Emma Beare's 501 Must-See Movies

Aibileen Clark is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson is an African-American maid who has often offended her employers despite her family's struggles with money and her desperate need for jobs; and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is a young white woman who h...

The Navy Seal team 6 track down wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden

Loosely based on the true-life tale of Ron Woodroof, a drug taking, women loving, homophobic man who, in 1986 was diagnosed with full blown HIV/AIDS and given thirty days to live.

In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty as well as unexpected kindnesses Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionis...

The film tells a story of a divorced couple trying to raise their young son. The story follows the boy for twelve years, from first grade at age 6 through 12th grade at age 17-18, and examines his relationship with his parents as he grows.

In the 1820s, a frontiersman, Hugh Glass, sets out on a path of vengeance against those who left him for dead after a bear mauling.

Although the critics in 1922 didn’t find the film to be anything special, a few years after it’s release it was called innovative and a landmark in cinema history. German director Murnau’s vampire film holds claim to one of the most, if not the most important German expressionist film and a foundation for horror films.

The Phantom of the Opera is a silent film by Rupert Julian from 1925 that is based on a novel from French writer Gaston Leroux.

A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.

An adventure film about a film crew in search of a monster on a remote island. The crew finds King Kong and decides to take him back to New York as a money making spectacle. The film is a masterpiece of Stop-Motion in filmmaking history and inspired a line of King Kong films.

Bride of Frankenstein begins where James Whale's Frankenstein from 1931 ended. Dr. Frankenstein has not been killed as previously portrayed and now he wants to get away from the mad experiments. Yet when his wife is kidnapped by his creation, Frankenstein agrees to help him create a new monster, this time a woman.

Architect Walter Craig, seeking the possibility of some work at a country farmhouse, soon finds himself once again stuck in his recurring nightmare. Dreading the end of the dream that he knows is coming, he must first listen to all the assembled guests' own bizarre tales.

Les Diaboliques is a Horror mystery thriller from French director Henri-Georges Clouzot about a triangle relationship that leads to murder.

After Jonathan Harker attacks Dracula at his castle (apparently somewhere in Germany), the vampire travels to a nearby city, where he preys on the family of Harker's fiancée. The only one who may be able to protect them is Dr. van Helsing, Harker's friend and fellow-student of vampires, who is determined to destroy Dracula, whatever the cost.

Psycho is one of the most famous masterpieces from Hitchcock and for it’s time was unparalleled in it’s horror effect. A chilling score sets the pace for an introverted killer and a mystery thriller case of multiple dimensions. The credits for the film directed by Saul Bass were revolutionary for their time.

A young man murders women, using a movie camera to film their dying expressions of terror.

In a small English village everyone suddenly falls unconscious. When they awake every woman of child bearing age is pregnant. The resulting children have the same strange blond hair, eyes and a strong connection to each other.

The Birds is a classic cult film from Alfred Hitchcock. His new horror elements made film history and one of hismasterpieces.

Hill House has stood for about 90 years and appears haunted: its inhabitants have always met strange, tragic ends. Now Dr. John Markway has assembled a team of people who he thinks will prove whether or not the house is indeed haunted.

Rosemary’s Baby is a classic physiological horror film from Roman Polanski about a young couple who move into a New York apartment to start a family and have a baby. Things soon turn ugly as Rosemary believes her baby isn’t safe around their strange neighbors.

A group of people try to survive an attack of bloodthirsty zombies while trapped in a rural Pennsylvania farmhouse. Although not the first zombie film, Night of the Living Dead is the progenitor of the contemporary "zombie apocalypse" horror film, and it greatly influenced the modern pop-culture zombie archetype.

Something beyond comprehension is happening to a little girl on this street, in this house. A man has been called for as a last resort to try and save her. That man is The Exorcist.

Don’t Look Now is a thriller starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland as a married couple who tragically loose their daughter and thereafter are confronted with only mysterious occurrences.

Police sergeant Neil Howie is called to an island village in search of a missing girl whom the locals claim never existed. Stranger still, however, are the rituals that take place there.

A group of friends passing through are stalked and hunted down by a deformed killer with a chainsaw in order to sustain his poor family who can only afford to eat what they kill.

