Sunday Special: The 10 Best Horror Movie Franchises

What It Covers

New York Times critics Gilbert Cruz, Eric Pippenberg, and Jason Zinoman debate and rank the 10 greatest horror movie franchises in cinema history, evaluating 24 franchises across criteria including cultural impact, quality consistency, and franchise innovation.

Key Questions Answered

• •Franchise durability: Successful horror franchises balance repetition with innovation—Friday the 13th sent Jason to space and Manhattan, while Halloween's Season of the Witch attempted a Myers-free installment that industry deemed too risky, limiting future experimentation across franchises.
• •Modern horror economics: Jason Blum stated cheap horror no longer works in 2025's competitive market, requiring event-level budgets to succeed. However, 15-20 indie horror films still release monthly on streaming, proving low-budget horror maintains viability outside theatrical distribution.
• •Comedy integration: Nightmare on Elm Street succeeded uniquely among slasher franchises by giving Freddy Krueger personality and humor, while Evil Dead 2 captured Looney Tunes-style physical comedy within horror framework, demonstrating comedy and horror share identical tension-building structures leading to screams versus laughs.
• •Franchise evolution patterns: Child's Play franchise pioneered queer horror representation including non-binary characters, while Final Destination and Saw franchises created annual theatrical events with consistent release schedules, establishing horror franchises as reliable box office performers beyond Blumhouse's original low-budget model.