10 Best Horror TV Shows To Binge-Watch On Netflix

Sometimes, you just need a little spookiness in your life. This desire for the morbid and macabre isn’t limited to autumn — now dubbed “spooky season” — however. We can delight in horror TV shows all year long, and Netflix has plenty of dark offerings that fit the bill. Offering original series and shows that have migrated from cable, there’s plenty to dig into, from zombies and werewolves to ghosts and other supernatural threats. Although some are more conventional horror, while others cross genres with drama or even comedy, they’ll all give you the heebie jeebies to some degree.

Some of these horror series are short and sweet (well, not sweet, but you get what we mean), making them the perfect option to binge over a weekend or even a single day. But if you’re looking for something to last you a while, we’ve also got some picks that ran for several seasons and will keep you busy. Here are some of Netflix’s most spooktastic shows!

There have been a few different films and television series over the years to completely reinvent the zombie subgenre — most notably “Night of the Living Dead” — and “The Walking Dead” is undoubtedly one of them. Based on a graphic novel series of the same name, “The Walking Dead” begins with deputy Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) awakening in a hospital to a strange new world. While he was resting peacefully in a coma, the zombie apocalypse was unfolding around him. 

While “The Walking Dead” originally revolves around his efforts to find his wife and son, it quickly expands outward to explore a large ensemble cast of characters and their journey to survive long enough to rebuild some semblance of society. Bleak, brutal, and unrelenting in its willingness to kill off fan-favorite characters, the show was a massive hit on AMC, spawning not one, not two, but six different “The Walking Dead” spinoff series. 

Loosely based on the 1980s horror comedy of the same name starring Michael J. Fox, “Teen Wolf” harks back to classic WB supernatural YA dramas like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Charmed.” Tyler Posey plays Scott McCall, a seemingly ordinary teen whose life is turned upside down when he is bitten by a werewolf and soon begins experiencing unexpected, moon-related changes. Of course, it doesn’t help matters that the girl he has a crush on, Allison Argent (Crystal Reed), is the product of a long line of werewolf hunters seeking to eradicate his kind.

Although it focuses on the werewolf at the center of its story, “Teen Wolf” is also quick to expand its lore, tackling not just the burgeoning werewolf community in this sleepy town, but also other supernatural elements that seek to disturb it. “Teen Wolf” quickly became one of the biggest hits on MTV, a channel that was never really known for its narrative dramas, and ran for 100 episodes over the course of six seasons. In addition to its longevity, the series helped launch the career of Dylan O’Brien, who provides comic relief as Scott’s best friend, Stiles Stilinski.

If there’s one thing Mike Flanagan knows how to do without breaking a sweat, it’s creating iconic horror miniseries for Netflix. The man does not miss. With “Midnight Mass,” he takes us to an isolated island community whose best days are behind it. But when the mysterious Father Paul Hill (Hamish Linklater) arrives to reinvigorate the local church, the townspeople are eager to put their faith in him. But is that faith misguided? Well, yeah.

Hill has a few secrets of his own, some of which are of the distinctly vampiric variety. Wherever he leads his newfound flock, they won’t be able to avoid grappling with the collective guilt and regret they’ve accumulated over the years. Flanagan’s talky monologues are front and center in “Midnight Mass,” making it a bit of a slow burn — but for audiences who like the mouth feel of a nice soliloquy, the ones here definitely hit the mark.

There are plenty of shows on this list that have spooky atmospheres or startling jump scares, but when it comes to deep, down-to-your-bones unsettling horror, few can compete with Japanese horror writer Junji Ito. Known for his horror manga stories — including “The Enigma of Amigara Fault,” the conclusion of which will haunt you for a disconcertingly long period of time — Ito’s work is given the Netflix treatment with “Jinjo Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre.” 

This anthology series features a number of standalone horror stories, many of which are disturbing for reasons it’s difficult to quite explain. Rather than relying on jump scares, many of these stories build dread through imagery that sticks with you long after the episode ends. From horrifying heads floating in the sky to rat-infested hair, creepiness abounds in “Japanese Tales of the Macabre.” Just don’t burn through these 12 episodes if you were planning on sleeping anytime soon — don’t say we didn’t warn you.

A nostalgia-filled horror/sci-fi hybrid, the first season of “Stranger Things” made an immediate impression on audiences when it debuted on Netflix. Set in the 1980s, it revolves around a group of teenagers who have to confront a mysterious world lurking beneath their quiet Indiana town after one of their friends goes missing. Right from the very beginning, the show was a phenomenon, launching its young cast into superstardom and creating a franchise out of an unassuming television series. 

