Every Horror Fan Should Know These 15 Famous Scream Queens
Few types of media can make you squirm like a horror movie. Whether it’s a grounded story inspired by a real-life serial killer or a supernatural tale of some evil force from the deepest corner of the director’s mind, we watch horror movies to see characters face the worst possible scenario—and either make it out alive, or simply fall prey.
But the horror genre wouldn’t be nearly as compelling without the incredible actors bringing everyday people fighting the terrifying slashers, monsters, and ghouls to life. In particular, female horror characters have been intrinsic to the genre since the 1930s, evolving from damsels in distress to resourceful heroes and fighters.
Many of these performers—from Janet Leigh to modern actors such as Jenna Ortega—have earned the career-defining title of “Scream Queen,” and this round-up celebrates the archetype. Here are 15 of our favorites throughout the years.
Fay Wray
Fay Wray’s performance as Ann Darrow in 1933’s King Kong is considered by many to be one of the first Scream Queen performances. Wray’s scream when she first lays eyes on the massive beast Kong is a foundational scene in movie history, and the film remains technically impressive despite its age.
Janet Leigh
The list wouldn’t be complete without Psycho’s Marion Crane, memorably played by Janet Leigh. In a rare Academy Award-nominated horror performance, Leigh had the audience rooting for her as a false protagonist almost immediately, making it even more of a gut-punch when she falls victim in the now-infamous shower scene.
Jamie Lee Curtis
There’s no doubt that Jamie Lee Curtis is every bit as great a scream queen as her mother Leigh. She’s multitalented, with great comedic chops and even an Oscar for Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022). But it’s hard to ignore her amazing contributions to horror, particularly as Laurie Strode in the Halloween franchise. Even though that one character is enough to establish solid bona fides, Curtis solidified her legacy in the genre in the early 1980s with films such as Terror Train, Prom Night, and another John Carpenter collaboration: The Fog.
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Veronica Cartwright
One of the earliest projects of Cartwright’s child acting career was a horror film: Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Cartwright’s filmography is truly massive, but some of her most famous characters were from horror, including Joan Lambert in Alien and Nancy Bellicec in the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers adaptation.
Sarah Michelle Gellar
How could Buffy Summers possibly be excluded from this list? Along with her years beating up monsters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer on TV, Gellar starred in both Scream 2 and the cult favorite slasher film I Know What You Did Last Summer in 1997, and returned to horror a couple more times over the years. Gellar’s charm certainly elevated all of these projects, and she is more than deserving of a Scream Queen crown.
Heather Langenkamp
As Nancy Thompson in A Nightmare on Elm Street, Heather Langenkamp was pitch-perfect. She was one of the teenage targets of Freddy Krueger, a vengeful killer who attacked victims in their dreams. Langenkamp appeared again as Nancy in the third entry of the franchise and played a fictional version of herself in 1994’s Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, a meta standalone sequel. She has picked up credits in plenty of other horror films, including The Butterfly Room (2012) and Home (2016). She also runs a special effects makeup studio with her husband David LeRoy Anderson, contributing to iconic horror films like 2004’s Dawn of the Dead remake and The Cabin in the Woods (2011) as an SFX makeup coordinator.
Toni Collette
The Australian actress can handle pretty much any genre and knock it out of the park. Toni Collette’s performance as family matriarch Annie Graham in Ari Aster’s Hereditary (2018) is a generationally great piece of horror acting. Along with that excellent family nightmare, Collette lent her talents to M. Night Shyamalan’s classic The Sixth Sense in 1999 and even dipped her toes in horror-comedy with projects like Krampus, Fright Night, and Velvet Buzzsaw.
Lupita Nyong'o
When you think of Lupita Nyong’o, "versatile" is one of the first words to come to mind. She has held her own in Oscar-winning dramas and kicked butt in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But her horror work impressed in 2019 when she starred in both the horror-comedy Little Monsters and Jordan Peele’s psychological doppelg?nger film Us. In 2024, Nyong’o starred in A Quiet Place: Day One, where she and Joseph Quinn received warm praise for their roles as two New Yorkers suddenly brought together when sound-sensitive blind aliens suddenly descend on the city.
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Barbara Crampton
After beginning her career in soap operas, Barbara Crampton quickly became a horror legend by starring in multiple films from the ’80s, including the body horror From Beyond and the funny H.P. Lovecraft adaptation Re-Animator. Far from a has-been, the B movie queen continues to work extensively in the genre, with recent credits like Jakob’s Wife (2021), Blackout (2023), and Suitable Flesh (2023).
Maika Monroe
Following her breakthrough role in the 2014 horror film It Follows, Monroe has continued to do great work in the genre with projects like Watcher (2022), Significant Other (2022), and her 2024 film Longlegs opposite Nicolas Cage. In Longlegs, Monroe channels Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs as Lee Harker, a fresh-faced FBI agent brought onto a mysterious serial killer case when it’s discovered she may be clairvoyant.
Tara Basro
Basro and the director Joko Anwar have collaborated on a few excellent horror flicks out of Indonesia, like the folk horror film Impetigore and the ghost-haunting film Satan’s Slaves, which also got a sequel in 2022.
Jenna Ortega
Part of a new wave of Scream Queens, Jenna Ortega has acted in great original horror films like the slasher X and lent her talents to other historic franchises. These have included a role in the recent Scream movies, the titular portrayal of Wednesday Addams in Wednesday on Netflix, and now a part in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the upcoming sequel to the hit 1988 horror comedy starring Michael Keaton.
Mia Goth
While Goth is best known for her recurring roles in the X trilogy, capped off by MaXXXine in 2024, she has been putting in work for years in great horror films like A Cure for Wellness (2016), the 2018 Suspiria remake, and High Life (2018). Goth has successfully disappeared into heroic, twisted, and surreal characters in these films; she could stop now and still have a permanent place in the horror hall of fame.
Melissa Barrera
Barrera appeared in 2022’s Scream and its follow-up Scream VI, easily holding her own against the original 1997 film’s stars Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courteney Cox, and Skeet Ulrich. Barrera and Jenna Ortega play sisters Sam and Tara Carpenter, who become new targets of murderers taking up the Ghostface mantle 25 years after the killings in the original film.
Keke Palmer
Keke Palmer was the beating heart of Jordan Peele’s excellent sci-fi horror film Nope as Emerald Haywood, who teams up with her brother OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) to try and photograph a UFO that begins appearing at their California horse ranch. If that’s not enough cred for you, she also appeared in the creature feature Animal in 2014 and was part of the main ensemble of Ryan Murphy’s short-lived satirical sitcom Scream Queens—also starring Glen Powell.
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