Photo: Universal Pictures
Summer has always been a time for monster movies. Well, at least since the 1970s. This has been the case since Jaws hit the summer scene in 1975, becoming the first-ever summer blockbuster. And while not every monster movie comes out between June and September, it’s difficult to beat the appeal of a great monster flick on a summer night, especially if you manage to catch one outside on a giant blow-up screen in a park or on a beach.
And since it’s the height of the summer and Hulu just premiered Prey, the newest Predator film, we figured the stars are aligned to finally list the best monster movies of all time. And not only did we list them, but we also ranked these films about blood-thirsty sharks, sand worms, Lovecraftian creatures, and otherworldly creepers. Keep scrolling to see them all.
Best Monster Movies Ranked
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8. 'Tremors'
This Kevin Bacon vehicle featured a southwest town tormented by giant, blood-thirsty sand worms. The premise might sound silly, but the action definitely isn’t.
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7. 'The Mist'
Based on the famous Stephen King novella, The Mist is centered around a group of people hiding in a grocery store when a strange mist rolls into town. But it isn’t just the mist they’re scared of.
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6. 'A Quiet Place'
John Krasinski and his wife Emily Blunt star in this movie about an alien invasion from creatures that use their sense of sound to find their targets.
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5. 'Predator'
The first Predator film features Arnold Schwarzenegger facing off against a hunter from another world in the middle of a jungle.
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4. 'Alien'
The best of the Alien franchise by far, the first of the movies features a crew on a deep spaceship who makes the bad choice of investigating a distress call from another spaceship.
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3. 'The Fly'
We’ll watch anything starring Jeff Goldblum, especially a movie about a scientist working on a teleportation device who inadvertently merges himself with a housefly.
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2. 'The Thing'
They made a remake a few years ago, but we prefer the Kurt Russell version from 1982. It centers around a group of Antarctic research scientists who get overtaken by a shape-shifting creature.
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1. 'Jaws'
The first summer blockbuster is just as exciting and thrilling today as it was in 1975. It’s the story of an island’s innocent summer destroyed by a menacing shark.
