The Lord of the Rings to Terminator 2: 10 of the most terrifying moments in film

30 October 2025

BBC Features team

Alamy A still of the spirit from Ringu (Credit: Alamy) — (Credit: Alamy)

As people around the world mark Halloween, our editors pick the frightening scenes that have truly stayed with them.

Universal Pictures (Credit: Universal Pictures) — (Credit: Universal Pictures)

The diner sequence in Mulholland Drive (2001)

David Lynch's film was named the best film of the 21st Century in a BBC critics' poll. It's also one of the scariest films of the 21st Century, largely because of a five-minute scene that shouldn't be scary at all. The deceptively simple sequence consists of nothing more than two friends in a Los Angeles diner talking about a dream one of them had, and then walking outside into the broad daylight – and yet, thanks to Lynch's mastery of pacing and atmosphere, it's almost unbearable. The classic jump scare is a factor, of course, but it's the dread that builds beforehand that really chills the blood, as the protagonist realises that he is trapped in his own worst nightmare. And, like anyone in a nightmare, he has no control over what happens next… (Nicholas Barber)

Sadako goes in for the kill in Ringu (1998)

Scarier than many more bombastic horrors, Ringu is a quiet but deeply uneasy film. Set in 1990s Japan, it tells the tale of Sadako, a girl murdered for her supernatural powers, whose vengeful spirit is trapped inside a cursed videotape. The climax comes when a lead character, Ryuji, is killed by the curse. He is alone when the tape spontaneously begins to play on his television, showing Sadako crawling towards the front of the screen. You can’t help but recoil. Jaws-esque music builds and she jerks unnaturally forwards. Her iconic long black hair covers all but one manic eye – which is looking directly at you. Then she climbs right out of the TV. The ghost pierces the fourth wall and breaks into the real world. At least, that's what it feels like. Ringu was revolutionary in its depiction of viral media and its dangers – and promises to haunt those who watch it forever. (Katherine Latham)

New Line Cinema (Credit: New Line Cinema) — (Credit: New Line Cinema)

Bilbo goes feral in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

There are plenty of scary moments in Peter Jackson's thrilling Lord of the Rings trilogy, but Shelob, Orcs and Ringwraiths aside, there's one blink-and-you'll-miss-it scary moment to rule them all. In the series' first instalment, an injured Frodo (Elijah Wood) is reunited in a cosy Rivendell setting with Bilbo Baggins (played by the twinkly Ian Holm), who briefly loses his senses in the presence of the Ring. Using a mixture of animatronics, makeup and digital effects, Jackson (who had a background in horror) transforms Holm's face momentarily into a grotesque vision of greed and desire. Acting as a chilling harbinger of doomy events to come, it's the unexpected nature of this genuine jump scare that made it so terrifying – to this day, I still have to watch it through my fingers. (Rebecca Laurence)

Kayla's disturbing car ride in Eighth Grade (2018)

Bo Burnham's critically acclaimed coming of age film, about the trials and tribulations of shy, awkward 13-year-old Kayla (Elsie Fisher), is a masterclass in tonal shifts – and there is no greater shift than in the terrifying scene in the backseat of a Toyota. Desperate to fit in, Kayla has spent a joyful evening at the mall with some high school seniors and is then offered a lift home by one of the boys, Riley (Daniel Zolghadri). At first the conversation is light, but when Riley pulls over under the guise of wanting to chat more and jumps into the back with her, a deep sense of dread sets in. The tension racks up as Riley, four years older than her, initiates a sexually-threatening game of truth or dare, which Kayla tries to bluff her way through – and thankfully ends when she refuses his "dare" to take her shirt off. Fisher is remarkable here, as we see Kayla's anxiety, confusion and embarrassment all simultaneously skyrocket. There's no blood, guts or jump scares – just an unflinching stare at a very real, very scary situation. (Amy Charles)

A peek-a-boo game gone wrong in The Witch (2015)

Set on a remote New England farm in the 17th Century, The Witch follows the story of a settler Puritan family – but Little House on the Prairie this most definitely is not. Their crop blighted, the family is hungry, increasingly desperate – and the occult is very real to them. Robert Eggers's debut film doesn’t offer sudden adrenalin shocks – what is does deliver is horror in its most distilled, disturbing sense. When the eldest daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), is minding her baby brother, she plays peek-a-boo with him – but when she uncovers her eyes, he has vanished. We see the baby being taken – clutched by gnarled hands – and then we see a cabin deep in the woods. What ensues is impossible to unsee. There are plenty of other horrifying scenes in The Witch – not least those featuring Black Phillip the diabolical goat – but the peek-a-boo game gone wrong is the one that really makes me shudder. (Lindsay Baker)

