31 Halloween Movies for 31 Nights: Family & Animated Movie Challenge (Free Printable Tracker)
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Every October evening goes the same way in a lot of houses. Dinner's done, everyone's on the sofa, and then comes 40 minutes of scrolling. "Is this one too scary?" "We've seen that." "How long is it?" By the time you've picked something, it's bedtime.
The problem isn't that there are no good Halloween movies. It's that someone has to decide, every single night.
So we decided for you. Below is a 31-night family Halloween movie challenge: one animated movie or special for every night of October 2026, in order. Short ones on school nights, full features on weekends, gentle at the start and properly spooky by the end. Each pick has a year, a US rating, a rough runtime and a scare level, so you know what you're walking into.
There's also a list for tweens, a grown-ups-after-bedtime horror list, and a free printable movie tracker (PDF) for the fridge.
October 2026 starts on a Thursday, and Halloween falls on a Saturday. That's a good-sized movie for the big night.
How the challenge works
The rules are simple enough for a five-year-old to enforce:
1. One movie a night, October 1 to 31. Tonight's movie is already chosen. Just press play.
2. Mark it on the tracker. Tick the box, give it stars, and write who watched.
3. Make one piece of proof. A photo of the popcorn bowl, a screenshot of the title card, or (the best one) a drawing of tonight's monster (more on that below).
4. Missed a night? Don't start over. Pick up tonight's movie and move on, or double up on the weekend. A missed Tuesday doesn't cancel the other 30 nights.
How to read the picks:
Scare level: 🎃 gentle, fine for little ones · 🎃🎃 a bit spooky, some dark moments · 🎃🎃🎃 genuinely creepy, better for about 8+
Rating: the US MPA rating (G, PG, PG-13), or TV/NR for specials that weren't released in cinemas. Ratings are a guide, not a rule: you know your kids.
Runtime: approximate, in minutes.
Where to watch changes every year, so we don't list streaming services. Search the title on your service, or check your library, which often has the DVDs.
The 31-night Halloween movie calendar
Week 1 — Warm-up: friendly monsters (Oct 1–7)
Nothing scary yet. This week is about getting into the ritual.
| Night | Date | Movie | Year · Rating · Runtime | Scare |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thu, Oct 1 | It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown | 1966 · TV · ~25 min | 🎃 |
| 2 | Fri, Oct 2 | Hotel Transylvania | 2012 · PG · ~91 min | 🎃 |
| 3 | Sat, Oct 3 | Monsters, Inc. | 2001 · G · ~92 min | 🎃 |
| 4 | Sun, Oct 4 | Kiki's Delivery Service | 1989 · G · ~103 min | 🎃 |
| 5 | Mon, Oct 5 | Room on the Broom | 2012 · TV · ~27 min | 🎃 |
| 6 | Tue, Oct 6 | Garfield's Halloween Adventure | 1985 · TV · ~24 min | 🎃🎃 |
| 7 | Wed, Oct 7 | Toy Story of Terror! | 2013 · TV · ~22 min | 🎃 |
The Great Pumpkin is the classic way to open October: short, sweet, and it ends on a joke about waiting.
Kiki is a witch movie with zero scares, just a girl learning to stand on her own. A lovely Sunday pick.
Garfield's Halloween Adventure has a ghost-pirate section that's creepier than you'd expect from Garfield. Keep a hand free for holding.
Week 2 — Silly spooky (Oct 8–14)
Monsters, but funny ones. Kids start to learn that "spooky" can be fun.
| Night | Date | Movie | Year · Rating · Runtime | Scare |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | Thu, Oct 8 | Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie | 2005 · G · ~67 min | 🎃 |
| 9 | Fri, Oct 9 | The Addams Family (animated) | 2019 · PG · ~87 min | 🎃 |
| 10 | Sat, Oct 10 | Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit | 2005 · G · ~85 min | 🎃 |
| 11 | Sun, Oct 11 | Monsters University | 2013 · G · ~104 min | 🎃 |
| 12 | Mon, Oct 12 | Scared Shrekless | 2010 · TV · ~26 min | 🎃 |
| 13 | Tue, Oct 13 | Curious George: A Halloween Boo Fest | 2013 · TV · ~56 min | 🎃 |
| 14 | Wed, Oct 14 | Mickey's House of Villains | 2002 · G · ~68 min | 🎃🎃 |
Were-Rabbit works on two levels: kids get the chase, adults get the puns.
