The Greatest Horror Books Since 1990

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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.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
607 House of Leaves Mark Z. Danielewski 2000 American English
1531 Jurassic Park Michael Crichton 1990 American English
2647 Hurricane Season Fernanda Melchor 2017 Mexican Spanish
2732 Lost Souls Poppy Z. Brite 1992 American English
2935 Dolly City Orly Castel-Bloom 1992 Israeli Hebrew
3049 Fever Dream Samanta Schweblin 2014 Argentinian Spanish
3083 Under the Skin Michel Faber 2000 British English
3257 Goosebumps R. L. Stine 1992 American English
3510 Alone With The Horrors Ramsey Campbell 1993 British English
3541 Her Body and Other Parties Carmen Maria Machado 2017 American English
3886 Lunar Park Bret Easton Ellis 2005 American English
4284 Boy's Life Robert R. McCammon 1991 American English
4458 The Graveyard Book Neil Gaiman 2008 British English
4533 Annihilation Jeff VanderMeer 2014 American English
4654 Coraline Neil Gaiman 2002 British English
4932 The Terror Dan Simmons 2007 American English
5010 Zone One Colson Whitehead 2011 American English
5112 Let The Right One In John Ajvide Lindqvist 2004 Swedish Swedish
5153 Cursed Bunny Bora Chung 2021 Korean Korean
5234 Intensity Dean R. Koontz 1995 American English
5290 Revenge Yōko Ogawa 1998 Japanese Japanese
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
5692 Period Dennis Cooper 1994 American English
5757 Brown Girl In The Ring Nalo Hopkinson 1998 Canadian English
5811 John Dies At The End David Wong 2007 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
6296 Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children Ransom Riggs 2011 American English
6404 Dark Prince Christine Feehan 1999 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
6859 A Head Full Of Ghosts Paul Tremblay 2015 American English
6889 Frisk Dennis Cooper 1991 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
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
7671 14 Peter Clines 2012 American English
7697 The Ruins Scott Smith 2006 American English
7701 The Buffalo Hunter Hunter Stephen Graham Jones 2025 American English
7734 Stag Dance Torrey Peters 2025 American English
7760 Black Leopard, Red Wolf Marlon James 2019 Jamaican English
7803 Anno Dracula Kim Newman 1992 British English
7858 Phantom Evil Heather Graham Pozzessere 2011 American English
7882 Mexican Gothic Silvia Moreno-Garcia 2020 Mexican English
7887 The Vampire Queen's Servant Joey W. Hill 2007 American English
7931 The Judas Child Carol O'Connell 1998 American English
7929 Winterwood Patrick McCabe 2006 Irish English
7983 The Ocean at the End of the Lane Neil Gaiman 2013 British English
8066 Bunny Mona Awad 2019 Canadian English
8075 The Seven Churches Miloš Urban 1999 Czech Czech
8190 The Fisherman John Langan 2016 American English
8205 Waking the Moon Elizabeth Hand, Elisabeth Hand 1994 American English
8230 Frankenstein In Baghdad Ahmed Saadawi 2013 Iraqi Arabic
8289 They Will Drown In Their Mother’s Tears Johannes Anyuru 2017 Swedish Swedish
8314 The Bottoms Joe R. Lansdale 2000 American English
8422 The Green Mile Stephen King 1996 American English
8429 Those Across The River Christopher Buehlman 2011 American English
8432 The Gentleman In Black James Dalton 2009 Unknown Unknown
8456 Penpal Dathan Kahn Auerbach 2012 American English
8465 La Dama Número Trece José Carlos Somoza 2003 Spanish Spanish
8463 Seeing Red David J. Schow 1990 American English
8463 Best New Horror Ramsey Campbell 1990 British English
8494 Nazareth Hill Ramsey Campbell 1996 British English
8518 Sourdough And Other Stories Angela Slatter 2010 Australian English
8636 Patient Zero Jonathan Maberry 2009 American English
8654 Punct și De La Capăt Gabriel Chifu 2014 Romanian Romanian
8650 Victorian Psycho Virginia Feito 2025 Unknown English
8733 Houses Without Doors Peter Straub 1990 American English
8792 Audition Ryū Murakami 1997 Japanese Japanese
8819 The Werewolves Of London Brian Stableford 1990 British English
8819 The Unsettled Dust Robert Aickman 1990 British English
8984 Bury Our Bones In The Midnight Soil V. E. Schwab 2025 Unknown English
8999 Haunted Joyce Carol Oates 1994 American English
9021 Dark Back Of Time Javier Marias 1998 Spanish Spanish
9071 The Town That Forgot How To Breathe Kenneth J. Harvey 2003 Canadian English
9104 Foundations Of Fear David Hartwell 1992 American English
9109 The Collected Short Stories Of Roald Dahl Roald Dahl 1991 British English
9170 MetaHorror Dennis Etchison 1992 American English
9175 Anima Wajdi Mouawad 2012 French French
9244 The Red Tree Caitlín R. Kiernan 2009 American English
9251 White Is For Witching Helen Oyeyemi 2009 British English
9260 The Memory Police Yōko Ogawa 2024 Japanese Japanese
9332 Authority Jeff VanderMeer 2014 American English
9332 Acceptance Jeff VanderMeer 2014 American English
9338 Ring Koji Suzuki 2002 Japanese Japanese
9346 Demons And Shadows Robert Westall 1993 British English
9351 Dread And Delights Philippa Pearce 1995 British Unknown
9588 A Choir Of Ill Children Tom Piccirilli 2004 American English
9670 Frozen Moment Camilla Ceder 2010 Swedish Swedish
9718 Tales of H. P. Lovecraft H. P. Lovecraft 1997 American English
9740 The Fire Starters Jan Carson 2019 Irish English
9768 Blackwater Kerstin Ekman 1993 Swedish Swedish
9796 Minion L. A. Banks 2003 American English
9813 The Panic Hand Jonathan Carroll 1995 American English
9813 The Well Jack Cady 1995 American English
9821 The Frozen Dead Bernard Minier 2011 French French
9914 The Lost Jonathan Aycliffe 1996 British English
9967 The Silence Of The Sea Yrsa Sigurdardottir 2012 Icelandic Icelandic
9980 The Atrocity Archives Charles Stross 2004 British English