
| 5682 | Frights | Kirby McCauley | 1980 | American | English | |
| 5692 | Period | Dennis Cooper | 1994 | American | English | |
| 5757 | Brown Girl In The Ring | Nalo Hopkinson | 1998 | Canadian | English | |
| 5769 | The Businessman | Thomas M. Disch | 1984 | American | English | |
| 5811 | John Dies At The End | David Wong | 2007 | American | English | |
| 5838 | The Grotesque | Patrick McGrath | 1989 | British | English | |
| 5966 | Incarnate | Ramsey Campbell | 1983 | British | English | |
| 5990 | Bloodchild | Octavia E. Butler | 1984 | American | English | |
| 6000 | The Cipher | Kathe Koja | 1991 | American | English | |
| 6123 | Monster | Naoki Urasawa | 1994 | Japanese | Japanese | |
| 6146 | The Historian | Elizabeth Kostova | 2005 | American | English | |
| 6156 | The God Of The Woods | Liz Moore | 2024 | Unknown | English | |
| 6230 | Shadowland | Peter Straub | 1980 | American | English | |
| 6245 | Skeleton Crew | Stephen King | 1985 | American | English | |
| 6280 | Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark | Alvin Schwartz | 1981 | American | English | |
| 6296 | Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children | Ransom Riggs | 2011 | American | English | |
| 6404 | Dark Prince | Christine Feehan | 1999 | American | English | |
| 6515 | The Year's Best Fantasy And Horror | Ellen Datlow | 1988 | American | English | |
| 6609 | Nos4 A2 | Joe Hill | 2013 | American | English | |
| 6610 | The Collected Strange Stories Of Robert Aickman | Robert Aickman | 1999 | British | English | |
| 6646 | Exquisite Corpse | Poppy Z. Brite | 1996 | American | English | |
| 6662 | You | Caroline Kepnes | 2014 | American | English | |
| 6675 | Uzumaki | Junji Ito | 1998 | Japanese | Japanese | |
| 6679 | The Imago Sequence And Other Stories | Laird Barron | 2007 | American | English | |
| 6697 | The Tattooist Of Auschwitz | Heather Morris | 2018 | Australian | English | |
| 6699 | The Little Stranger | Sarah Waters | 2009 | British | English | |
| 6728 | The Relic | Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child | 1995 | American | English | |
| 6801 | Bird Box | Josh Malerman | 2014 | American | English | |
| 6808 | The Queen Of The Damned | Anne Rice | 1988 | American | English | |
| 6818 | Koko | Peter Straub | 1988 | American | English | |
| 6859 | A Head Full Of Ghosts | Paul Tremblay | 2015 | American | English | |
| 6889 | Frisk | Dennis Cooper | 1991 | American | English | |
| 6962 | The Stress of Her Regard | Tim Powers | 1989 | American | English | |
| 7011 | Ancestral Shadows | Russell Kirk | 2004 | American | English | |
| 7011 | Green Tea | Sheridan Le Fanu | 2004 | Irish | English | |
| 7050 | The Changeling | Victor LaValle | 2017 | American | English | |
| 7064 | Creep To Death | Joseph Payne Brennan | 1981 | American | English | |
| 7086 | There Once Lived A Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Neighbour’s Baby | Ludmila Petrushevskaya | 2009 | Russian | Russian | |
| 7103 | Get In Trouble | Kelly Link | 2015 | American | English | |
| 7108 | The Children Of The Dead | Elfriede Jelinek | 2024 | Austrian | German | |
| 7143 | Black Hole | Charles Burns | 1995 | American | English | |
| 7159 | Midnight Sun | Ramsey Campbell | 1990 | British | English | |
| 7581 | Feed | Seanan McGuire | 2010 | American | English | |
| 7584 | Verity | Colleen Hoover | 2018 | American | English | |
| 7594 | The Reformatory | Tananarive Due | 2023 | American | English | |
| 7640 | Lake Of The Devil | Jessica Amanda Salmonson | 1980 | American | English | |
| 7670 | 14 | Peter Clines | 2012 | American | English | |
| 7690 | Dark Gods | T. E. D. Klein | 1985 | American | English | |
| 7697 | The Ruins | Scott Smith | 2006 | American | English | |
| 7701 | The Buffalo Hunter Hunter | Stephen Graham Jones | 2025 | American | English | |
| 7727 | Cast A Cold Eye | Alan Ryan | 1984 | American | English | |
| 7727 | Usher's Passing | Robert R. McCammon | 1984 | American | English | |
| 7734 | Stag Dance | Torrey Peters | 2025 | American | English | |
| 7745 | The Sending | Geoffrey Household | 1980 | British | English |