The American production company Blumhouse Productions has been responsible for some of the most exciting movies of the 21st century and has received numerous accolades and awards. Founded in the year 2000 and known for mainly producing horror movies, Blumhouse had a company model based on low-budget releases that provided filmmakers with significant creative freedom. While this philosophy may occasionally lead to box office bombs or critical failures, it was this type of risk-taking that led to some of the studio’s greatest releases and contributed to its unique and effective charm.

As the studio behind major horror franchises like Paranormal Activity, Insidious, and The Purge, Blumhouse Productions became well-known among horror enthusiasts and was associated with challenging and entertaining releases. Blumhouse has also stepped outside its horror movie niche to release successful drama films, such as BlacKkKlansman and Whiplash, both of which were nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. A vital production company that consistently promoted lesser-known voices, the best Blumhouse movies stood as some of the greatest releases in recent times.

15 The Black Phone (2022)

Directed By Scott Derrickson

Scott Derrickson had proven himself a master of horror with movies like The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Sinister, and Doctor Strange. In 2021, he turned his attention to a Joe Hill (Stephen King's son) short story called The Black Phone. In this tale, a child killer abducts children and holds them hostage in his basement. He then keeps them trapped there until he grows tired and kills them. However, when he abducts a young boy named Finney Blake, he gets more than he bargained for.

This horror movie works well because it takes a very real fear of a child abductor and then adds in supernatural aspects. In this case, it is an unplugged phone where ghosts of past victims call Finney and offer to help him escape if they can get their revenge against the man who murdered them. Ethan Hawke was great as the killer and the film was a huge success, spawning an sequel, although it is unclear how the story will continue given The Black Phone's ending.

14 Freaky (2020)

Directed By Christopher Landon

Freaky is a Blumhouse movie that pays homage to the classic comedy body-swap movie Freaky Friday. However, instead of a mother and daughter swapping bodies and having strange misadventures, a high school girl and a serial killer swap bodies instead. As the killer starts murdering people in the high schooler's body, the young woman in the serial killer's body has to convince her friends of who she is and what is going on before this killer ruins her life.

Directed by Christopher Landon, the movie was a huge box office success and also won over critics, who praised its great use of humor and horror. Vince Vaughn was at the top of his game as the serial killer and was even better when he had to take on the mannerisms of a high school girl (played by Kathryn Newton). The film has an impressive 84% fresh Rotten Tomatoes score and showed Landon was still one of Blumhouse's best directors (he also directed Happy Death Day).

13 Drop (2025)

Directed By Christopher Landon

Christopher Landon followed up his immensely popular and crowd-pleasing Freaky with a movie that was a little more of a thriller than a horror-comedy. In Drop, Meghann Fahy stars as Violet, a single mother who is on a date with a man named Henry (Brandon Sklenar). The movie is a tech horror tale based on Apple's AirDrop, where a person can send pictures and videos to someone close to them. Someone is sending Violet images and then sends a photo of her son and is told they will kill the boy if she doesn't kill her date.

Arriving in theaters in April 2025, Drop received early positive critical reviews, with its 88% rating even higher than Landon's Freaky Rotten Tomatoes score. Critics praised the mystery as a Hitchcockian thriller, and said that as long as a person can suspend their disbelief, there is a lot to love about the story, with Fahy proving to be a great sympathetic character, although fans are warned to know they are going in for a good time and not an overly intelligent thriller.

12 Creep (2015)

Directed by Patrick Brice

The low-budget, small-scale nature of many Blumhouse productions was a perfect fit for Patrick Brice’s found-footage psychological horror Creep, a quietly compelling movie that slowly built tension as its eccentric, odd, and nerve-wracking concept was explored. Creep starred Mark Duplass as a supposedly dying man who hired a videographer to record his last messages.

Soon these intentions turned sour as his charisma fell away, and his psychotic nature burst to the forefront. A powerful portrayal of the horrific consequences of taking a job on Craigslist, the film had an equally eerie sequel called Creep 2.

11 The Purge: Election Year (2016)

Directed by James DeMonaco

Blumhouse Production found consistent success in the dystopian horror series The Purge, which released its best and most relevant entry in 2016 with The Purge: Election Year. A fascinating insight into the politics behind the annual lawless murder spree, The Purge: Election Year blended shocking scares, excessive violence, and timely themes in an effective film that acted as a sharp satirical mirror to political and social reality.

