Serial killer movies
The serial killer film is the horror subgenre that keeps borrowing from the crime procedural. Someone is doing this repeatedly, somebody else is trying to work out who, and the tension usually sits in the gap between what the audience knows and what the investigator does.
Two films from 1960 mark the poles it still works between, though only one of them was noticed at the time. Psycho moved the killer into a family home and made the reveal the architecture of the whole film. Peeping Tom refused the reveal entirely and put the audience behind the camera with him, was savaged on release, and spent close to twenty years out of circulation before anyone would defend it in public.
The pull since has been between explaining the killer and refusing to. Manhunter and Cure treat the investigation as the story and let the detective be changed by it. Angst goes the other way entirely and hands the film to the killer's own narration, while Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer offers a backstory and then quietly contradicts it. I Saw the Devil gives the pursuit to a state agent hunting his fiancée's killer completely off the books.
Notable serial killer movies
If you only ever watch a handful of these, make it these.
New serial killer movies
Still a steady supply, split between the investigation and the character study.
Upcoming serial killer movies
A few serial killer movies on the way. Dates can still move, especially for the ones furthest down the schedule.
You can find these and every other serial killer movie in our database. And if you want to keep track of the ones you have seen and the ones you are saving for later, start a profile and log them as you go.