The Best James Wan Horror Movies, Ranked

In the horror genre, there is a trifecta of undisputed “creepiest” villains: children, clowns, and—as seen in Wan’s 2007 release Dead Silence—dolls. When Jamie and Lisa Ashen (Ryan Kwanten and Laura Regan) are anonymously gifted a ventriloquist doll named Billy, their lives, and the lives of those closest to them, take a sudden dark plunge into unspeakable chaos.

RELATED: 7 Scariest Dolls from Horror Movies

This 2013 Insidious sequel puts Josh and Renai Lambert (Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne) through hell once more. After grappling with evil forces that tried to harm their family, the couple is now faced with another horrific battle. This time, Renai is mostly on her own, as she summons the strength to rip her husband from the clutches of the malevolent demons that hold him in a shadowy reality beyond our own.

Insidious was generally well-received by critics, a difficult feat for a horror movie. Along with their two young sons and infant daughter, Josh and Renai Lambert move into a new home—a tried-and-true setup for a horror movie of the haunted variety. When their son Dalton falls into a vegetative state, the doctor believes it to be an unexplained coma. However, the family eventually learns that Dalton has been called into the otherworld by a dark force that intends to use the young boy’s body as its worldly vessel.

Sometimes referred to as The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Case, this 2016 film continues the investigations of Ed and Lorraine Warren, played by Wan alum Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. Best known among horror circles for portraying Mrs. Bates in Bates Motel, Farmiga does the late Lorraine Warren admirable justice in her portrayal of the real-life paranormal investigator. 

RELATED: 6 Cases Investigated by Ed and Lorraine Warren

Based on the Enfield Poltergeist Case, a real phenomenon that involved a violent haunting in a suburban London home, Ed and Lorraine once again find themselves up against ghosts with a grudge.

James Wan handed over the directorial reins to Corin Hardy for this one, but he created the story and served as a producer. His style shows through very clearly in this 2018 installment in the Conjuring franchise.

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When nuns living in a Romanian monastery are attacked by an evil entity in 1952, the Vatican gets involved. Father Burke (Demián Bichir) and fledgling nun Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) are sent to the monastery to investigate. There, they meet the demon Valak, who takes the form of a terrifying nun. 

As of the writing of this post, there are eight films within the Saw franchise, with a ninth set for release in the spring of 2021. Five different directors have worked on the series, with James Wan doing the honors for the original—which is by far the best of the bunch, according to most horror fans.

When Saw was first released in 2004, viewers had never seen anything like it. The premise was simple enough: a man wakes up in an undisclosed location, where he's being held captive. He’s given prompts for challenges that will set him free if completed correctly. The mastermind behind this twisted game is a masked villain known as Jigsaw, who we have since come to know as someone not to be trifled with, or trusted by any means. 

A review by The Guardian states that “there's something impressively loathsome and extravagantly twisted about this horror-thriller from first-timer James Wan. It's a serial killer movie with attitude, whose visuals look like the world's sickest video game.” Saw was Wan’s first major release as a director, and kicked off a franchise that has earned over $976 million dollars at the worldwide box office.

Directed by James Wan and written by Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes, The Conjuring kicked off the popular franchise and cemented Wan’s reputation as a powerhouse in horror filmmaking. Here we meet paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren for the first time, as they investigate the haunting of the Perron family’s Rhode Island farmhouse in 1971. When the Warrens discover that a witch named Bathsheba Sherman is responsible for the paranormal activity within the home, a DIY exorcism is in order. The Washington Post gave this film a positive review, calling it “one heck of a ghost story.”

RELATED: The Haunting of the Perron Family Inspired The Conjuring