Let’s be real: not much scares you quite as well as a found footage movie. There’s something about the jerky cam, grainy texture, and raw immediacy that has your brain thinking you may just be seeing something real. Whether you’re a horror addict or just love a story that blurs the line between fact and fiction, these movies have a way of creeping into your head long after the credits roll. The style might have exploded in popularity after the late ’90s, but its roots go way deeper. And the best of the best? They’re still some of the most inventive, haunting, and unforgettable movie experiences around. Below are 10 of the best found footage movies, listed from awesome experiments to flat-out genre-defining classics.
10. Chronicle (2012)
Found footage need not be limited to horror. Chronicle applies the format to superheroes, chronicling three teenagers who acquire superpowers overnight and use a camera to record their exploits. Initially, everything is playtime, but the format allows you to observe as things go into jealousy, corruption, and catastrophe. The handheld viewpoint makes the powers seem thrilling one minute—and horrific the next.
9. District 9 (2009)
Half alien invasion movie, half political allegory, District 9 mashes up faux-documentary interviews and hand-held anarchy to make its sci-fi universe feel all too real. Its hard-hitting, news-report aesthetic anchors the outlandish premise, yet also provides biting commentary on racism and segregation. It’s evidence that found footage can support grand ideas as well as terror.
8. The Outwaters (2023)
Think you’ve seen every trick this subgenre has to offer? The Outwaters begs to differ. What starts as a desert camping trip slowly mutates into pure nightmare fuel, veering into cosmic horror territory. With its relentless POV and willingness to go off the rails, it’s one of the strangest and most unsettling entries in recent years.
7. [REC] (2007)
Few movies wring tension as tightly as this Spanish horror classic. Stuck in an apartment complex with something horrific hidden in the shadows, a journalist and her cameraman record every moment of mounting horror. The claustrophobic location, wild camerawork, and not allowing you to avert your eyes turn [REC] into a spine-tingling experience from beginning to end.
6. Ghostwatch (1992)
Years before The Blair Witch Project, there was Ghostwatch—a BBC special that simulated a live broadcast of an investigation into a haunted house. Blending real TV personalities with fictional events, it was so well done that many people thought it was live. The criticism was swift, but its influence on the genre is clear.
5. V/H/S (2012)
Anthology horror collides with found footage in this creative grab bag of short, frightening stories. Every segment, presented as a recovered videotape, brings its own type of dread—haunted houses, evil cults. The do-it-yourself look and mix of styles capture the rough-around-the-edges, experimental soul of the genre, without sacrificing the unpredictability of frights.
4. Cloverfield (2008)
Picture being trapped in New York when a monster, the size of a skyscraper, strikes, with nothing but your friend’s camcorder to record the destruction. That’s Cloverfield. By embracing its handheld cam point of view and fractured footage, the movie turns a big-screen spectacle into a nail-biting, ground-level disaster film.
3. Lake Mungo (2008)
This Australian gem is not about bargain scares—it’s about atmosphere and loss. Disguised as a documentary about a family grieving their daughter, Lake Mungo piles on creepy footage, “archival” footage, and interviews that construct a slow, emotional type of horror. It’s subtle, heartbreaking, and silently one of the most terrifying movies of its genre.
2. Paranormal Activity (2007)
Shot on a shoestring, this film took static camera shots and made them some of the most frightening scenes in contemporary horror. Trailing a couple attempting to film the bizarre occurrences within their house, Paranormal Activity employs stillness, silence, and creepily slow tension to heartbreaking impact. Often, the worst thing is what you don’t see.
1. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
The one that revolutionized everything. The Blair Witch Project not only made the found footage genre mainstream, but it blurred reality so effectively that moviegoers exited theaters questioning whether what they had just seen was real. The less-is-more approach—low-grade footage, improvisation, and never seeing the monster—made weaknesses into strengths. It remains the benchmark of how to be terrifying on virtually nothing.
Found footage can appear raw, but that is the best part. The aesthetic makes you lean in, suspend disbelief, and question: could it be real? Ghosts, monsters, or the sheer randomness of individuals holding cameras, these movies show us that sometimes the greatest fear is the facade of reality itself.