1. The Shining (1980)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Starring Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers
A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future.
Winning by just two points, the greatest horror movie ever made according to Flickering Myth’s writing and editorial staff is Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.
And rightfully so.
Where do you start with a movie like this? Jack Nicholson is rarely better than he is as Jack Torrence, the new caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, who slowly loses his mind to the ghosts of the hotel who convince him to murder his wife and child.
The Shining also features some of the most iconic imagery from a horror movie ever made – the elevator of blood, the twins, the woman in the bath, “all work and no play”, “here’s Johnny!”, frozen in the maze – the list goes on and on.
Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey came in at number five on our Top 10 Sci-Fi movies a few months ago and many would argue that it was the best film the director ever made. But there is a strong case for The Shining. A simply flawless movie.
But now we know the number one spot, let’s look at what just missed out by looking at the movies that came in at numbers 11-20…
So there we have it! Nothing pre-1960 and nothing post-1987. And not even a sighting of Friday the 13th (only two writers voted for it). But let’s look at the movies that didn’t quite make it to the top 10…
11. Night of the Living Dead (1968)
12. Scream (1996)
13. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
14. The Mist (2006)
15. An American Werewolf in London (1981)
16. The Fly (1986)
17. 28 Days Later (2002)
18. Let the Right One In (2008)
19. Hellraiser (1987)
20. The Omen (1976)
And here’s what each writer voted for as their number one pick…
Gary Collinson – Psycho
Luke Owen – The Thing
Ozzy Armstrong – Evil Dead 2
Robert Kojder – Pet Sematary
Kris Wall – The Thing
David Fleming – Hellraiser
Scott Davis – The Shining
Rohan Morbey – The Exorcist
Robert W Monk – The Shining
Brogan James – The Shining
Chris Cooper – Halloween
Manny Camacho – White Zombie
Tom Jolliffe – The Shining
Jessie Robertson – Halloween
Ben Rayner – The Thing
Mike P. Williams – The Shining
Steven Leadbetter – Alien
Angus Houvouras – 28 Days Later
Villordsutch – The Shining
Gavin Logan – The Exorcist
Sade Green – Scream
Tom Powter – 28 Days Later
Agree, disagree? Let us know in the comments section below…
Luke Owen is the Deputy Editor of Flickering Myth and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
Originally published October 31, 2014. Updated October 24, 2022.
