Best Home invasion Movies
Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of home invasion cinema — measured across 1,795 indexed frames from 27 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.
Home invasion films over-index on blood, dark hair and house — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.
- 1
Scream 4 (2011)
Wes CravenDP Peter DemingIMDb 6.2TMDB 6.5See in full on FrameThrower →
Sidney Prescott, now the author of a self-help book, returns home to Woodsboro on the last stop of her book tour. There she reconnects with Sheriff Dewey and Gale, who are now married, as well as her cousin Jill and her Aunt Kate. Unfortunately, Sidney's appearance also brings about the return of Ghostface, putting Sidney, Gale, and Dewey, along with Jill, her friends, and the whole town of Woodsboro in danger.
- 2
The Strangers: Prey at Night (2018)
Johannes RobertsDP Ryan SamulIMDb 5.3TMDB 5.7See in full on FrameThrower →
A family's road trip takes a dangerous turn when they arrive at a secluded mobile home park to stay with some relatives and find it mysteriously deserted. Under the cover of darkness, three masked psychopaths pay them a visit to test the family's every limit as they struggle to survive.
- 3
You’re Next (2013)
Adam WingardDP Andrew Droz PalermoIMDb 6.6TMDB 6.6See in full on FrameThrower →
In an attempt to mend their broken family ties, Aubrey and Paul Davison decide to celebrate their wedding anniversary by inviting family members to their weekend estate. The celebration gets off to a rocky start when mysterious assailants wearing animal masks suddenly attack the house.
- 4
The Purge (2013)
James DeMonacoDP Jacques JouffretIMDb 5.8TMDB 6.3See in full on FrameThrower →
In an America wracked by crime and overcrowded prisons, the government has sanctioned an annual 12-hour period in which any and all criminal activity-including murder-becomes legal. The police can't be called. Hospitals suspend help. It's one night when the citizenry regulates itself without thought of punishment. On this night plagued by violence and an epidemic of crime, one family wrestles with the decision of who they will become when a stranger comes knocking. When an intruder breaks into James Sandin's (Ethan Hawke) gated community during the yearly lockdown, he begins a sequence of events that threatens to tear a family apart. Now, it is up to James, his wife, Mary (Lena Headey), and their kids to make it through the night without turning into the monsters from whom they hide.
- 5
Assassination Nation (2018)
Sam LevinsonDP Marcell RévIMDb 6.0TMDB 6.3See in full on FrameThrower →
After an anonymous hacker begins leaking the private data of thousands living in a small American town, the townspeople spiral into madness, with four high school seniors at the center of the maelstrom.
- 6
Don’t Breathe 2 (2021)
Rodo SayaguesDP Pedro LuqueIMDb 6.0TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →
The Blind Man has been hiding out for several years in an isolated cabin and has taken in and raised a young girl orphaned from a devastating house fire. Their quiet life together is shattered when a group of criminals kidnap the girl, forcing the Blind Man to leave his safe haven to save her.
- 7
Anora (2024)
Sean BakerDP Drew DanielsIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →
Anora, a young stripper from Brooklyn, gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as the parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled.
- 8
Martyrs (2008)
Pascal LaugierDP Nathalie Moliavko-VisotzkyIMDb 7.0TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →
Fifteen years after a horrifying experience of abduction and prolonged torture, Lucie embarks on a bloody quest for revenge against her oppressors. Along with her childhood friend, Anna, who also suffered abuse, she quickly descends, without hope, into madness and her own delusions. Anna, left on her own begins to re-experience what Lucie did when she was only twelve years old.
- 9
Intrusion (2021)
Adam SalkyDP Eric LinIMDb 5.3TMDB 5.9See in full on FrameThrower →
Freida Pintoas Meera Parsons
Logan Marshall-Greenas Henry Parsons
Robert John Burkeas Detective Steven Morse
When a husband and wife move to a small town, a home invasion leaves the wife traumatized and suspicious that those around her might not be who they seem.
- 10
Dark Skies (2013)
Scott StewartDP David BoydIMDb 6.3TMDB 6.3See in full on FrameThrower →
The Barrett family-mother Lacy, father Daniel, older son Jesse, and younger son Sammy-reside on a quiet suburban street in an unnamed American city. Daniel is currently unemployed, placing the burden of supporting the family on Lacy, who works as a real estate agent. Their two sons enjoy a happy relationship and communicate with each other from their beds via walk-talkie. A number of strange occurrences befall the family. During the night, the contents of the kitchen are rearranged in bizarre configurations. The house alarm is set off when it detects that all entry points were breached simultaneously. Sammy suffers a fit while playing soccer and Lacy is shocked when hundreds of birds suddenly crash into the house. One night, Lacy is awakened by a sound from Sammy's room. When she goes to check on him, through the darkness she sees a figure standing over his bed. She turns on the light to find an empty room. Sammy is found walking away from the house but cannot remember leaving. Lacy, Daniel and Jesse each suffer catatonic episodes and regain consciousness with no memory of their experiences.
What home invasion films are made of
How much more often each element appears in a home invasion frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — blood is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.
- blood3.8×
- dark hair3.4×
- house2.6×
- tank top2.5×
- sofa2.5×
- door2.3×
- doorway2.1×
- eyes2.1×
How home invasion films are shot
Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate home invasion from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.
- 28%closeupvs 21% baseline
- 53%low keyvs 40% baseline
- 34%naturalvs 43% baseline
- 54%nightvs 43% baseline
What breaks the pattern
Nightcrawler (2014) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.
Method
Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 1,795 frames from 27 films carrying the home invasion label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (408,752 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.
Machine-readable: /api/list/home-invasion
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