The 10 Highest-Grossing Horror Films of All Time

Read Mojo's worldwide chart through the horror filing and the genre's ceiling shows fast: $719,766,009. That's the lifetime worldwide gross Mojo reports for "It" (2017), and no horror film has ever crossed $1 billion — the champion doesn't crack the all-films top 150, landing 154th on the chart our all-time ranking prints in full. Horror runs on small budgets and loud openings, so its money table reads shorter and stranger than the others, and the real argument hides in the filing. The criteria run below, in the open, before a single title appears.

"It" Holds the Horror Crown at $719,766,009, and No Horror Film Has Crossed $1 Billion

The verdict, stated once more where a skim reader lands: "It" leads the horror chart, "The Sixth Sense" runs second, and the whole top ten clears $400 million a seat. Combined, the ten titles grossed $5,346,560,134 in lifetime worldwide business on Mojo's chart, and the spread from first to tenth runs $310,044,268. The floor of the list — the No. 10 gross — survives by $1,473,824, the tightest margin anywhere on this page, and the title parked outside it gets named in the contract below, because a cutoff you can't inspect is just a rumor.

The Population: How Mojo Draws the Horror Line

This list starts from the same source as its companion rankings: Mojo's Top Lifetime Grosses worldwide chart, read in full rank order. The horror population comes from Mojo's own filing — its Genre: Horror chart, where Mojo sorts the titles it tags as horror. A film counts here when Mojo files it there. A film Mojo files somewhere else stays off this list, whatever other rankings say.

Three calls decide the shape of the top ten, so all three run in the open. Mojo files "Jaws" (1975) as horror, so the shark counts, teeth and all — its $490,736,300 worldwide gross takes seventh place below. Mojo files "Signs" (2002) as horror too, and that call sets the cutoff: the film sits at No. 11, priced in the contract. And the reverse call matters just as much up top: Mojo doesn't file the giant-monster titles as horror, so "The Meg" stays out even though its $529,338,515 would slot fifth here, and the superhero titles with a horror streak — "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" at $955,775,804, "Venom" at $856,085,161 — sit outside the filing as well. One more near call, lower down: "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" carries Mojo's horror-comedy tag rather than a horror filing, so its $452,000,435, ninth-place money on gross alone, doesn't buy a seat. Follow Mojo's filing and the ten below are the whole of the top, in the chart's own order.

The Contract: Five Rules This Ranking Runs On

• Gross: worldwide lifetime theatrical gross, in US dollars, exactly as Box Office Mojo reports the figure.
• Adjustment: none. Nominal dollars only — a 1973 dollar counts the same as a 2026 dollar, because the chart counts it that way.
• Scope: every title on Mojo's worldwide chart carrying Mojo's horror filing, read in full rank order through the cutoff and past it.
• Re-releases: folded into each title's lifetime total, the way Mojo folds them in.
• Cutoff: the chart as read on November 9, 2026. First title out: "Signs" (2002), No. 11 at $408,247,917 — $1,473,824 behind No. 10, so the source draws the line, never vibes.

The Countdown, No. 10 to No. 1

No. 10 — "Resident Evil" (2026) — $409,721,741

The newest film on the list takes the last chair by the tightest margin on the page: $1,473,824 over "Signs." The split runs $159,721,741 domestic (39.0 percent) against a foreign gross Mojo prints as a flat $250,000,000 (61.0 percent) — the roundest number on this chart, holding the least secure seat on it.

No. 9 — "The Exorcist" (1973) — $430,872,776

The oldest film in the ten, and the split explains the survival: $233,005,644 domestic (54.1 percent) — $73,283,903 more at home than the film ranked directly below it — plus $197,867,132 foreign. A 1973 release still holds ninth place by $21,151,035, fifty-three years of challengers notwithstanding.

No. 8 — "It: Chapter Two" (2019) — $473,123,154

The sequel finishes $42,250,378 clear of No. 9 — the second-widest margin in the ten — on $211,622,525 domestic (44.7 percent) and $261,500,629 foreign. Paired with the champion, the two "It" films grossed $1,192,889,163 combined, a franchise total bigger than any single title the genre has produced.

