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Just going to make a bold statement here: with all due respect to Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and any other worthy contender, the Scream movies are our greatest and most consistent horror franchise. That may be kind of a funny thing to think about, considering the entire premise of the Scream movies is the meta, self-referential relationship they have with basically all of those franchise we just named. But where those movies all tend to fall off a bit in one way or another, the Scream movies, really, are consistently funny and scary to the point where if you're a fan of the series, you're never going to have a bad time watching (or re-watching). While we know what we're getting from the Freddys, Jasons, and Michaels of the world, we never know who's going to be taking that Ghostface mask during the third act of a Scream movie.

Now, with Scream VI—the latest installment in the long-running franchise—coming to theaters, it's as great a time as ever to watch each existing movie in the slasher franchise. Whether it's your first time watching, and you only know Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), and Dewey Riley(David Arquette) from their spoof versions in Scary Movie or you've watched each Scream installment 100 times each, it's good to know that you can watch every movie in the delightful horror movie world of Woodsboro right now—and you'll have options on where to stream.

Another good thing about the Scream movies? None of them are all that long, so it lends itself really nicely to some marathon movie nights or serial binge viewing.

So, now's your chance: start making some popcorn and queue up a scary movie. You've just got to hope that a phone call from Ghostface doesn't interrupt those plans before they even start.

Scream (1996)

While every movie in the franchise is good, there will never be a better Scream movie than the original Scream. Director Wes Craven experimented with meta, self-referential horror a few years prior with his reimagined Freddy Krueger movie New Nightmare, but Scream was a sensation from top to bottom, clearly—they wouldn't still be making sequels 26 years later unless that was unequivocally the case. Come for the scares and the laughs, and stay for the perfect cast, obviously featuring Campbell, Arquette, and Cox, but also with dynamite turns from Drew Barrymore, Rose McGowan, Skeet Ulrich, Matthew Lillard, Jamie Kennedy, and even Henry Winkler.

Rent Scream Here

Stream Scream on Paramount+

Scream 2 (1997)

Horror sequels can get a bad rap, and sometimes that rap is warranted—sorry Halloween Kills—but it's certainly not the case with Scream 2, which captured the same energy as the original while following Sidney Prescott to college. The supporting cast here is really just stunningly stacked: Jada Pinkett, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Timothy Olyphant, Laurie Metcalf, Joshua Jackson, Jerry O'Connell, and a returning Liev Schreiber (with a much larger role than in the original) join the fun.

Rent Scream 2 Here

Stream Scream 2 on Paramount+