Courtesy Everett Collection (13) The post-pandemic theatrical landscape has mostly been an anxiety disorder punctuated by the occasional high. But one genre has consistently drawn audiences back to the multiplex in the past few years: horror. No longer just pegged to Halloween, horror movies now dot the release calendar year-round. M3GAN 2.0 may have fizzled last month but 28 Years Later found new blood in a franchise only a fraction younger than its title. The legacy sequel I Know What You Did Last Summer, which opened last weekend, tests the limits of '90s nostalgia, while Dave Franco and Alison Brie's Sundance body-horror hit, Together, arrives July 30. Hopes also are high for Weapons, with Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, opening early next month. Since the turn of the 20th century, horror - first in literary form and later in movies - has reflected social anxieties about a rapidly changing world. In a 21st century plagued by such concerns as global warming, the rise of AI technology, democracy in peril and the demonization of "the other," it's unsurprising that horror in the past 25 years has become unusually fertile terrain, ushering in what might arguably be called a new golden age of screen terror. That made it a challenging task to whittle down a roundup of just 25 favorites, covering studio releases and indies, American and international. For every film included on the entirely subjective ranked list below, a handful of others regrettably got bumped (see Honorable Mentions for several of them). I make no apologies for personal preferences that lean more toward atmospheric or allegorical horror than sadistic schlock, so you won't find The Human Centipede slithering here. Likewise, I'll take monster movies and ghost stories over torture porn - don't look for Saw or Hostel representation. And as much as I enjoyed X, Pearl and MaXXXine, Ti West's playful trilogy showcasing the vixenish charms of Mia Goth, I opted to skip slasher flicks in favor of the occult. Finally, please don't bitch and moan about David Lynch's incomparable Mulholland Drive not being here. Love it, but the genre-defying stunner is not horror. Honorable mentions: Barbarian (2022), The Devil's Backbone (2001), The Eye (2003), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014), Goodnight Mommy (2014), The Innocents (2022), It Comes at Night (2017), Midsommar (2019), Nanny (2022), The Orphanage (2008), Prey (2022), Pulse (2005), Raw (2017), She Dies Tomorrow (2020), Thelma (2017) Bones and All (2022) Image Credit: Yannis Drakoulidis/MGM/Courtesy Everett Collection Luca Guadagnino's sumptuous horror romance, adapted from the novel by Camille DeAngelis, is a love story bathed in the pools of blood spilled during the cannibal protagonists' feeding times. The Italian director also bathes the movie in unexpected sweetness, poetry, lush sensuality and emotional depth. Evincing simmering chemistry, Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet play the protein-diet drifters on a cross-country road trip, feasting whenever they can, "bones and all," on human flesh. Separating and reuniting, they find a home in each other and attempt to live a normal life, until the past - in the maximum-eccentricity form of Mark Rylance - catches up with them in a shattering final act. Guadagnino cites Terrence Malick's Badlands as an influence, but this oddly tender trail of death evokes a whole panoply of American outsider tales. Talk to Me (2022) Image Credit: A24/Courtesy Everett Collection Australian twins Danny and Michael Philippou vaulted from viral YouTube videos to features with this possession spook show, a violent cautionary tale warning us not to mess with the spirit world. A group of Adelaide teens who never met a frightening moment unsuitable for social media sharing somehow get a hold of what's allegedly a severed forearm encased in ceramic. By clutching the hand and saying the three words of the title, they invite the dead to occupy their bodies. But there's a strict 90-second limit before the presence puts down roots. In a knockout big-screen debut, Sophie Wilde plays Mia, whose mother's apparent suicide makes her especially receptive to spiritual exploration. But a crisis explodes when Mia's surrogate little brother stays too long at the party. The talented Philippous handily sidestepped the sophomore jinx with this year's Bring Her Back. A Quiet Place (2018) Image Credit: Jonny Cournoyer/Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection As co-writer, director and co-star alongside his wife Emily Blunt, John Krasinski revealed a flair for first-rate genre filmmaking with this modestly budgeted alien-invasion chiller that became a sizable worldwide hit. With solid support from Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe, the suspenseful film tracks a family's survival ordeal in a post-apocalyptic America overrun with spindly, blind extraterrestrials whose acute sense of hearing allows them to pinpoint their doomed targets in seconds. Early on, Krasinski folds in shattering tragedy that m