There are some horror subgenres that are considered more niche than others, such as the found footage horror movie. Some may call these mockumentary-style thrillers nothing more than a nausea-inducing gimmick that has well overstayed its welcome, while I believe the method has bred some of the most uniquely immersive and authentically frightening films in recent memory.
In fact, I imagine that, if you are not a fan of the subgenre, I could change your mind about it by recommending some of its greatest hits on streaming. The following are my picks for the absolute best horror movies of the found footage variety.
Ghostwatch (1992)
Director: Lesley Manning
Starring: Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene
What it’s about: A live broadcast from a supposedly haunted home in London spirals horribly out of control.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: Because it starred real-life U.K. TV presenters playing themselves, many viewers tuning in too late to the BBC special, Ghostwatch, believed it was a real news broadcast when it premiered (as Collider recalls), and it remains just as frightening to this day.
How to watch Ghostwatch
The Houses October Built (2014)
Director: Bobby Roe
Starring: Bobby Roe, Brandy Schaefer
What it’s about: A group of amateur documentarians chronicling their search for the scariest Halloween attraction possible find more than they bargained for.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: A highly fictionalized adaptation of a documentary of the same name and by the same filmmakers, The Houses October Built takes a fascinating and frightening look at the haunted house industry that may have you consider a tamer spooky season activity.
How to watch The Houses October Built
The Visit (2015)
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould
What it’s about: Teenager Becca’s documentary about her and her younger brother meeting with their grandparents for the first time evolves into a chronicle of their fight for survival when it becomes clear something is wrong with “Nana” and “Pop Pop.”
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: One of M. Night Shyamalan’s best movies in years at that point was The Visit for its chilling slow-burn suspense and killer plot twist.
How to watch The Visit
Deadstream (2022)
Director: Joseph Winter, Vanessa Winter
Starring: Joseph Winter, Melanie Stone
What it’s about: A disgraced internet personality tries to make a comeback by hosting a livestream event from inside a creepy abandoned house with an infamous history.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: If Sam Raimi made an Evil Dead movie in the found footage style, it might have turned out a lot like the widely overlooked recent horror film, Deadstream, which is equal parts hilarious and horrifying with lovely special effects.
How to watch Deadstream
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Director: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez
Starring: Heather Donahue, Micahel C. Williams, Joshua Leonard
What it’s about: While investigating an urban legend, three aspiring documentarians find themselves lost in a wood near Burkittsville, Maryland, and soon begin to suspect that they are not alone.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: The Blair Witch Project was astonishingly unique for the horror genre at the time and remains a remarkable achievement for the cast's improvised dialogue and camera use, as well as its ability to make you fear the villain without ever showing it to you.
How to watch The Blair Witch Project
- Stream The Blair Witch Project on Peacock
- Rent or buy The Blair Witch Project on Amazon
- Buy The Blair Witch Project on Blu-ray on Amazon
The McPherson Tape (1989)
Director: Dean Alioto
Starring: Dean Alioto, Tommy Giavocchini
What it’s about: While celebrating a young girl's birthday, a family stumbles upon evidence that otherworldly visitors are among them.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: Another underseen found footage entry that predates the genre’s mainstream breakthrough (by a decade) is The McPherson Tape – an alien invasion movie with the charming schlockiness of a low-budget production but the acting, suspense, and authenticity of a classic.
How to watch The McPherson Tape
- Stream The McPherson Tape on Tubi
- Stream The McPherson Tape on Pluto TV
- Rent or buy The McPherson Tape on Amazon
- Buy The McPherson Tape on Blu-ray on Amazon
The Last Broadcast (1998)
Director: Stefan Avalos, Lance Weiler
Starring: Stefan Avalos, Lance Weiler
What it’s about: A pair of local access cable TV stars search for evidence of the Jersey Devil, only to encounter something more dangerous.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: The Last Broadcast is one of the more overlooked found footage thrillers, despite its effectively chilling story and the fact that it predates The Blair Witch Project by a year.
