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10 classic Halloween movies, from Universal monsters to stop-motion

These Halloween movies to stream run from Universal's 1931 Dracula to Henry Selick's 2009 Coraline, with notes on the studio behind each film and where to look

Finding a Halloween movie in October is now as much a search problem as a question of taste. The same film can sit on one service in September and on another by the end of the month. Licensing deals expire, and studios regularly pull titles back to their own platforms. A film that was easy to find last year may require a rental this year.

This guide to Halloween movies to stream is a selection of 10 films, not a ranking. The films appear in order of release, from Universal's Dracula in 1931 to Henry Selick's Coraline in 2009. The list spans nearly eight decades of the genre. It covers a Universal monster picture, an Alfred Hitchcock thriller and two slashers. It also includes two supernatural comedies, a macabre family comedy, a witch comedy set in Salem, Massachusetts, and two stop-motion features.

Some picks suit a family movie night, and others are better saved for after the children are asleep. Several are not strictly horror at all. Ghostbusters, for example, is a supernatural comedy that is not set at Halloween. Its ghosts and haunted New York setting still fit the season.

Studio ownership is often a useful clue to where a film ends up. Disney $DIS 0.71% owns Disney , and Hocus Pocus is a Disney film. NBCUniversal owns both Peacock and the Universal horror library, which includes the 1931 Dracula. Paramount $PARA 27.38% owns Paramount . In the U.S., Paramount distributed the 1991 version of The Addams Family. Those connections point to a likely home for those titles.

Ownership is not a guarantee of availability. A studio can license its own film to a rival service for a set period. Older titles can also carry rights deals that predate streaming entirely. Halloween, Scream and Psycho are among the films here whose streaming homes are harder to predict. Their slides name only the studio or distributor behind them.

Before planning a viewing night, search within the services you already pay for. A free tracker such as JustWatch shows where a title can be streamed, rented or bought in a given country. Shudder, a subscription service focused on horror, is another place to look for genre films in October. Each slide below explains what the film is, who made it and what sets it apart.

Dracula (1931), Universal's Bela Lugosi vampire film

Tod Browning's Dracula, released by Universal Pictures in 1931, stars Bela Lugosi as the Transylvanian count. Lugosi's evening dress, long cape and slow, Hungarian-accented delivery set the screen image of the vampire that Halloween costumes still copy.

The film did not come straight from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel. Universal based it on the stage adaptation by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston. That play ran on Broadway in 1927 with Lugosi already in the title role.

The theatrical roots show on screen. Much of the action takes place in drawing rooms, bedrooms and a sanatorium. Dialogue carries more of the story than special effects do, and the count's attacks mostly happen just out of frame.

The plot follows the novel's broad outline with some changes. In this version, Renfield is the agent who travels to Castle Dracula to finalize a property deal. He falls under the count's control and accompanies him by ship to England.

Dracula then settles at Carfax Abbey and begins preying on Mina and her friend Lucy. Professor Van Helsing, played by Edward Van Sloan, works out what the foreign aristocrat really is. Helen Chandler plays Mina, and David Manners plays John Harker.

Dwight Frye plays Renfield. After meeting the count, the nervous agent turns into a giggling servant who eats flies and spiders and waits on his master's orders from a sanatorium cell.

Karl Freund, a cinematographer who had worked in German silent film, shot the picture. The opening castle sequence features cobwebbed staircases, crumbling stone and armadillos crawling across the floor. Armadillos are native to the Americas, not Eastern Europe.

The film has almost no original score. Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake plays over the opening credits, and long stretches pass in silence. Composer Philip Glass wrote a new score for the film in the late 1990s, performed by the Kronos Quartet.

Universal also shot a separate Spanish-language version on the same sets at night. George Melford directed it, with Carlos Villarías as the count and Lupita Tovar in the female lead.

Dracula opened the studio's monster cycle. Universal released Frankenstein, directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff, later in 1931. Dracula's Daughter followed in 1936.

Universal is now part of NBCUniversal, the company that also owns the Peacock streaming service. That corporate link makes Peacock a logical first place to search for the 1931 film. Licensing deals can still move older titles to other platforms.

Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 Bates Motel thriller

Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, released in 1960 with Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh, is the black-and-white thriller that set much of the template for modern screen horror. Its scares come from character, misdirection and editing rather than effects.

The film adapts Robert Bloch's 1959 novel of the same name. Bloch drew loosely on the case of Ed Gein, a Wisconsin man arrested in 1957 after investigators found human remains at his farmhouse.

Leigh plays Marion Crane, a Phoenix office worker who steals $40,000 from her employer and drives off with it. A rainstorm sends her to the Bates Motel, a quiet roadside property run by Norman Bates. Perkins plays Norman as polite and nervous. He lives in the old house above the motel with his mother, who is heard far more often than she is seen.

The structure breaks with convention. Hitchcock kills off his apparent lead before the film's halfway point. The story then shifts to Norman and to the people searching for Marion. Vera Miles plays her sister, Lila. John Gavin plays her boyfriend, Sam Loomis. Martin Balsam plays Milton Arbogast, a private investigator hired to find the money.

Hitchcock guarded that twist. Theaters were asked not to admit anyone after the film had started, a policy built into the release campaign.

The shower scene is assembled from dozens of rapid cuts. The knife is never shown entering Marion's body. Bernard........

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