Over four decades later, you still can't kill the boogeyman. We're rounding up and ranking every film in the iconic Halloween slasher franchise, centered (mostly) on expressionless, masked, soullessly evil death dealer Michael Myers. Made on a shoestring budget of $325,000, John Carpenter 's atmospheric, taut 1978 original Halloween became the most successful independent film ever (a record it held for two decades) while incidentally establishing the slasher formula borrowed by Friday the 13th , A Nightmare on Elm Street and innumerable imitators.
With the 2022 return of the ultimate "final girl" Jamie Lee Curtis , Halloween Ends is the second sequel to 2018's soft reboot Halloween (the titling and oft-retconned chronology in this series is infamously wonky), the highest-grossing slasher ever with over a quarter billion dollars in international box-office receipts. For this definitive ranking of the best and worst films in the long-running Halloween series, we're taking into account the pictures' overall quality, entertainment value, scariness and re-watchability. The original is a lauded classic; everything after that is hit-and-miss, debated throughout the series' dedicated fanbase.
It's a spooktacular understatement to say the series has seen ups and downs. The trick is to stay alive. In ascending order, here are all 13 Halloween movies ranked.
There are some spoilers so beware. Related: How to Watch the Halloween Movies In Order Halloween Movies Ranked Universal Pictures .