Highest-Grossing Horror Films of the 21st Century
A look back over the last 25 years of high-earning horror movies.
With the success of Backrooms and Obsession this year, it’s been a good year for horror movies so far. The popularity of those films has sparked a lot of conversations around highest grossing horror films, and it made me curious. Rarely, if ever, do I care about how much a movie has earned in the box office. It never sways my opinion or makes a movie more or less desirable to me.
Here’s a look back over the last 25 years of high-earning horror movies. The most interesting trend that jumped out was that the top earning horror movies of each year weren’t the best, well made, or deeply thoughtful.
For reference, the revenue figures discussed here are based on domestic US box office numbers taken from The Numbers.
Horror Movies Earning More Than $50 Million: 2000-2025
Why start with 2000? If you were alive and remember the end of the 1990s and the pending Y2K era, you’ll remember the absolute pandemonium that was American society. People were scared of the 2000s. It was a year that seemed at once so close and yet a place in the future that held unknown dangers.
I remember riding around with my parents, who believed that Y2K and the predicted apocalypse wasn’t anything that God or Allah couldn’t fix, but I still saw the lines at the gas station as people filled up their cars and gas canisters. Or people at the store buying tons of toilet paper, canned goods, nonperishables, and genuinely preparing for a world where everything collapsed.
It was a lot like 2020 and the years of Covid or any other time when fear ruled the masses. Since 2000, it has seemed like we’re on a ride that doesn’t stop. A fear coaster that has gone from technological apocalypses to genocides to Mayan predictions of the world ending to Trump to Covid to genocides again. This century has been a time marked by fear, and horror is a genre that responds to the fears of the world, at least the good ones do.
It’s interesting to see which movies earned the top spot each year, which ones were rated well on Rotten Tomatoes, and which ones I have and haven’t seen (which I’ve put a check mark on).
2000
I think that at this early point, horror was still seen as the 90s and 80s campy gorefest media by many viewers. That’s why the movie that made the most in the US box office was one that leaned more psychological and thriller.
2001
In 2001, we got our first highly rated (according to Rotten Tomatoes-approved critics) horror movie of the 2000s.
2002
Signs becomes the first horror movie to break $200 million in US box office sales.
2003
This year of amazing-garbage movies marks the start of a several year slump of poorly-ranked horror movies. I will say, however, that some of these scores, while low from critics, are fairly high from Rotten Tomatoes audience members.
2004
This may have been the worst year in horror based on rankings, but earnings-wise, it’s the first year more than two horror movies earned over $100 million at the box office.
2005
2006
2007
While horror films are still in an awkward place in 2007, viewed as an entertaining genre without getting much critical appreciation like other genres, one of the highest earning movies of the early 2000s is released.
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
We got our first under 10% ranking of a horror movie on Rotten Tomatoes for the 2000s.
2015
2016
The first year a horror movie got ranked higher than 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. After this, we start to see horror movies getting rated higher by critics and earning more.
2017
Jordan Peele’s first horror movie is released and gets a near-perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes. Horror movies start getting a better reception by critics and wide audiences from this point onward. This is also the first year a horror movie breaks $300 million in US box office sales.
2018
2019
So many horror movies came out during this year that pulled in quite a bit of money. Could it have been the looming “roaring 20s” that came like a shock to some and an inevitable demise by others that led this year to being a banger for horror? I’m not sure. It was another one of those big turns of the era. We were leaving the messy teen years of the 2010s for the young adult years of the 2020s, where everything was supposed to be a party.
But that is not what happened. At least not for most of us.
2020
Covid really hit the box office numbers and no horror movies released in 2020 earned over $50 million. There were quite a few horrors in the real world that we were all too busy staying indoors watching—why go to a place like the movies to watch some made up monster slaughter some made up teens? Why would we need that when we could just unlock our phones, turn on our TVs, open our laptops, go to the grocery story and see a real slaughter of real people?
2021
2020 was dark, but in 2021, we start seeing some of what we missed out on in 2020, and it’s not half bad. In fact, we kinda needed it.
2022
While not a lot of horror movies pulled in over $50 million, the movies that did were, again, quite good. Horror starts feeling like a serious art form for critics and non-horror fans alike.
2023
2024
2025
The Best Horrors Are Yet to Come
We are still chugging along toward the close of 2026 and have already been blessed with such great horror movies as Scream 7 ($121 Million), Backrooms ($197 Million), and Obsession ($263 Million). And while this list focuses on the top earners of horror, there are thousands of horror movies that were released worldwide and on streaming services that may not have earned millions of dollars but are worth a watch and are, in my humble opinion, better than many movies on this list.
Looking at the top earning horror movies of the past 25 years, I’d gamble to say that the future of high earning horror is in:
- Original stories
- Stories based on books
- Series, but only if they make the story something new and original
We as a society have seen some shit over the last 25 years. For some of us, all our lives have been shit. Giving us the same movies and storylines that we’ve seen without taking it to the heights of Sixth Sense and Obsession does nothing for us. Those movies and the other high-earners and well-received movies take commonplace ideas to such lengths and visual displays that even audiences not familiar with horror feel like they can watch it and take something away.
Which of the above movies have you seen? Can you say you've seen every one of these horror movies?
Comments ()