11 Spookiest Of All Time

March 11, 2025

9 1 minute read

Horror works best in short bursts. Think of your own nightmares: they aren’t sprawling epics but quick, disquieting shocks of dread. No wonder, then, that horror anthologies go back to the earliest days of the genre. In 1919, Austrian director Richard Oswald bundled together a series of eerie tales into the film titled, well, Eerie Tales, inaugurating a subgenre that persists today.

But by their very nature, anthology films can also act as tossed-off stopgaps for directors in between more serious projects. Done right, however, these cinematic short-stories can pack enough scares into a tight runtime that are every bit as terrifying as any feature-length fright. Here are 11 standout collections, chosen by film journalist and horror author Simon Crook.