Heffalump Halloween and Boo Fest are the best picks if your youngest is under five.
House of Villains brings the Disney villains together. Good practice for "the bad guy looks scary, but it's going to be fine."
Week 3 — A little darker (Oct 15–21)
Midway through the month, the stories get moodier: skeletons, ghosts, autumn forests.
| Night | Date | Movie | Year · Rating · Runtime | Scare |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | Thu, Oct 15 | The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad) | 1949 · G · ~33 min segment | 🎃🎃 |
| 16 | Fri, Oct 16 | Hotel Transylvania 2 | 2015 · PG · ~89 min | 🎃 |
| 17 | Sat, Oct 17 | The Book of Life | 2014 · PG · ~95 min | 🎃 |
| 18 | Sun, Oct 18 | Coco | 2017 · PG · ~105 min | 🎃🎃 |
| 19 | Mon, Oct 19 | Over the Garden Wall, chapters 1–5 | 2014 · TV-PG · ~55 min | 🎃🎃 |
| 20 | Tue, Oct 20 | Over the Garden Wall, chapters 6–10 | 2014 · TV-PG · ~55 min | 🎃🎃 |
| 21 | Wed, Oct 21 | The Halloween Tree | 1993 · TV · ~70 min | 🎃🎃 |
Sleepy Hollow is only the second half of the film. Skip straight to it. The Headless Horseman chase at the end is still one of the best-animated scary scenes ever made.
The Book of Life and Coco both draw on Día de Muertos. Watching them back to back makes for a great conversation about how different cultures remember the dead.
Over the Garden Wall is a miniseries of ten 11-minute chapters, split across two school nights. It's the most "autumn" thing ever animated.
The Halloween Tree is based on Ray Bradbury's book: four kids travel through time to learn where Halloween traditions come from. Educational without feeling like it.
Week 4 — Properly spooky, then the big night (Oct 22–31)
The scariest picks are saved for the end, when kids have built up a tolerance. Watch the 🎃🎃🎃 ones together, with the lights on if needed.
| Night | Date | Movie | Year · Rating · Runtime | Scare |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 | Thu, Oct 22 | Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island | 1998 · NR · ~77 min | 🎃🎃 |
| 23 | Fri, Oct 23 | Frankenweenie | 2012 · PG · ~87 min | 🎃🎃 |
| 24 | Sat, Oct 24 | Corpse Bride | 2005 · PG · ~77 min | 🎃🎃 |
| 25 | Sun, Oct 25 | Spirited Away | 2001 · PG · ~125 min | 🎃🎃 |
| 26 | Mon, Oct 26 | The Boxtrolls | 2014 · PG · ~96 min | 🎃🎃 |
| 27 | Tue, Oct 27 | Igor | 2008 · PG · ~87 min | 🎃🎃 |
| 28 | Wed, Oct 28 | Monster House | 2006 · PG · ~91 min | 🎃🎃🎃 |
| 29 | Thu, Oct 29 | ParaNorman | 2012 · PG · ~92 min | 🎃🎃🎃 |
| 30 | Fri, Oct 30 | Coraline | 2009 · PG · ~100 min | 🎃🎃🎃 |
| 31 | Sat, Oct 31 | The Nightmare Before Christmas 🎃 | 1993 · PG · ~76 min | 🎃🎃 |
Zombie Island is the Scooby-Doo movie where the monsters turn out to be real. That's a big deal if your kids know the show.
Spirited Away is the longest pick. It's on a Sunday so you can start early.
Monster House, ParaNorman and Coraline are the three scariest movies on the list. Coraline in particular has real nightmare fuel (the button eyes). Watch it first, or skip it if your child scares easily. There's no prize for pushing it.
The Nightmare Before Christmas closes the month on Halloween night: spooky, musical, and it ends by pointing you towards the next holiday.
