🎃 Best Halloween Movies 2026 Ranked! Our Top 10 Spooky Watchlist + Honorable Mentions
Looking for the best Halloween movies to watch this year? Here’s our 2026 ranking of the top Halloween movies for movie night — fun, spooky, and family-friendly picks from Hocus Pocus and Sleepy Hollow to Harry Potter, Ghostbusters, The Mummy, and more.
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Top 10 Halloween Movies 2026 Ranked | Best Spooky Watchlist
What is up, guys? Today, we are celebrating the spooky season. It is right around the corner and we love Halloween. Getting into the mood. We're starting off with a list here today of Halloween movies. We're not talking about horror films, okay? We're not talking about shows for the kids. We're talking about as an adult. You will see some things on here that you say, "Oh, wait, that's a kids film." No, it's not. You can enjoy some of these things as an adult as well, because some of the deeper stories and the meanings hit you home as an adult as well. So, let's go ahead and get this started.
10. The Haunted Mansion
Coming in at number 10 is the Haunted Mansion. Okay, both of these are done really well. I like the original and the remake but I prefer the first myself. I would watch both of these for Halloween. That's just me. But I like the one with Eddie Murphy originally better than the second one. And that's probably just me because I'm an originalist.
9. The Mummy Franchise
Second one, I think was okay, but it just didn't hit home with me the way that the first one did. Number nine is The Mummy franchise. I am in the middle of watching the Mummy franchise actually right now. Okay, so when we finish this video, I'm going to finish The Mummy and then move on to Return of the Mummy. Whether I watch the third one or not, that's kind of a tossup. I probably will watch it, but it really took a big dip.
Really good exciting news is that a new Mummy movie is coming out. Brendan Fraser is reprising his role as well as a bunch of other actors from the franchise. And this is going to be great to see Mummy 4. We're getting away from that crap that they did with Tom Cruise because hey, that sucked. That thing needs to get locked up in a tomb, wrapped up, and never unleashed. But we're getting back to the original Imhotep story line where we have with Brendan Fraser and everything. Let's see how great they can do with the new one coming.
8. Halloweentown
Number eight on the list is Halloweentown. Now, there was a plethora of Halloweentown films. The first one is the only one you really have to watch. It does get worse as time goes on with the second, third, and especially when they change actors and Marnie was a different girl in the fourth one. Completely ridiculous move in my opinion. She's amazing, and I really hate that they recast her.
The mom in Halloweentown was April in the 1990 original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. She's amazing. I loved her. She's one of my really top actress there. I love her tremendously in the series. I check out Halloweentown at least once every Halloween.
7. Ghostbusters
It was really, really hard here, guys. And we thought we would phone a friend, but then we thought, who are we going to call? That's when it hit us. The Ghostbusters. We are putting Ghostbusters at number seven on the list. Yes, it doesn't ooze Halloween feelings, but it's all about ghosts. And this is the top level of ghost stories you see out there. Ghostbusters is an iconic franchise that will live on forever with how amazing that it is. The first two films absolutely great.
The gender swap one with the women we just don't even count or pay attention to that one. It's a ghost of a film. But for the sequel films that we've seen with the reboots or remakes, the more modern ones that we're seeing, they've done pretty well. Frozen Empire I didn't think was that great it was just okay, but the Afterlife was awesome. So, go ahead, check out all of the Ghostbusters movies uh that follow along with the original IP, getting away from the gender swap one. I think it's amazing and has to be a part of your Halloween season.
6. The Brothers Grimm
Number six, jumping into history and some lore here, is The Brothers Grim. If you didn't know that The Brothers Grim is a book series of fairy tales, classics, about Cinderella, Princess and the Frog, all that stuff. The film's story originated from a lot of these fairy tales from these authors.
Absolutely amazing. I love that they made a film series about this. If you haven't seen it, Heath Ledger and Matt Damon star. It's a great movie to watch for the Halloween season theming, the leaves falling from the trees, the time of year, the story that they're telling, and the way they incorporate the little bits of the fairy tales. Absolutely stunning for Halloween.
5. Van Helsing
Number five were halfway there, guys. We're putting Van Helsing on the list. Now, I know a lot of people are going to give us some flak on this. Some people didn't really like this film. I thought it was really good. I thought Hugh Jackman did a great job in this role. We have Dracula, we have Frankenstein, we have werewolves, and we have Van Helsing, the monster hunter himself.
I think they did a really good job of putting this into a movie. I thought the acting was great. I thought some of the different, you know, quirky things that they put in there, some of the comedy and stuff was there with Faramir from Lord of the Rings. Every year for Halloween, I have to watch this because of the classic monsters that they're highlighting.
4. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
Number four is Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. We all know the classic tale of Hansel and Gretel. We know about them eating the candy of the witch's lair, putting her in the oven and all that stuff, but this expands beyond that. What happens after that story is they become witch hunters in an amazing epic tale they put on the screen.
I thought it was done really, really well. The acting was great in this. The theming, the the look of everything. Some of the gore effects were a little, on the cheap end, but Jeremy Renner stars in this. You definitely need to check it out because they took that story and turned it into something that's really creative. I appreciate what they did there.
3. Harry Potter
Number three. It pains me that I had to put this at number three on the list because really, you know, people think that these might be the top Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas movies. So, we're just going to put it a little lower on the list, probably for each of those as we go, but it's Harry Potter. The Harry Potter series is absolutely amazing. Somewhat mixed emotions with the show coming up on HBO, but I digress. We'll keep to the movies here.
The movie franchise is a great watch for Halloween. So many things in the Harry Potter series takes place on Halloween. But I do think that this isn't just Halloween focused. Witches and wizards are a big part of Halloween and so it has to be up there. It has to be iconic, especially for a success as well. But it doesn't scream Halloween specifically. They do so many things throughout the school year in Harry Potter's life. And so number three is where we land.
Honorable Mentions
Next up on the list, we're going to do honorable mentions. And the reason we're going to do it here is because number one and number two, in our opinion, could have been a tie. It's really, really close. And we know we're going to get haters for it. But let's go ahead and run through these honorable mentions real quick, but we had to leave a lot off this list.
First off, one that had a sequel come out this year, Practical Magic. Now, the original is what we're talking about here, it was done so well. We haven't had time to really analyze and think about the Practical Magic 2. Sandra Bulock, Nicole Kidman and everybody else that was in there, they did a really great job with the story. I love what they put together.
Then we're talking about Casper, the friendly ghost, the friendliest ghost you know. And this movie was absolutely amazing for me as a child. And I think as an adult, you can still appreciate this. There's Halloween theming all throughout it with the fall season, and everything that they show on screen. And then you also have this Halloween party at the end. So, you get this big pump of Halloween feel at the end. I wouldn't remake this. I think it lives up to today's standard, and I think it's a classic iconic Halloween movie you still need to watch today.
Then we're talking about The Covenant. Which is kind of similar to Practical Magic in some ways, but it's a covenant of witches, but it's all wizards because there's no females in the story here. They live on and on with this magic ability that they have, and it's passed on through lineage and stuff. Some of the effects are a little whatever, but they do a great job with putting together a story that does get you pulled in. It takes a little while to start gripping what's going on, but once it gets going, really, really good film there. I think you should check it out for Halloween season.
Then we have The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. We're putting this in here because of the iconic characters they have in there. You have the Invisible Man, you have Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and you have the ties to Dracula. Really cool, iconic figures that have been pulled together to make an old school version of the Avengers. They didn't pull it off all that well. The director left while they were filming it. Sean Connory had to come in and save it. Really good film though. If it was done the right way, this could have been a great franchise that could have even spawned sequels. And it's a based off of a comic series that has a cult following.
And then the last honorable mention is Monster Squad. This is about a bunch of kids that call themselves the Monster Squad, and they go up against Frankenstein, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Mummy, Dracula, and the Wolf Man. I wish they would reboot this. I think it would be awesome with today's effects and some of the actors that we have now. I just think that this is iconic and it would be epic to reboot it.
2. Hocus Pocus
Now, the final two on the list. First off, at number two, we're going to go with Hocus Pocus. A quintessential Halloween movie. Disney has based so many things off of this film. At the Not So Scary Halloween party, you have the Sanderson Sister stage play and everything like that.
The sequel wasn't done that well. It ultimately didn't really grasp everything that we loved about the first one. It is imbued everything that Halloween is, you know, shrieking about. Everybody out there should watch Hocus Pocus every single year.
1. Sleepy Hollow
And at number one, we're talking about Sleepy Hollow. An amazing film that does get a little bit on the gory side of things, but it's not a horror type of film. I think they do a great job of Johnny Depp portraying Ichabod Crane. The story and what's happening in the city is done really well. And if you didn't know, there is an actual Sleepy Hollow in New York state. And I hope to visit it pretty soon. They do a lot of cool fun theming and stuff around the Halloween time period.
Yes, it doesn't scream Halloween out to us the way Hocus Pocus does or Halloweentown does, but I think it's a really great classic feel to what it's bringing to the screen. We had to put that at number one. I know we're going to get haters in the comments. Go ahead and hate on it. Say, "Hey, Hocus Pocus should have been number one." I know people are going to say that.
Again, not doing strictly horror, not doing just kids films. Let us know what we left off the list. We'd appreciate it. Thank you guys for tuning in and uh we'll do some more spooky content moving forward.
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