Part of the fun of asking someone what movies scare them is that the answers tend to be unpredictable. Fear is individual, specific, and deeply felt: A person made anxious by the ocean may not be able to bear watching Jaws but be totally fine with the monsters-loose-on-an-island premise of Jurassic Park. Sometimes, a frightened reaction is inexplicable. But the most terrifying films are the ones that force us to question why we’re so afraid at all—and what makes the image or moment on-screen so effective.

The nine movies below do just that. They illuminate our unease in the way only cinema can. Stylistically and tonally, they run the gamut—some evoke a creeping sense of dread, and others offer more blunt provocation. Some find the dark contours of comedy; others masterfully deploy pathos. The one quality they share: They really, truly scared us.

Everett Collection

Batman (1989, directed by Tim Burton)

I was a latchkey kid with an older brother, and so growing up was regularly terrorized by age-inappropriate movies. But the most indelible by far was Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman, which I watched at the age of 6 or 7 and proceeded to lose sleep over for the next half decade. Unlike Cesar Romero’s Joker from the child-friendly TV Batman, cheery and inane, Jack Nicholson’s version is fully monstrous—sneering and sadistic, his dead eyes obscene next to his rictus grin. But the quality that terrified me the most in the Joker was his unpredictability. He’s an unexploded bomb, a hyena with a machine gun. His art form is chaos, and the unrestrained fear that chaos can provoke.