Bonus: 8 picks for tweens and teens
Too old for Pooh, too young for the grown-up list? These are live-action family favourites with more jump scares but nothing that'll haunt anyone for weeks. Swap any of them into the calendar.
| Movie | Year · Rating | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Hocus Pocus | 1993 · PG | A 90s classic, now being passed down. Witches, a talking cat, a big musical number. |
| Beetlejuice | 1988 · PG | Weird, funny, a little rude. Tim Burton at his most playful. |
| Casper | 1995 · PG | A friendly ghost and a haunted mansion. Softer than it looks. |
| Ghostbusters | 1984 · PG | Jokes first, ghosts second. The library scene still gets people. |
| Gremlins | 1984 · PG | Three rules, all broken. Scarier than its rating suggests; best for 10+. |
| The Witches | 1990 · PG | Roald Dahl, with genuinely unsettling witches. For kids who like a real scare. |
| Goosebumps | 2015 · PG | All of R.L. Stine's monsters escape at once. Great gateway to the books. |
| Wendell & Wild | 2022 · PG-13 | Stop-motion from the director of Coraline and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Darker themes, best for 12+. |
After bedtime: 15 Halloween movies for grown-ups
Kids asleep? The challenge doesn't have to stop. Here's a separate list for adults, loosely ordered from "fun scary" to "don't watch alone." These are rated R or unrated unless noted: not for kids.
| # | Movie | Year · Rating | Scare | In one line |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shaun of the Dead | 2004 · R | 🎃 | A zombie apocalypse, mostly spent trying to get to the pub. |
| 2 | The Others | 2001 · PG-13 | 🎃🎃 | A foggy house, two children, a twist that holds up. |
| 3 | Trick 'r Treat | 2007 · R | 🎃🎃 | Four connected stories set on one Halloween night. The most "Halloween" horror movie there is. |
| 4 | Scream | 1996 · R | 🎃🎃 | A slasher that knows all the rules of slashers. |
| 5 | Psycho | 1960 · R | 🎃🎃 | The shower scene everyone has seen, in context. |
| 6 | Night of the Living Dead | 1968 · NR | 🎃🎃 | Where modern zombies began. Black and white, still tense. |
| 7 | Halloween | 1978 · R | 🎃🎃 | The original. Simple, slow, and the score does half the work. |
| 8 | Get Out | 2017 · R | 🎃🎃 | A weekend with the girlfriend's parents goes very wrong. |
| 9 | A Quiet Place | 2018 · PG-13 | 🎃🎃 | You'll find yourself not eating popcorn so you don't make a sound. |
| 10 | Rosemary's Baby | 1968 · R | 🎃🎃 | Slow-burn paranoia in a New York apartment. |
| 11 | The Conjuring | 2013 · R | 🎃🎃🎃 | Old-school haunted house, very well-made jump scares. |
| 12 | It Follows | 2014 · R | 🎃🎃🎃 | A curse that walks slowly towards you, forever. |
| 13 | The Shining | 1980 · R | 🎃🎃🎃 | An empty hotel, a long winter, a writer losing it. |
| 14 | The Babadook | 2014 · NR | 🎃🎃🎃 | A grief story wearing a monster costume. |
| 15 | The Exorcist / Hereditary | 1973 / 2018 · R | 🎃🎃🎃 | Pick one. Both are among the most disturbing films ever made. Save for the last weekend. |
Two ways to use this list:
Weekend double feature: a kids' movie at 6pm, a grown-up one at 9pm. Four weekends in October 2026 × 2 nights = 8 adult movies without feeling like homework.
The full adult version: if you don't have kids, run the challenge on this list plus the tween picks and Week 3–4 animated movies (Coraline and ParaNorman are great for adults, too). That's 31 nights.
Draw tonight's monster (the best proof there is)
Here's the add-on that makes this more than screen time: after each movie, everyone draws one monster, ghost or character from it. Five minutes, any paper, any skill level.
For little kids: draw the "scariest" thing they saw. Turning it into a drawing makes it smaller and less scary.
For older kids: draw it from memory, then check the movie. How close did you get?
For grown-ups: draw it badly, on purpose. It's a lot of fun.