The movie took the idea of the Purge and showed it from a more national level, explaining how rthe politicians and U.S. Government had no problem allowing citizens to die one night a year if it meant safety the rest of the year. A biting critique of politics with hints of fascism, this was the Purge movie that had the best story to tell. A compelling exploration of a society divided, The Purge: Election Year was both clever and loaded with violence.

10 Happy Death Day (2017)

Directed by Christopher Landon

As a time-loop horror, Happy Death Day could be described as Groundhog Day meets Scream college student Tree Gelbman awoke each morning to a nightmarish existence that always ended with a terrifying killer murdering her. The entire movie was a perfect time loop movie, with the victim having to die over and over again before she could figure out the truth behind her murder. The film also had a lot of humor involved, making it one of Blumhouse's funniest horror movies.

A clever mix of many different genre convictions, Happy Death Day subverted slasher clichés and was propped up by an exceptional performance from Jessica Rothe. With elements of comedy, horror, and romance, Happy Death Day proved that a successful horror movie could be funny and satirical while retaining a more sinister slant. This was so popular that it even spawned a sequel, wtih another horrific time loop beginning.

9 BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Directed by Spike Lee

The release of Spike Lee’s BlaKkKlansman was a rare non-horror release from Blumhouse Production that received widespread acclaim and showcased the company's potential across genres. This was far removed from Blumhouse horror movies, as it took a Black law enforcement officer and had him work with a Jewish officer to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan and bring them down from the inside.

Based on a true story and with an acclaimed director at the helm, BlacKkKlasman received six nominations at the Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and was an insightful and relevant social satire that explored racial prejudices in the United States. A powerful and provocative film, BlacKkKlansman followed an African American detective infiltrating and exposing a local Ku Klux Klan chapter in a hard-hitting story that needed to be seen to be believed.

8 Us (2019)

Directed by Jordan Peele

Director Jordan Peele brought the same creativity and thematic depth from his directional debut Get Out to his follow-up feature Us, a dark psychological horror that explored a menacing group of doppelgängers. The movie went a long way in showing that Jordan Peele was not a one-hit wonder and it took the idea of duplicates wanting to take over the lives andd identities of those living better lives than themselves.

Bringing together timeless themes of the other, the American dream, and racial tension in the United States, Us was strange, surreal, and surprising.

Bringing together timeless themes of the other, the American dream, and racial tension in the United States, Us was strange, surreal, and surprising, as Peele demonstrated himself as one of the most relevant voices in horror filmmaking today. A creepy and effective examination of class and marginalization, Us featured allusions to movie horrors of the past as it addressed American privilege and the ramifications of presumed superiority.

7 The Invisible Man (2020)

Directed By Leigh Whannell

For years, Universal wanted to reboot its Universal Monster movies. However, after failing with Dracula, the Wolf-Man, and The Mummy, the studio gave up. Where they failed, Blumhouse ruled with its remake of The Invisible Man. While this was not an actual reboot of the original movie, it had more similarities with another horror movie called Hollow Man, although Leigh Whannell's Invisible Man was better in every conceivable manner.

This focused on a controlling and manipulative wealthy scientist abusing his girlfriend. When she finally escapes him and goes into hiding, he fakes his own death, but in actuality, he develops an invisibility potion and starts to torment her, trying to ruin her reputation and drive her to madness. Elisabeth Moss was brilliant as the woman fighting for her life, and this was easily the best Universal Monster movie since the 1990s.

6 M3GAN (2023)

Directed by Gerard Johnstone

The outrageously over-the-top horror movie M3GAN was an unapologetically silly box office success that delivered laughs and scares in equal measure. Almost playing out like a Child's Play for a new generation, a scientist working on a new AI finds herself the guardian of her niece after the girl's parent's die. The scientist then places the AI in a M3GAN doll and programs it to protect the girl. However, M3GAN takes these instructions to the extreme.

An absurd satire dealing with themes of artificial intelligence, ing off the responsibility of children on technology, and unhealthy grieving habits, M3GAN was a campy exploration of a sentient robot’s obsessive connection to a young child. M3GAN was the type of movie that would either be a smashing success with viewers or a total failure and, in this case, Blumhouse Productions' risky business model paid off as it grossed over $180 million at the box office.