Every ‘Halloween’ Movie Ranked From Worst to Best Based on Rotten Tomatoes Scores

Michael Myers is back on everyone’s watchlist as Halloween 2026 approaches!

With Halloween just days away, horror fans are revisiting the iconic Halloween film franchise, which began with John Carpenter‘s original 1978 slasher starring Jamie Lee Curtis.

Over the decades, the franchise has expanded to 13 movies, including sequels, remakes and alternate timelines that have taken the story of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode in very different directions.

The most recent installment, Halloween Ends, arrived in 2022 and brought Jamie Lee‘s latest trilogy to a close. While no additional movie has been released since then, the franchise continues to attract new audiences and longtime fans.

Not every installment has been a hit with critics, though. Some movies have earned strong reviews, while others have landed near the bottom of Rotten Tomatoes’ rankings.

We’ve rounded up all 13 Halloween movies and ranked them from worst to best based on their critics’ scores on Rotten Tomatoes, including the original classic, Rob Zombie‘s remakes and the latest trilogy.

Click through to see how every Halloween movie ranks, including which one comes out on top!

13. Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

Rating: 8% Rotten

Plot: Six years after Michael Myers last terrorized Haddonfield, he returns there in pursuit of his niece, Jamie Lloyd, who has escaped with her newborn child, for which Michael and a mysterious cult have sinister plans.

Review, via Variety: “Run-of-the-mill horror item is notable only for final appearance of the late Donald Pleasance.”

(TIE) 11. Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

Rating: 10% Rotten

Plot: Three years after he last terrorized his sister, Michael Myers confronts her again, before traveling to Haddonfield to deal with the cast and crew of a reality show which is being broadcast from his old home.

Review, via Los Angeles Times: “It’s not the worst film in the series — Halloween III will never be unseated — but there’s not nearly enough scares, or humor, to make Halloween: Resurrection worthwhile.”

(TIE) 11. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)

Rating: 10% Rotten

Plot: One year after the events of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), the Shape returns to Haddonfield once again in an attempt to kill his now-mute niece.

Review, via NYT: “A bit more refined in its details than the conventional horror movie.”

10. Halloween II (2009)

Rating: 25% Rotten

Plot: Laurie Strode struggles to come to terms with her brother Michael’s deadly return to Haddonfield, Illinois; meanwhile, Michael prepares for another reunion with his sister.

Review, via EW: “Most of its 101 minutes are filled with routine slasher scenes and flecks of pop-Freudian hokum about why the infamous Michael Myers (Tyler Mane) is such a murderously unhappy guy.”

9. Halloween II (1981)

Rating: 27% Rotten

Plot: While Sheriff Brackett and Dr. Loomis hunt for Michael Myers, a traumatized Laurie is rushed to hospital, and the serial killer is not far behind her.

Review, via Chicago Reader: “Rick Rosenthal, who directed this 1981 sequel, doesn’t have Carpenter’s expansive, affectionate way with stereotypical characters, and without it they’re empty shells — bodies waiting for the slaughter.”

8. Halloween (2007)

Rating: 28% Rotten

Plot: After being committed for 17 years, Michael Myers, now a grown man and still very dangerous, escapes from the mental institution and immediately returns to Haddonfield to find his baby sister, Laurie.

Review, via THR: “The result, though undeniably preferable to yet another misbegotten installment of the long-exhausted franchise, certainly doesn’t compare to John Carpenter’s landmark original film. “

7. Halloween Kills (2021)

Rating: 38% Rotten

The saga of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode continues in the next thrilling chapter of the Halloween series.

Review, via IndieWire: “An almost elemental slasher outing unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.”

6. Halloween Ends (2022)

Rating: 40% Rotten

This is Laurie Strode’s last stand. After 45 years, the most acclaimed, revered horror franchise in film history reaches its epic, terrifying conclusion as Laurie Strode faces off for the last time against the embodiment of evil, Michael Myers, in a final confrontation unlike any captured on-screen before. Only one of them will survive.

Review, via THR: “What starts out with a clever refresher steadily descends into self-serious trash, with laughable dialogue and plotting.”

5. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

Rating: 42% Rotten

Plot: Ten years after his original massacre, the invalid Michael Myers awakens on Halloween Eve and returns to Haddonfield to kill his seven-year-old niece. Can Dr. Loomis stop him?

Review, via Variety: “Fourth entry in the Halloween horror series is a no-frills, workmanlike picture.”

4. Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

Rating: 51% Rotten

Plot: Kids all over America want Silver Shamrock masks for Halloween. Doctor Daniel Challis seeks to uncover a plot by Silver Shamrock owner Conal Cochran.

Review, via Time Out: “The end result is a bit of a mess but hugely enjoyable, and often (thanks to Dean Cundey’s camerawork and John Carpenter’s close supervision as producer) as striking visually as its predecessors.”

3. Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

Rating: 54% Rotten

Plot: Laurie Strode, now the dean of a Northern California private school with an assumed name, must battle the Shape one last time, as the life of her own son hangs in the balance.

Review, via LA Times: “Halloween: H20 is as stylish and scary as it is ultra-violent. It brings back a stunning Jamie Lee Curtis in the role that made her a star and it’s a work of superior craftsmanship in all aspects.”

2. Halloween (2018)

Rating: 79% Fresh

Plot: Laurie Strode confronts her long-time foe Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago.

Review, via The New Republic: “A brutal rumination on intergenerational pain, and the ways that male cruelty can make good women bad.”

1. Halloween (1978)

Rating: 97% Fresh

Plot: Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.

Review, via Chicago Reader: “John Carpenter’s 1978 tour de force, perhaps the most widely imitated film of the 70s.”

Plot summaries via IMDb.

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