By Halloween you'll have 31 drawings, a whole month of proof. Stick them on a wall, make a flip-book, or photograph them all for a grid. (Looking for more Halloween drawing ideas? The "Draw a monster a day" challenge is in our list of 63 Halloween challenges.)
Other proof ideas if drawing isn't your thing: a photo of the snack, a star rating on the fridge, the title screen, or everyone's "scared face" in one photo.
Your printable Halloween movie tracker
Download the free Halloween Movie Tracker 2026 (PDF, 2 pages): A4 or US Letter.
Page 1: all 31 nights with dates, movies, scare levels, a tick box and star ratings. Page 2: the tween picks, the grown-ups-after-bedtime list, and a "family awards" box for Halloween night. Print it and stick it on the fridge.
Prefer a quick version? Screenshot this grid. Every night: tick it and add one word.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 ☐ | 2 ☐ | 3 ☐ | 4 ☐ | |||
| 5 ☐ | 6 ☐ | 7 ☐ | 8 ☐ | 9 ☐ | 10 ☐ | 11 ☐ |
| 12 ☐ | 13 ☐ | 14 ☐ | 15 ☐ | 16 ☐ | 17 ☐ | 18 ☐ |
| 19 ☐ | 20 ☐ | 21 ☐ | 22 ☐ | 23 ☐ | 24 ☐ | 25 ☐ |
| 26 ☐ | 27 ☐ | 28 ☐ | 29 ☐ | 30 ☐ | 31 ☐ 🎃 |
Halloween night family awards: favourite movie · scariest movie · best monster drawing · movie we'd watch again next year.
Why a pre-made list works better than "let's watch something"
It sounds too small to matter, but choosing is the hardest part of movie night. When a whole family has to agree on one thing, with a clock running towards bedtime, the easy option is to give up and watch nothing, or the same thing again.
A fixed list removes the decision. Nobody has to pick. You just check tonight's line and press play. That's the whole idea behind Harder: when every step is already laid out, you spend your energy on doing the thing, not on deciding what the thing is.
The tracker is the other half. A row of ticks filling up is its own motivation. By Night 20 the kids aren't asking "can we watch a movie?", they're asking "what's tonight's?". And the drawings, photos and ratings are proof you did it, the kind that's fun to look back on next October.
31 nights. One movie a night. Proof you did it. Join the Halloween movie challenge on Harder: tonight's movie is already chosen, your tracker fills itself, and you'll post your monster drawings alongside other families doing the same night.
Halloween movies FAQ
What are the best Halloween movies for kids? For young kids (under 7): It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, Room on the Broom, Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie and Monsters, Inc. For 7–10: Hotel Transylvania, The Book of Life, Coco and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. For kids who like a real scare: Monster House, ParaNorman and Coraline.
What's the scariest movie on the kids' list? Coraline, then ParaNorman and Monster House. All three are PG but have moments that frighten sensitive kids. Watch them yourself first if you're unsure.
Is The Nightmare Before Christmas a Halloween or a Christmas movie? Both. It's set in Halloween Town and the plot is about Christmas. That's exactly why it's the Halloween-night pick: it closes October and points you towards the next holiday.
What if we miss a night? Carry on with tonight's movie. Double up on the weekend if you want to catch up, or just skip it. The goal is a fun October, not a perfect streak.
Can we do this challenge without kids? Yes. Use the grown-ups list, the tween picks and the Week 3–4 animated movies. Many adults run a "31 days of horror" challenge every October. The tracker works the same way.
Where can I watch these movies? It changes from year to year and country to country, so search each title on your streaming service, or check your local library.
What's a good Halloween movie night snack? Popcorn in a bowl with a few gummy worms, "mummy" hot dogs wrapped in pastry strips, or apple slices with peanut-butter "teeth." Simple is fine: it's the ritual that matters.
Start on Thursday
You don't need to plan 31 movie nights. They're above, in order, with runtimes that fit a school night.
Save this page. Print the tracker (A4 / US Letter). Stock the popcorn.
Then, starting October 1, just check tonight's line, press play, and tick the box. You don't have to decide tonight's movie. It's already done.