Scary Movies Directed By Actors Ranked

Actor-directors (or is it director-actors?) are nothing new to cinema. You had Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton in the silent era, Orson Welles in Hollywood's Golden Age, and celebrated Academy Award winners like Robert Redford, Kevin Costner, Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, and Ben Affleck. More recently, there are multi-hyphenate, all-of-the-above creative talents like Donald Glover and Greta Gerwig. But many of these talented thespians tend to dabble in comedy and drama, two traditionally actor-director friendly genres. But there's a subset of actor-directors who've gone down a different, darker path — horror and thriller films. In many ways, these actor-directors may be the most impressive. 

Contrary to their reputation, scary movies require multi-talented directors who know how to use cinematography, camera work, performances, and editing to elicit a response from the audience — namely fear. Comparatively, your average drama or comedy director really just needs to point the camera at a talented performer. Many actor-directors have dabbled in the scary movie genre, and some even chose thrillers to make their debuts. It's not a bad strategy either, as it shows studios and moviegoers that your directorial debut isn't just a vanity project; you know and care about the craft of filmmaking. Every actor-director who's made a scary movie has succeeded at spooking us, but who's done the best at keeping us up at night? Plug in your night light — here's our ranking of scary movies directed by actors!

Clint Eastwood is one of the most famous Western movie stars of all time and one of the most prolific directors in the genre. Heck, he's one of the most prolific directors, period, with dozens of directorial credits on his resume. And it all began back in 1971, not with a cop action flick or a Western but the original "overly attached ex-girlfriend" thriller, "Play Misty for Me." Clint plays against type as a San Francisco DJ who gets bored with his relationship, so he picks up a lady at a nightclub. Turns out this random one-night stand was actually a psychotic super-fan who calls into his station requesting he play "Misty." Also, she wants to stalk and kill him. We're not relationship therapists, but we think that might be toxic behavior. 

It's a straightforward '70s-era suspense thriller elevated by Eastwood's direction and the performance of the late, great Jessica Walter as the bonkers babe he bedded. While Eastwood's career would go much further, critics and moviegoers dug his directorial debut. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times even gave it the full four-star monty, saying, "There is no purpose to a suspense thriller, I suppose, except to involve us, scare us, to give us moments of vicarious terror. 'Play Misty for Me' does that with an almost cruel efficiency." The film taught us Eastwood had the makings of a great director ... and to not sleep with crazy people.

While John Krasinski will probably be known as Jim Halpert from "The Office" for the rest of his life, horror fans will also remember him for two impressive films in one frightening franchise — the "Quiet Place" series. Of course, the second film certainly had its string of bad luck, along with any other movie originally scheduled for release in 2020. "A Quiet Place Part II" had its world premiere on March 8, 2020, right before COVID-19 lockdowns took effect nationwide, pushing the film's official release date back to September 2020, then to April 2021, and then again to 2021's Memorial Day weekend. But "A Quiet Place Part II" appears to have been worth the wait, at least according to critics who really dug the film. 

Chris Hewitt of The Minneapolis Star Tribune gave it a full 4 out of 4 stars, saying, "I ... was skeptical Krasinski could top [the first film], but I'm here to shout loudly that he has." Stephanie Zacharek with Time was equally impressed and was poetic in her praise, saying, "Krasinski, once again, teases out an overarching vibe of near-despair that's effective for sure: Even more than the first film, this is a vision of neighborly Americana, shattered." Given the apocalyptic film came out one year after an earth-shattering pandemic, one suspects "A Quiet Place Part II" has hit differently in a post-COVID world.

Jordan Peele made perhaps the most impressive jump to horror of any actor-director when he went from one-half of the comedy duo "Key & Peele" to becoming the heir to M. Night Shyamalan as a thriller director who can score a blockbuster opening weekend on his name alone. As amazing as 2017's "Get Out" was both critically and commercially, Peele's 2019 follow-up, "Us," may have been more impressive. One, it showed Peele wasn't a one-trick pony. Two, the movie opened to $71 million, nearly three times its $20 million product, based solely on Jordan Peele's name and the creepy marketing material. That's the biggest opening weekend ever for an original horror film. "Us" didn't slow down either, with $175 million domestically and $256 million worldwide. 

So what's "Us" about? Honestly, we're not sure ... and we've seen it. Basically, a family on a beach vacation is stalked by four jumpsuit-wearing strangers who look exactly like them. Turns out it's not just the family being stalked by devious doppelgängers but the entire world. Peele's strange, inventive "Us" could've face planted, especially after the high expectations following "Get Out." But in addition to its massive box office, critics absolutely loved "Us," with Hannah Giorgis of The Atlantic calling it, "A sharp, often funny meditation on the terrifying power of human connection," and Dan Stubbs with NME saying the film "confirms Peele as that rarest of things — a true auteur." From comedy actor to horror auteur. Consider "Us" amazed.

Jordan Peele's journey from jokester to a modern master of suspense in the Hitchcock mold would be like if Adam Sandler became Martin Scorsese. It's that improbable, which makes it that much more impressive. And it all started with 2017's "Get Out." Peele's style of keeping outrageously inventive ideas grounded in reality and using sci-fi/horror as a way to tackle social issues has drawn comparisons to "The Twilight Zone" creator Rod Serling, (so it's no wonder Peele hosted the 2019-2020 reboot). However, "Get Out" defies comparison, despite its simple premise of an interracial couple meeting the in-laws (who turn out to be murderers). "Get Out" is definitely a sci-fi horror film, but it's also hysterically funny, startlingly surreal, David Lynch-esque, and strikingly subversive — and it still works! 

"Get Out" is the kind of film you'd expect critics to love but to bomb in theaters, which is probably why Blumhouse only budgeted it for $5 million. That investment paid off, as "Get Out" earned $176 million domestically and $252 million worldwide, as well as heaps of praise from critics and moviegoers. As Mark Kermode with The Guardian put it, "Beneath the beatific smile of 21st-century liberalism, 'Get Out' finds the still grinning ghoulish skull of age-old servitude and exploitation unveiled during a rollercoaster ride into a very American nightmare." Peele's debut as a writer-director won him an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and it's one of the best scary movies that an actor ever directed.