The 35 greatest monster movies

Human beings have told stories featuring monsters since the dawn of time. With the advent of movies, we still maintain that tradition with countless monster movies to pick from. But which of them are actually the greatest of all time?

Starting with the 1915 German silent film The Golem, co-directed by Paul Wegener and Henrik Galeen, monster movies have been a popular attraction and subgenre of horror and adventure. While monster movies artistically explore ancient evils, they sometimes also represent the cutting edge of technology, with all kinds of movie monsters demanding different kinds of technical sophistication in order to come to life. (Other times, it’s a guy in a costume, and that can still be scary when done right.)

With the ongoing success of monster movies at the box office, we rank some of the greatest monster movies of all time, from the horrific to the hilarious to everything in between.