How to watch The Last Broadcast
- Stream The Last Broadcast on Amazon Prime
- Stream The Last Broadcast on Tubi
- Buy The Last Broadcast on Blu-ray on Amazon
Hell House LLC (2015)
Director: Stephen Cognetti
Starring: Gore Adams, Alice Bahlke
What it’s about: A group of friends and business partners prepare their latest spooky attraction at an abandoned hotel which they begin to suspect is actually haunted.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: Not just an overlooked found footage movie but an overlooked haunted house thriller as well, Hell House LLC – the first chapter of an ongoing mockumentary franchise – is a relentlessly chilling exercise in masterfully crafted, slow-building dread.
How to watch Hell House LLC
- Stream Hell House LLC on Amazon Prime
- Stream Hell House LLC on Tubi
- Buy Hell House LLC on DVD on Amazon
Afflicted (2013)
Director: Derek Lee, Cliff Prowse
Starring: Derek Lee, Cliff Prowse
What it’s about: A pair of lifelong friends and aspiring filmmakers set out to make a travel documentary that soon evolves into a chronicle of one’s horrifying transformation after suffering a stranger’s bite.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: Afflicted is one of the more unique vampire movies in recent memory, and not just because of its found footage style.
How to watch Afflicted
Lake Mungo (2008)
Director: Joel Anderson
Starring: Rosie Traynor, David Pledger
What it’s about: A documentary crew interviews a family about the strange circumstances that led them to suspect their teenage daughter’s spirit is haunting them.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: Easily one of the more sophisticated After Dark Horror Fest entries, the Australian documentary-style ghost story, Lake Mungo, is a horror movie that was more beloved by critics than audiences, despite a cast strong enough to convince you that its heartbreaking story is real.
How to watch Lake Mungo
![Manuela Velasco in [REC]](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/QoQv7sZZH9LEhaqwGaX6hb-1200-80.jpg.webp)
[REC] (2007)
Director: Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza
Starring: Manuela Velasco, Pablo Rosso
What it’s about: A young TV reporter and her cameraman become one of several innocents trapped in a quarantined apartment building following a viral outbreak that turns people into ravenous, animalistic killers.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: Many have called the Spanish-language thriller, [REC], the found footage subgenre's peak of brilliance for how it effectively takes advantage of its singular setting to authentically create a claustrophobic environment where unstoppable evil lurks at every turn.
How to watch [REC]
Cloverfield (2008)
Director: Matt Reeves
Starring: Michael Stahl-David, Odette Annable
What it’s about: A group of twenty-somethings struggle to survive the night when a gargantuan creature wreaks havoc on New York.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: A unique take on monster movies from producer J.J. Abrams, the first of the Cloverfield movies essentially kicked off the found footage trend after its modest commercial and critical success with an absorbing, character-driven narrative that adds an especially devastating aura to the chaos.
How to watch Cloverfield
- Stream Cloverfield on Paramount+
- Rent or buy Cloverfield on Amazon
- Buy Cloverfield on Blu-ray on Amazon
Paranormal Activity Movies (2009-2021)
Director: Oren Peli, Tod Williams, Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman, Christopher Landon, Gregory Plotkin, William Eubank
Starring: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, and others
What it’s about: A series of strange occurrences connected to the horrifying experience of a young L.A. couple are captured on camera.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: Shortly after Cloverfield reintroduced documentary-style horror to the mainstream, the Paranormal Activity movies – which took a page from Blair Witch by not putting words in the actors’ mouths – ensured the found footage subgenre would not go away too soon.
How to watch the Paranormal Activity movies
- Stream Paranormal Activity 1-5 on Max
- Stream Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension on Amazon Prime
- Buy Paranormal Activity 1-6 on Blu-ray on Amazon
- Stream Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin on Paramount+
Trollhunter (2010)
Director: André Øvredal
Starring: Otto Jespersen, Robert Stoltenberg
What it’s about: A group of Norwegian students join a mysterious hunter to investigate a series of deaths assumed to be bear attacks, until they discover the threat is much, much bigger.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: Trollhunter is a fun, inventive mockumentary that will never let you think of the titular fairy tale creature the same way again.
How to watch Trollhunter
Grave Encounters (2011)
Director: The Vicious Brothers
Starring: Sean Rogerson, Ashleigh Gryzko
What it’s about: A skeptical paranormal reality show host and his crew realize they are ill-prepared for a night locked inside an abandoned insane asylum.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: Grave Encounters feels like what would happen if shows like Ghost Adventures actually captured something sinister: the helpless hosts would shit their pants in desperation from the indelible frights and psychological torture our protagonists can just barely endure.
