Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Maika Monroe, two horror-genre faves, joined forces for The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, a horror thriller movie that debuted on Hulu on Wednesday, October 22. In the film, Winstead plays a suburban mother who employs Monroe’s nanny, only to discover the new hire isn’t who she says she is.
Winstead and Monroe have already achieved scream-queen status, the former with films like Final Destination 3 and Black Christmas, the latter with It Follows and Longlegs. And soon we might rank them in the pantheon of scream queens, but for now, these 13 women are our picks for the horror genre’s royalty.
13. Regina Hall
Hall spoofed the horror genre as a star of the first four Scary Movie installments and is returning for the sixth. But she also played a haunted school administrator in the 2022 film Master, so she has us screaming with laughter and actually screaming.
12. Dee Wallace
Yes, the mom from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial has horror-film bona fides. We’re talking The Stepford Wives, The Hills Have Eyes, The Howling, Cujo, Critters, The Frighteners, and Rob Zombie’s Halloween (in which she played Laurie Strode’s mom).
11. Mia Goth
Goth teamed up with filmmaker Ti West to lead the X film franchise, playing the dual roles of Maxine Minx and Pearl in the first film and its sequels Pearl and MaXXXine. Now she’s tacking another famous horror story with a role in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein.
10. Keke Palmer
Moviegoers saw Palmer battle a carnivorous UFO in as Em Haywood in Nope, but she’s been starring in horror fare for more than a decade now, from the horror film Animal to the TV shows Scream Queens and Scream: The TV Series. Now Palmer is producing her own horror content with the web series Dread Manor.
9. Heather Langenkamp
Langenkamp portrayed Nancy Thompson in A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, but that wasn’t the final appearance of this “final girl.” Nancy returned in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, and Langenkamp played both the character and herself in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.
8. Neve Campbell
Campbell isn’t just a scream queen but a Scream queen, starring as Sidney Prescott in all but one film of the franchise, making a triumphant comeback in the upcoming Scream 7. She also took a turn for the witchy in The Craft, and don’t forget about her part in Are You Afraid of the Dark?
7. Fay Wray
It was beauty that killed the beast… and this King Kong star who got a reputation as the first scream queen. Aside from that monster hit, Wray’s other horror roles include parts in Doctor X, The Most Dangerous Game, Mystery of the Wax Museum, The Vampire Bat, and Black Moon.
6. Lin Shaye
You might not know Shaye by name, but you’ve likely seen her work. Her horror credits include the Nightmare on Elm Street, Ouija, and Critters franchises, plus Alone in the Dark and The Grudge. But now she’s best known for playing Elise Rainier in all five — soon to be six — Insidious movies.
5. Sarah Paulson
Paulson is the leading lady of American Horror Story, appearing in nine of 12 seasons so far and logging more appearances than any other woman on the show. And she went from tormented to tormentor as the star of the horrifying Ratched, another Ryan Murphy production.
4. Sigourney Weaver
In space, no one can hear you scream… but in theaters, everyone could hear you scream as the xenomorphs of the Alien franchise terrorized Ellen Ripley across four movies. And for playing the lieutenant and lone survivor of the first Alien film, Weaver earned her her first Academy Award nomination.
3. Janet Leigh
Cinema’s best-known scream is arguably Leigh’s in Psycho: Even though she died early in the Hitchcock film, that shower scene is iconic. Leigh returned to the horror genre alongside her daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis, in The Fog and Halloween H20: Halloween 20 Years Later.
2. Sarah Michelle Gellar
Gellar has built her career on horror, from her appearances in Scream 2 and the upcoming Ready or Not: Here I Come to her roles in the Grudge and I Know What You Did Last Summer franchises. And then there’s Buffy, in which she screamed less and slayed more.
1. Jamie Lee Curtis
There’s a reason Murphy cast Curtis, Leigh’s daughter, in Scream Queens. Curtis’ Laurie Strode went from hunted to hunter in Halloween films across nearly half a decade, and she became the best-known face of horror as she went from scream princess to quintessential scream queen.