The scariest movie of 2025 has been revealed

The most frightening movie of 2025 has been found via scientific means, and it’s a terrifying choice that we wholeheartedly agree with.

2025 has been a big year for horror, with movies like Sinners, Weapons, and The Conjuring: Last Rites posting huge numbers at the global box office.

We recently picked our favorite horror movies of the year, which included the likes of 28 Years Later, The Monkey, Dangerous Animals, The Long Walk, and Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein, which is currently playing in cinemas, and about to drop on Netflix.

Those are the best horror films of 2025 so far, but below you’ll find the film that has officially been declared scariest…

It’s official: Bring Her Back is the scariest movie of 2025

According the the ‘Science of Scare‘ survey, Bring Her Back is officially the scariest movie of 2025.

The project – which has been going for five years – fits 250 test subjects with monitors that track both their heart rate, and heart rate variance, with the former indicating excitement and fear, and the latterslow-burning dread.

After collecting the average heart rate increase and HRV decrease, the scores are combined to create a ‘Science of Scare’ score out of 100.

Bring Her Back managed 68/100, placing it at 24 on the Science of Scare’s all-time list, and the highest new entry from 2025. Two more recent releases made the list, with both Weapons and The Conjuring: Last Rites scoring 51/100.

However 2012 release Sinister remains in the top slot, with Scott Derrickson’s supernatural chiller sitting on a whopping Scare Score of 96/100.

Why is Bring Her Back so scary?

Bring Her Back hit cinema screens back in May, and immediately touched a nerve with critics and audiences alike.

Directed by Aussie duo Danny and Michael Philippou – who made the equally terrifying Talk to Me – the film stars Sally Hawkins as an eccentric foster mother who takes in two step-siblings. But as her behaviour becomes ever more strange and threatening, it slowly becomes clear that she has a horrifying ulterior motive.

There’s supernatural stuff happening with is frightening enough, but the narrative also focusses on real-world horror, as pointed out in our 4-star Bring Her Back review: “At the heart of this film is a cycle of domestic abuse. It’s in presenting this theme that Bring Her Back is its most powerful, yet most uncomfortable. We see multiple instances of violence against children. Some younger, some older, but all children nonetheless. It’s hard to watch, and at times borders on excessive, but it’s in pushing to be better, to overcome their trauma, that we connect with the film’s characters.”

Hawkins is also downright terrifying in the movie, though it’s to her credit – as well as the Philippous – that you’ll have some sympathy for her character by the film’s devastating denouement.