How to watch Grave Encounters
- Stream Grave Encounters on Freevee through Amazon
- Stream Grave Encounters on Tubi
- Buy Grave Encounters on Blu-ray on Amazon
The Bay (2012)
Director: Barry Levinson
Starring: Kether Donohue, Kristen Connolly
What it’s about: A young reporter recounts the events of a horrifying 4th of July, during which a strange parasitic outbreak claims the lives of several people infected with grotesquely bizarre symptoms in a small town by the Chesapeake Bay.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: The Bay is a found footage gem told from multiple angles via handheld cameras, security footage, and news coverage that makes the already frightening concept of a deadly disease all the more believable.
How to watch The Bay
Chronicle (2012)
Director: Josh Trank
Starring: Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Michael B. Jordan
What it’s about: The lives of a lonely teen, his cousin, and their popular friend change for the better (or, maybe, worse) when a mysterious object gives them superhuman abilities.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: In addition to being a surprisingly relatable, and cautionary, supernatural coming-of-age story, Chronicle is one of the best “superhero” movies not based on a comic that brilliantly takes advantage of its characters' telekinetic powers to achieve camera angles unique to traditional found footage thrillers.
How to watch Chronicle
V/H/S Movies (2012-Present)
Director: Various
Starring: Various
What it’s about: A night of debauchery ends with a volatile encounter, a documentary crew’s interview with a cult has grave circumstances, a TV news reporter investigates a local urban legend, and more stories framed as lost video cassette recordings make up this engrossing series.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: One of the most acclaimed anthology horror movies is 2012’s V/H/S, which spawned a franchise of even more strange, bizarre, and just plain traumatizing shorts that is continued most recently in October 2024 with Shudder’s new horror movie, V/H/S/Beyond.
How to watch the V/H/S movies
- Stream V/H/S on Peacock
- Stream V/H/S/2 on Peacock
- Stream V/H/S/Viral on Peacock
- Stream V/H/S/94 on AMC+
- Stream V/H/S/99 on AMC+
- Stream V/H/S/85 on AMC+
- Stream V/H/S/Beyond on AMC+
The Creep Movies (2014, 2017)
Director: Aaron Brice
Starring: Mark Duplass, Aaron Brice
What it’s about: These tales involve a deeply manipulative and deadly man and his intimate encounters with two different amateur videographers.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: One of the most impressive things about the Creep movies – two of the best horror movies on Netflix – is that both of them are almost entirely improvised from beginning to end, as Duplass revealed to EW, with deeply disturbing results that stick with you long after.
How to watch the Creep movies
Unfriended And Unfriended: Dark Web (2015, 2018)
Director: Levan Grabiadze, Stephen Susco
Starring: Shelley Hennig, Colin Woodell
What it’s about: These tales both involve a group of friends whose online chat is breached by an uninvited guest that forces them to play a game with deadly consequences.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: I firmly believe that the supernatural Unfriended and its more grounded sequel, Unfriended: Dark Web, are some of the best Blumhouse horror movies yet for the way they each tell an intense, character-driven story in real time and entirely from the point of view of the central characters’ laptop screens.
How to watch the Unfriended movies
- Stream Unfriended on Netflix
- Rent or buy Unfriended on Amazon
- Buy Unfriended on Blu-ray on Amazon
- Rent or buy Unfriended: Dark Web on Amazon
- Buy Unfriended: Dark Web on Blu-ray on Amazon
Host (2020)
Director: Rob Savage
Starring: Haley Bishop, Jemma Moore
What it’s about: As part of their weekly remote activities during quarantine, a group of friends hold a seance over video chat, which soon proves to have dire consequences.
Why it is one of the best found footage movies: A thriller I would recommend watching on your computer is Host – a Covid-era hit that was originally released exclusively with a Shudder subscription and might be my most preferred entry of the video call horror trend so far.
How to watch Host
What do you think? Do these classics and hidden gems give you a newfound appreciation for found footage horror, or would you prefer that I get lost in the woods for recommending them?