Although not every single one of the seasons has been as utterly triumphant as its first — and the long gaps between seasons haven’t helped — “Stranger Things” has a consistency to its chaos that makes it watchable even during its weaker moments. If anything, it deserves credit just for putting Joe Keery, Sadie Sink, and many other standout members of its cast on a global stage. Through all its ups and downs, it’s an incredibly ambitious series that we find compulsively watchable.

Unlike the majority of zombie series, which tend to take place in the present day, “Kingdom” blends the horror subgenre with historical drama. It’s set in 1601 Korea, in the aftermath of a fierce and bloody war, as the kingdom’s crown prince attempts to investigate the mysterious illness plaguing his father. (Is this a strange disease of the undead variety? You’ll have to watch to find out.)

If fending off the zombie apocalypse wasn’t enough, Lee Chang (Ju Ji-hoon) is also facing political threats from every quarter, with his stepmother hoping to give birth to a son who will displace him in the line of succession. From this perspective, we get a series that manages to deftly balance its horror elements with more straightforward drama, creating a show that works for both genre fans and general audiences as well. “Kingdom” ran on Netflix for two seasons (plus one special) from 2019 to 2021, so while there’s plenty to dig into, you won’t have to spend ages waiting to reach its exciting conclusion.

Everyone likes Stephen King, right? So it makes sense that if you want to make a good horror TV series, you might as well try bringing together a number of his legacy characters, offering Marvel-style fan service for the mass-market paperback horror crowd. That’s essentially the idea behind “Castle Rock,” which takes place in a fictional Maine community (familiar territory for King), where characters from some of his most famous works coexist in a shared universe. 

“Castle Rock” is made up of two seasons, each of which features different characters and tells its own standalone story, so the series as a whole is easy to binge quickly. While the whole is rather less than the sum of its parts (how could “Castle Rock” compete with the best of the works its characters are drawn from?), it’s still hard to say no to more time at Shawshank Penitentiary or with the diabolical Annie Wilkes (played here by Lizzy Caplan).

Back in the early 1990s, we got a cinematic adaptation of Anne Rice’s popular novel “Interview With the Vampire,” starring Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, and a young Kirsten Dunst. This version, which premiered on AMC in 2022, makes some changes to the narrative, almost all of which are improvements for the better. 

First, it moves Louis’ (Jacob Anderson) origin story from the 1700s to the early 1900s, where he’s a Black man in New Orleans rather than a slaveowner, making the story more palatable to audiences in the 2020s. Second, and arguably most importantly, this adaptation of “Interview With the Vampire” leans fully into the homoerotic relationship that exists between Louis and Lestat (Sam Reid), turning queer subtext into text. Their chemistry is off the charts, giving “Interview With the Vampire” the chaotic energy to sustain it over the seasons. Right now, you can binge-watch the first two seasons on Netflix, just in time for the third season to premiere in June 2026.

By now, Guillermo del Toro has more than proven himself as a master of the horror genre, with endless imagination and a creative drive to bring his nightmarish visions to life. “Cabinet of Curiosities” represents his foray into anthology television, and it doesn’t disappoint. With eight episodes drawing heavily from classic Gothic stories, “Cabinet of Curiosities” maintains a suitably eerie atmosphere. 

As del Toro is able to attract top-tier talent to his projects, the anthology series boasts performances from acclaimed actors like Tim Blake Nelson, F. Murray Abraham, Dan Stevens, and others. The show also benefits from the creative input of several different horror directors, including Jennifer Kent, Ana Lily Amirpour, and Catherine Hardwicke. That variety gives the series a refreshing unpredictability, with each installment offering something visually and tonally different. Although not every story in the series is an all-time classic, “Cabinet of Curiosities” remains remarkably consistent from episode to episode.

From the very first moments of “The Haunting of Hill House,” we know we’re on board for something special. There’s a sense of foreboding — a deeply unsettling atmosphere that permeates the entire production, even in its quieter scenes. The Crain siblings, who experienced a family tragedy as children that they have spent their entire adult lives trying to recover from, are reunited when their youngest sister goes missing, and the past threatens to knock on their door. 

Based on the novel by classic midcentury horror writer Shirley Jackson, “The Haunting of Hill House” has been adapted for the screen several times since its initial release, but never with the skill and panache that we see here from Mike Flanagan. He’s become a go-to TV horror director in the years since this came out, and it’s easy to see why — the chills and outright jump scares he creates here are utterly masterful.