This list was last updated on September 29, 2023, with Saw X. On June 1, 2024, most of the Saw films became available to stream on Hulu.
Unlike the slasher movies of the 1980s or the exploitation horror films of the 1970s, the modern wave of torture films (or, as New York’s David Edelstein dubbed it, “torture porn”) has been marked by highly stylized violence with landscapes designed for and devoted to pure punishment. The subgenre thrived in the aughts, with a slew of like-minded efforts like 2004’s Saw, which kicked off the mainstream U.S. torture wave; The Collector; Hostel (and most of Eli Roth’s filmography); anything from Rob Zombie; and The Human Centipede. Things have gotten quieter lately on the graphic suffering front, but the tenth entry in the Saw franchise arrives this weekend…
