Entertainment
The Best Horror Movies About Hospitals and Mental Asylums
If you're in the mood to lose your mind for a few hours, here's our ranked list of the best horror movies set in haunted hospitals or insane asylums. There are a lot of scary movies about asylums, so help us determine the best ones by voting your favorite hospital horror films on this list up or down.
Good scary movies that take place in mental wards, asylums, institutions, or abandoned psychiatric hospitals include The Jacket, Stonehearst Asylum, and The Ninth Configuration. Some of the main characters in these asylum horror movies are actual patients in a mental ward, like in 2018's Unsane. Other films on this list, like Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings, see a group of people having to spend the night in an abandoned mental hospital.
What is your favorite scary movie about an asylum or mental hospital? Vote the horror movies about mental asylums on this list up or down to help your favorite scary asylum movies get to the top of the list.
If you enjoy this genre of horror, check out our list of the scariest movies about evil doctors too!
Ranked by
- 1Peter Mullan, David Caruso, Stephen Gevedon
- Released: 2001
- Directed by: Brad Anderson
A tale of terror when a group of asbestos removal workers start work in an abandoned insane asylum. The complex of buildings looms up out of the woods like a dormant beast. Grand, imposing ... ...more - 2Sean Rogerson, Juan Riedinger, Mackenzie Gray
- Released: 2010
- Directed by: Colin Minihan, Stuart Ortiz
The crew of a ghost-hunting TV show goes insane after being locked in an abandoned psychiatric hospital. - 3Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Charles Cyphers
- Released: 1981
- Directed by: Rick Rosenthal
After failing to kill stubborn survivor Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) and taking a bullet or six from former psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence), Michael Myers (Dick Warlock) has followed ...more - 4Kate Beckinsale, Ben Kingsley, Jim Sturgess
- Released: 2014
- Directed by: Brad Anderson
A new employee at a mental hospital becomes attracted to one of his colleagues, but he is unaware of a recent, horrifying change in staff. - 5Halle Berry, Robert Downey, Charles S. Dutton
- Released: 2003
- Directed by: Mathieu Kassovitz
The life of psychiatrist Miranda Grey (Halle Berry) is derailed after she nearly hits a girl with her car one night. Later, Miranda wakes up in her own mental hospital under the care of her peer, ...more - 6Heather Langenkamp, Patricia Arquette, Craig Wasson
- Released: 1987
- Directed by: Chuck Russell
During a hallucinatory incident, young Kristen Parker (Patricia Arquette) has her wrists slashed by dream-stalking monster Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). Her mother, mistaking the wounds for a ...more - 7Clare Higgins, Ashley Laurence, Kenneth Cranham
- Released: 1988
- Directed by: Tony Randel
Confined to a mental hospital, young Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Laurence) insists her supposedly dead father is stuck in hell, controlled by sadomasochistic demons after being betrayed by his evil, ...more - 8Elizabeth Banks, Emily Browning, Arielle Kebbel
- Released: 2009
- Directed by: Thomas Guard, Charles Guard
After spending time in a psychiatric facility, young Anna (Emily Browning) finds significant changes in store at home. Her widowed father (David Strathairn) is now engaged to her mother's former ...more - 9Amber Heard, Lyndsy Fonseca, Danielle Panabaker
- Released: 2010
- Directed by: John Carpenter
The Ward is a 2010 American psychological horror film directed by John Carpenter. It stars Amber Heard, Mamie Gummer, Danielle Panabaker and Jared Harris. The story revolves around a young ...more - 10Charlie Shotwell, Lili Taylor, Max Martini
- Released: 2019
- Directed by: Ciarán Foy
A boy becomes trapped in a haunted house while undergoing treatment for a rare disease. - 11Calista Flockhart, Richard Roxburgh, Elena Anaya
- Released: 2005
- Directed by: Jaume Balagueró
Haunted by memories of a patient's death, a nurse (Calista Flockhart) takes a job at an antiquated hospital for children. Soon she learns that the kids fear a ghost that prowls the floors and will ...more - 12Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley, Kris Kristofferson