The classic disaster film from Steven Spielberg about a great white shark that’s been attacking people off the coast of New England and bringing terror and screams to their beach vacations. The film was a major box-office success bringing in almost 500 million world wide and spawning the blockbuster movie phenomena.

Immediately after their miscarriage, the US diplomat Robert Thorn adopts the newborn Damien without the knowledge of his wife. Yet what he doesn’t know is that their new son is the son of the devil. A classic horror film with Gregory Peck from 1976.

Carrie may be ostracized, but the shy teen has the ability to move objects with her mind. So when the high school "in crowd" torments her with a sick joke at the prom, she lashes out with devastating -- and deadly -- power.

Eraserhead is a confusing film from independent cult director David Lunch from 1977.

Halloween is the low budget American horror film from 1978. A young man who at the age of six killed his sister has escaped from a psychiatric clinic and is once again killing teenagers in this classic from John Carpenter.

An American horror movie from 1978 about a group of four people who are hiding out in a shopping center after the city has been over run with zombies. This low budget film has gained a cult statues in the horror genre.

The Shining is a Stanley Kubrick adaptation of Steven King’s horror novel of the same name. The film takes the viewer into a remote hotel where a Jack Torrance and his wife and son must live in for the winter. One of the scariest films of all times mixes up reality and makes isolation a psychological nightmare.

Camp counselors are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant while trying to reopen a summer camp that was the site of a child's drowning.

The coastal city Antonia Bay of just one hundred inhabitants is about a receive a visit from a group of ghost seamen who want revenge for past wrongdoings. The Fog is the cult-horror film from John Carpenter that was also a success in theaters.

An American Werewolf in London is John Landis’ horror film from 1981 in which an American student turns into a werewolf during a full moon in London. From director John Landis who also directed Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

Scientists in the Antarctic are confronted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of the people that it kills.

An American horror film from 1982 in which a poltergeist comes into an American family and causes terror. Although Steven Spielberg didn’t direct the film he did cooperate in creating one of the scariest films to date.

The A Nightmare on Elm Street series is the most successful Horror film series of all times. Wes Craven’s first and most successful film from the series, now a cult classic, stars the mass murderer Freddy Krueger and a young Johnny Depp in his first major feature.

When Seth Brundle makes a huge scientific and technological breakthrough in teleportation, he decides to test it on himself. Unbeknownst to him, a common housefly manages to get inside the device and the two become one.

Ash Williams and his girlfriend Linda find a log cabin in the woods with a voice recording from an archeologist who had recorded himself reciting ancient chants from “The Book of the Dead.” As they play the recording an evil power is unleashed taking over Linda’s body.

The down-and-out private detective Harry Angel is ordered, by a mysterious man named Louis Cyphre, to go on a mission to find a missing person. His routine failure soon leads to a bloody spur with himself as Harry Angel goes on a supernatural journey into his soul. A thriller starring Mickey Rourke and Robert De Niro.

Novelist Paul Sheldon crashes his car on a snowy Colorado road. He is found by Annie Wilkes, the "number one fan" of Paul's heroine Misery Chastaine. Annie is also somewhat unstable, and Paul finds himself crippled, drugged and at her mercy.

Giant worms attack a small town.

Clarice Starling is a top student at the FBI's training academy. Jack Crawford wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into a case and that Starling, as an attracti...

One year after the death of Sidney Prescott's (Campbell) mother, two students turn up gutted. When a serial killer appears, Sidney begins to suspect whether her mother's death and the two new deaths are related. No one is safe, as the killer begins to pick everyone off one by one. Everyone's a suspect in this case.

A mysterious video has been linked to a number of deaths, and when an inquisitive journalist finds the tape and views it herself, she sets in motion a chain of events that puts her own life in danger.

A psychological thriller about an eight year old boy named Cole Sear who believes he can see into the world of the dead. A child psychologist named Malcolm Crowe comes to Cole to help him deal with his problem, learning that he really can see ghosts of dead people. A film that has you on the edge of your seat till the end when you fall off.

In October of 1994 three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary...A year later their footage was found.

Seven years after the death of his wife, company executive Aoyama is invited to sit in on auditions for an actress. Leafing through the resumés in advance, his eye is caught by Yamazaki Asami, a striking young woman with ballet training.

A woman who lives in a darkened old house with her two photosensitive children becomes convinced that her family home is haunted.