Spooky season is better when the story was made by us. Black horror movies have gone from a niche shelf to the center of the culture, and the last two years brought some of the best ones yet. Below are 20 movies and series from Black filmmakers, mixing brand new releases with the classics that built the lane, plus exactly where each one is streaming right now.

The new wave: Black horror movies from 2025 and 2026

• Sinners (2025, Ryan Coogler). Stream it: HBO Max. Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers who open a juke joint in 1930s Mississippi and attract something with fangs. It picked up 16 Academy Award nominations, the most of any film in history, and won four, including Best Actor for Jordan.
• 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026, Nia DaCosta). Stream it: Netflix. DaCosta takes over the zombie saga with a story about a cultish gang and a doctor who forms a strange bond with one of the infected. Gory and surprisingly tender.
• Is God Is (2026, Aleshea Harris). Stream it: Prime Video and MGM+. Harris adapts her own play about twin sisters scarred by their father’s violence who set out on a road trip toward revenge. More thriller than haunted house, and intense.
• Scary Movie (2026, directed by Michael Tiddes, co-written and produced by the Wayans brothers). Stream it: Paramount+. The Wayans brothers return to the franchise for the first time since 2001, alongside Regina Hall and Anna Faris. It grossed $231.9 million worldwide. Perfect for the friend who hates real scares.

Watch: Michael B. Jordan and Ryan Coogler Break Down 'Sinners' Trailer | Entertainment Weekly from Entertainment Weekly

Modern classics you can stream tonight

• Get Out (2017, Jordan Peele). Stream it: Peacock. The one that kicked the door open. If someone in your house has never seen it, this is your assignment.
• Us (2019, Jordan Peele). Stream it: HBO Max. Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke face their doubles on a beach vacation gone very wrong.
• Nope (2022, Jordan Peele). Stream it: Netflix. Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer play siblings on a horse ranch who spot something in the sky. Best on the biggest screen you have.
• Candyman (2021, Nia DaCosta). Stream it: free with ads on Prime Video. A sharp spiritual sequel to the 1992 film, starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and co-written by Peele.
• Master (2022, Mariama Diallo). Stream it: Prime Video. Two Black women at an elite New England college built on a Salem-era gallows site. Campus horror with a lot to say.
• Nanny (2022, Nikyatu Jusu). Stream it: Prime Video. A Senegalese immigrant working as a nanny in New York is haunted by visions. Quiet, eerie and beautifully shot.
• The Blackening (2023, Tim Story). Stream it: Hulu, or free on Tubi. Friends at a cabin get trapped by a killer who makes them vote on who is the “Blackest.” Laugh-out-loud horror comedy.
• Bad Hair (2020, Justin Simien). Stream it: Hulu. A music TV hopeful gets a weave that seems to have a mind of its own. Campy and pointed.

Old-school essentials

• Blacula (1972, William Crain). Stream it: Prime Video, or free on Tubi. An African prince cursed into vampirism wakes up in 1970s Los Angeles. A blaxploitation landmark.
• Ganja & Hess (1973, Bill Gunn). Stream it: free on Kanopy and Hoopla with a library card. An experimental, hypnotic vampire story starring Duane Jones of Night of the Living Dead.
• Tales from the Hood (1995, Rusty Cundieff). Stream it: Starz. A funeral director tells three young men four stories about racism, police violence and revenge. Still hits.
• Bones (2001, Ernest Dickerson). Stream it: Starz. Snoop Dogg plays a murdered numbers runner who rises from the grave for revenge, with Pam Grier alongside him. A supernatural homage to 1970s blaxploitation.
• Eve’s Bayou (1997, Kasi Lemmons). Stream it: Peacock, Prime Video or the Criterion Channel, or free on Kanopy and Hoopla. Southern gothic more than slasher, starring Samuel L. Jackson and a young Jurnee Smollett. It was added to the National Film Registry in 2018.

Watch: Horror Noire – Official Trailer [HD] | A Shudder Original Documentary from Shudder

Series and a documentary to binge

• Them (created by Little Marvin). Stream it: Prime Video. Two seasons of anthology horror: a Black family in 1953 and an LAPD detective in 1991 in The Scare. Heavy, so pace yourself.
• Lovecraft Country (developed by Misha Green). Stream it: HBO Max. Jonathan Majors, Jurnee Smollett and the late Michael K. Williams road trip through Jim Crow America and run into monsters, human and otherwise.
• Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (2019, Xavier Burgin). Stream it: AMC+ or ALLBLK. The essential documentary on a century of Black people in horror. Watch it first and every other pick lands harder.

How to watch all of it without paying for everything

• Use your library card. Kanopy and Hoopla are free through many public libraries and carry older gems like Ganja & Hess and Eve’s Bayou.
• Go free with ads. Tubi has The Blackening and Blacula, and Candyman streams free with ads on Prime Video.
• Rotate one service a month. Pick the platform with the most titles you want, binge them in October, then cancel and switch in November.
• Check before you press play. Titles often come and go at the start of a month, so search the title on JustWatch or the app itself the day of your watch party.

The shareable watchlist

Trailers and behind-the-scenes clips live on the Warner Bros., Entertainment Weekly and Shudder YouTube channels. For more of what to watch this fall, see our fall streaming guide, and plan the rest of your month with the October culture calendar.

What Black horror movie scared you most as a kid? Tell us in the comments.