A brutal moment for the Other Mother in Coraline (2009)

As someone with a particular fear of stop-motion animation, I must confess no cinematic horror has ever spiked my nerves like the scene in Coraline of the villainous "Other Mother" having her button eyes torn out of her head. For context, earlier in the film, the protagonist (played by Dakota Fanning) finds a door to a dreamlike parallel world with a fun-house-mirror-family, where her "Other Mother" – staring with beady, black button eyes – offers everything an 11-year-old could want. But this wonderland transforms into a trap. In the 2009 film's climax, a cat claws out Other Mother's eyes, blinding Coraline's captor; Coraline is finally free to reclaim her real life. Since watching the macabre fantasy film as a child, I've endured gorefests and psychological thrillers. Yet the uncanny valley of claymation in this brutal moment gives me the heebie-jeebies like nothing else. (Riley Farrell)

Sarah Connor's apocalyptic nightmare in Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)

It may well be the most disturbing dream sequence in cinema – and has certainly haunted my nightmares ever since I saw James Cameron's sci-fi action thriller as a teenager. It sees Linda Hamilton's heroine Sarah Connor imagine the future nuclear holocaust, initiated by the evil AI system Skynet, that she is trying to prevent. The setting for her vision is the most upsetting location imaginable, a playground. She looks on from outside at the happy parents and children playing – including her own self – trying to shout out to them in vain, and violently rattling the wire fence in despair. What happens after that, as the bomb hits and we see the whole of Los Angeles go up in flames, does not bear description – suffice to say, Cameron uses a mix of practical effects and CGI and the result is overwhelmingly hellish. (Hugh Montgomery)

Judge Doom shows his true self in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)

Robert Zemeckis's live-action/cartoon Chinatown pastiche highlights the violence and sadism inherent in cartoons, with both "toons" and humans being electrocuted, stabbed, crushed, and generally traumatised in a variety of inventive ways. The final, horrifying scene features Christopher Lloyd's bad guy Judge Doom being run over by a steamroller, before reappearing the other side as flat as a pancake, revealing himself to be a cartoon in disguise. He peels himself off the floor, walks matchstick-like over to a balloon pump to reinflate himself, and his eyes pop out to reveal blood red cartoon ones. He screams in falsetto as springs appear from his shoes, daggers pop out of his eyes, and he bounces across the room holding buzzsaws that have emerged from his hands. True nightmare fuel for a generation of children who saw the poster featuring a cartoon rabbit and pressed "play" expecting a Bugs Bunny-style romp. (Robert Freeman)

The big reveal in Speak No Evil (2022)

This chiller (which had an inferior Hollywood remake in 2024) will make you think twice about making friends on holiday. When a Danish couple become fast friends with a Dutch family in Tuscany, they soon take up the invitation to visit them in rural Netherlands. What follows is a masterclass in unease, a constant drip-feed of social interactions that are just a bit… off. The film ratchets up both the awkwardness and underlying sense of dread with every passive-aggressive comment by the hosts, brilliantly satirising the lengths we'll go to in order to maintain the veneer of social politeness. "Maybe they didn't really mean it like that." "Maybe it's just lost in translation." The Danish couple try to explain things away. But the film never relinquishes its suffocating grip, culminating in the deeply disturbing scene that finally reveals what the hosts are up to – and even more terrifyingly, that even darker horror looms just around the corner. (Tom Heyden)

The Mount Fuji in Red sequence in Dreams (1990)

This Akira Kurosawa film is comprised of eight short pieces each inspired by the director's own dreams. Scariest of all is the "Mount Fuji in Red" dream, which sees a nuclear power station behind the famous volcano exploding. One by one, its reactors are spiralling out of control. Hordes of screaming people are running in panic. Mt Fuji itself slowly glows red, as if about to erupt. The scene changes and the crowds are gone. Just five people are left by a shoreline, surrounded by the crowds' abandoned belongings. A panicked man, a stand-in for director Kurosawa, asks a smartly dressed businessman what's going on. While cleaning his glasses, the businessman explains that the crowds are running to drown themselves before the radiation kills them. As waves of coloured smoke blow over the rocky ground towards them, the businessman details with a mixture of dread and detachment the gruesome things each band of radioactive gas will do to the body. Never has a film played on our fear of environmental catastrophe so powerfully. (Martha Henriques)

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