- Released: 2005
- Directed by: John Maybury
Amnesiac Gulf War veteran Jack Starks (Adrien Brody) can't explain why he's been found at the scene of a murder. Ordered to a mental hospital, Jack is subjected to Dr. Thomas Becker's (Kris ...more - 13Barbara Hershey, Ron Silver, George Coe
- Released: 1982
- Directed by: Sidney J. Furie
Single mother Carla Moran (Barbara Hershey) is raped and attacked by an invisible force. She begins therapy with Dr. Phil Sneiderman (Ron Silver), a psychiatrist who believes Carla's traumatic past ...more - 14Alexis Knapp, Lauren Miller Rogen, Charlotte McKinney
- Released: 2021
- Directed by: Camilla Belle, Maritte Lee Go, Joe Sill, Jess Varley, Chris von Hoffmann
Phobias is a 2021 American horror thriller anthology film directed by Camilla Belle, Maritte Lee Go, Joe Sill, Jess Varley, and Chris von Hoffmann. Five dangerous patients, suffering from extreme ...more - 15Claire Foy, Joshua Leonard, Jay Pharoah
- Released: 2018
- Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Sawyer Valentini relocates from Boston to Pennsylvania to escape from the man who's been stalking her for the last two years. While consulting with a therapist, Valentini unwittingly signs in for a ...more - 16Richard Harmon, Leanne Lapp, Sean Rogerson
- Released: 2012
- Directed by: John Poliquin
Grave Encounters 2 is a 2012 Canadian-American horror film, directed by John Poliquin, written by The Vicious Brothers and the sequel to the 2011 film Grave Encounters. It is shot in found footage ...more - 17Sam Worthington, Lily Rabe, Stephen Tobolowsky
- Released: 2019
- Directed by: Brad Anderson
After his wife and injured daughter disappear from the emergency room, a man becomes convinced the hospital is hiding something. - 18Milla Jovovich, Will Patton, Elias Koteas
- Released: 2009
- Directed by: Olatunde Osunsanmi
Since the 1960s, a disproportionate number of the population in and around Nome, Alaska, have gone missing. Despite FBI investigations, the disappearances remain a mystery. Dr. Abigail Tyler (Milla ...more - 19George C. Scott, Ed Flanders, Brad Dourif
- Released: 1990
- Directed by: William Peter Blatty
Police Lt. Kinderman (George C. Scott) notices similarities between his current murder investigation and the methods used by the "Gemini" killer (Brad Dourif) who was executed 15 years before. He ...more - 20Peter Cushing, Britt Ekland, Herbert Lom
- Released: 1972
- Directed by: Roy Ward Baker
When Dr. Martin (Robert Powell) goes on a job interview at a British insane asylum, he learns that he must interview the asylum's inmates in order to be considered for the position. Dr. Rutherford ...more - 21Lee Sin-Je, Lawrence Chou, Yut Lai So
- Released: 2002
- Directed by: Danny Pang, Oxide Chun Pang
After 18 years of blindness, 20-year-old violinist Wong Kar Mun (Lee Sin-Je) regains her vision when she undergoes a corneal transplant. She's overjoyed with the procedure, but Mun's elation ...more - 22Tenika Davis, Kristen Harris, Dean Armstrong
- Released: 2011
- Directed by: Declan O'Brien
Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings is a 2011 American horror film written and directed by Declan O'Brien and the fourth installment in the Wrong Turn film series. The film serves as a prequel to the ...more - 23Stephen Dorff, Vanessa Grasse, Sam Strike
- Directed by: Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo
Leatherface is a 2017 American horror film directed by Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo and a prequel to 1974's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. A teenage Leatherface (Sam Coleman) escapes from a ...more - 24Doug Jones, Richard Herd, Tim Russ
- Released: 2005
- Directed by: David Lee Fisher
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 2005 American independent film, and a remake of the 1920 silent film of the same name. It was directed by David Lee Fisher and released in the U.S. at the ScreamFest ...more - 25Michael Ironside, Lee Grant, Linda Purl
- Released: 1982
- Directed by: Jean-Claude Lord
A slasher (Michael Ironside) finds the hospital where a TV newswoman (Lee Grant) is recovering from his attack.