No. 7 — "Jaws" (1975) — $490,736,300

The filing case, priced in full. Mojo counts the shark as horror, and the gross counts in full: $280,083,300 domestic (57.1 percent), the highest domestic share in the ten, alongside $210,653,000 foreign. Mojo's title page splits the total across the original run and six re-releases, the 2025 50th Anniversary re-release alone adding $16,572,364 worldwide. It trails No. 6 by $8,520,145 — close enough that the argument about its seat will outlive the margin.

No. 6 — "The Conjuring: Last Rites" (2025) — $499,256,445

Half a billion, missed by $743,555. The ninth film in its universe runs foreign-led — $321,500,000 abroad (64.4 percent) against $177,756,445 domestic — and it laps its own series while it climbs: the next "Conjuring" title down, "The Conjuring 2," stands at $322,819,915 on Mojo's charts, $176,436,530 behind this one.

No. 5 — "Obsession" (2026) — $524,322,094

The top five's odd split out: "Obsession" earned $263,451,715 domestic (50.2 percent) against $260,870,379 foreign, making it the only title in the top five that took in more at home than abroad — and its home gross alone out-earns the worldwide totals of every horror film ranked below No. 8 on this list. It clears No. 6 by $25,065,649 and still trails No. 4 by $16,133,782.

No. 4 — "World War Z" (2013) — $540,455,876

The zombie entry, and a foreign-led one: $337,648,165 abroad (62.5 percent) beside $202,807,711 domestic. That home figure still tops Mojo's Zombie keyword chart outright, and the worldwide total sits $45,042,866 below No. 3 — a gap no zombie title has come close to closing since.

No. 3 — "I Am Legend" (2007) — $585,498,742

Third place, held at arm's length in both directions: $45,042,866 clear of No. 4, and $87,308,255 behind No. 2 — the widest gap anywhere in the ten. The split runs $256,393,010 domestic (43.8 percent) and $329,105,732 foreign, the most balanced ledger in the top three.

No. 2 — "The Sixth Sense" (1999) — $672,806,997

The near-miss gets the full paragraph, because the diagnosis lives in the split. "The Sixth Sense" held this genre's record from 1999 until "It" took it in 2017, and its foreign gross — $379,300,705, 56.4 percent of its total — runs second-largest in the ten, behind only the champion's $390,891,028. The loss comes in both columns but lands at home: $293,506,292 domestic against the leader's $328,874,981, a $35,368,689 deficit, plus an $11,590,323 shortfall abroad. Worldwide, the two films finish $46,959,012 apart — just under seven percent of the champion's own gross. Why it fell short, in one line: the strongest two-column ledger the genre had ever printed needed about $47 million more, and the clown found it first.

No. 1 — "It" (2017) — $719,766,009

$719,766,009. That's the largest worldwide lifetime gross on Mojo's horror chart — $328,874,981 domestic (45.7 percent) and $390,891,028 foreign (54.3 percent), with $702,781,748 of it banked in the original release and the rest folded in across re-releases, per Mojo's title page for the film. It ranks 154th among all films ever charted, horror or otherwise. No other horror title sits within $46 million of it. The list ends there because the chart does.

What Would Move This List

Rank first, interpret after — so here's the meaning, now that the ranking stands. Horror's ceiling is the story: the genre's champion would rank 154th on the all-films chart, and the animated list drawn from this same Mojo chart makes the gap vivid — the tenth-place animated film, at $1,149,397,987, out-grosses the biggest horror film ever by $429,631,978. Ratings don't explain the ceiling either: six of these ten titles carry an R on Mojo's rating chart, yet three of the top four — "The Sixth Sense," "I Am Legend" and "World War Z" — reached their totals at PG-13. The map matters as much as the rating. Flip the ranking to domestic grosses alone and "Sinners" (2025) jumps from fourteenth worldwide to fourth at home, on a 73.7 percent domestic share — the most home-bound ledger anywhere near this list — while "Resident Evil" and "The Conjuring: Last Rites" slide on foreign-led splits.

What could overturn the order as printed? The soft spot sits at the bottom, not the top: $1,473,824 defends "Resident Evil" against "Signs," a gap one strong re-release weekend can erase, and the queue behind them runs "Prometheus" (2012) at $403,354,469 — the most foreign-led ledger in the dozen, at 68.6 percent abroad — then "Backrooms" (2026) at $400,640,280. The top gap, $46,959,012, needs a new champion rather than a calendar. Until Mojo prints a bigger horror number, the clown keeps the crown.