20 Best Serial Killer Movies of All Time

Directed by Jonathan Demme
With Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Lawrence A. Bonney, Kasi Lemmons

A young F.B.I. cadet must confide in an incarcerated and manipulative killer to receive his help on catching another serial killer who skins his victims.

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
With Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin

A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run, and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.

Directed by David Fincher
With Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Kevin Spacey, Andrew Kevin Walker

Two detectives, a rookie and a veteran, hunt a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as his modus operandi.

Directed by Martin Scorsese
With Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Albert Brooks

A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge for violent action, attempting to save a preadolescent prostitute in the process.

Directed by David Fincher
With Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards

In the late 1960s/early 1970s, a San Francisco cartoonist becomes an amateur detective obsessed with tracking down the Zodiac Killer, an unidentified individual who terrorizes Northern California with a killing spree.

Directed by John Carpenter
With Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tony Moran, Nancy Kyes

Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield to kill again.

Directed by Tom Tykwer
With Ben Whishaw, Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman, Francesc Albiol

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born with a superior olfactory sense, creates the world's finest perfume. His work, however, takes a dark turn as he searches for the ultimate scent.

Directed by Tobe Hooper
With Marilyn Burns, Edwin Neal, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain

Two siblings visit their grandfather's grave in Texas along with three of their friends and are attacked by a family of cannibalistic psychopaths.

Directed by Mary Harron
With Christian Bale, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, Bill Sage

A wealthy New York investment banking executive hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he delves deeper into his violent, hedonistic fantasies.

Directed by Joon-ho Bong
With Kang-ho Song, Sang-kyung Kim, Roe-ha Kim, Jae-ho Song

In 1986, in the province of Gyunggi, in South Korea, a second young and beautiful woman is found dead, raped and tied and gagged with her underwear. Detective Park Doo-Man and Detective Cho Yong-koo, two brutal and stupid local detectives without any technique, investigate the murder using brutality and torturing the suspects, without any practical result. The Detective Seo Tae-Yoon from Seoul ...

Directed by John McNaughton
With Michael Rooker, Tracy Arnold, Tom Towles, Mary Demas

Henry, a drifter, commits a series of brutal murders, supposedly operating with impunity.

Directed by Wes Craven
With Heather Langenkamp, Johnny Depp, Robert Englund, John Saxon
Several people are hunted by a cruel serial killer who kills his victims in their dreams. While the survivors are trying to find the reason for being chosen, the murderer won't lose any chance to kill them as soon as they fall asleep.

Directed by Patty Jenkins
With Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Bruce Dern, Lee Tergesen

Based on the life of Aileen Wuornos, a Daytona Beach prostitute who became a serial killer.

Directed by Terrence Malick
With Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates, Ramon Bieri

An impressionable teenage girl from a dead-end town and her older greaser boyfriend embark on a killing spree in the South Dakota badlands.

Directed by Neil Jordan
With Jodie Foster, Terrence Howard, Naveen Andrews, Nicky Katt

David Kirmani,a medical professional, lives in an apartment with his sweetheart, Erica Bain, a radio host, and his dog. They usually take the dog out for a stroll in nearby Central Park and let him run and fetch. One day while at the park they let the dog run without a leash, and when he does not return or respond to their calls, they frantically search for him. They eventually find him being ...

Directed by Fritz Lang'
With Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, Otto Wernicke

When the police in a German city are unable to catch a child-murderer, other criminals join in the manhunt.

Directed by Anurag Kashyap
With Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vicky Kaushal, Sobhita Dhulipala, Mukesh Chhabra

Set in present day Mumbai the story follows the life of a serial killer Ramanna who is inspired by an infamous serial killer from the 1960s, Raman Raghav. His strange obsession with Raghavan, a young cop keeps growing as he closely follows him without his knowledge and often creates situations where both of them come face to face.

Directed by Bruce A. Evans
With Kevin Costner, Demi Moore, William Hurt, Dane Cook

A psychological thriller about a man who is sometimes controlled by his murder-and-mayhem-loving alter ego.

Directed by Sean Penn
With Jack Nicholson, Benicio Del Toro, Patricia Clarkson, Beau Daniels

A retiring police chief pledges to catch the killer of a young child.

Directed by Oliver Stone
With Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore, Rodney Dangerfield

Two victims of traumatized childhoods become lovers and psychopathic serial murderers irresponsibly glorified by the mass media.