All 6 Scream movies ranked from worst to best

Which of the Scream movies produced the best frights? Let’s find out!

When the original Scream movie came out in the mid-’90s, it was a game changer for the horror genre. At the time, the slasher sub-genre felt like a dying breed — that is, until Ghostface entered the scene with his bowie knife and iconic mask.

The 1996 original film set the stage for numerous instalments, with a sequel released merely a year later and a third instalment that wrapped up the initial series. But as Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson taught us, the killer always returns with a vengeance, which led us to three more instalments of the franchise, with the latest film released this year.

Though Ghostface manages to resurface like a bad rash in every film, the franchise manages to keep the content fresh. A testament to the success of these films is how they walk a thin line between horror and comedy, as the films constantly mock traditional scary movie archetypes – from not answering the phone to saying “I’ll be right back.” The teenagers throughout these films, who consider themselves to be media and pop culture-savvy, make up these rules for surviving a horror movie, while they themselves find themselves trapped in a horror movie. It’s this kind of meta, satirical self-awareness that makes the Scream movies stand out.

However, the success of the franchise also begs the million dollar question — a question  that is perhaps harder to answer than Ghostface’s iconic “What’s your favorite scary movie?” — of how do the Scream films rank? We’re breaking down all the movies to see how they stack up against each other.