A decade into her career, Maika Monroe has quietly become one of the defining faces of modern horror, i.e, ‘the scream queen,’ and she’s done it with one deceptively simple gift: making fear feel real.
Born Dillon Monroe Buckley in California and later adopting the name “Maika,” she was a competitive kiteboarder before becoming cinema’s queen of modern horror. (Yes, really. There’s a parallel universe where she’s not being chased by ghouls but surfing with the wind.
What sets Monroe apart isn’t just that she’s good at playing scared. It’s the kind of fear she embodies. Her performances have a quiet, deliberate tension. She gives you unease without ever overselling it — slow-burn, unnervingly calm, with just the slightest hint that something isn’t right.
Below are ten essential films that prove why she’s earned her crown as modern horror’s most quietly devastating force.
The 10 Essential Maika Monroe Best Horror Movies
1. It Follows (2014)
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Monroe’s Character: Jamie “Jay” Height
A supernatural curse passed through sex – yes, that’s the premise, and somehow it’s one of the most chilling films of its decade. But on screen, it became one of the most unsettling horror films of the 2010s. Jay, a teenager in suburban Detroit, is stalked by a shape-shifting entity that never stops walking toward her.
Monroe’s performance is clear-eyed and weary, perfectly capturing the terror of knowing something is coming… slowly, inevitably, and no one else can see it. It’s the role that made her a horror icon.
2. The Guest (2014)
Director: Adam Wingard
Monroe’s Character: Anna Peterson
A mysterious stranger enters the life of a grieving family, bringing charm, violence, and an unnerving politeness. Anna is the only one who senses something off about him. Monroe’s skeptical, watchful performance gives the story its anchor. While others are blinded by charisma, she’s the one watching the storm form.
3. Tau (2018)
Director: Federico D’Alessandro
Monroe’s Character: Julia
Julia wakes up trapped in a high-tech house run by an AI. The house talks, threatens, and thinks. Instead of panicking, she studies it, negotiates, and plots her escape. This isn’t a scream-and-run role. Monroe plays Julia with intelligence and grit, giving the premise believability.
4. The Stranger (2022)
Director: Andrew C. Erin
Monroe’s Character: Clare
A young woman takes a job as a live-in caretaker, only to find herself caught in something far darker than loneliness. Though The Stranger is a TV series (13 episodes), Monroe’s turn as Clare is too striking to leave out. Her performance is quiet and fragile, yet magnetic — she’s always right there, steady and unreadable, and you keep waiting for her to crack. She never does. That restraint is exactly what makes it unforgettable.
5. Watcher (2022)
Director: Chloe Okuno
Monroe’s Character: Julia
In Bucharest, an American woman suspects she’s being watched by a man in the building opposite. Everyone dismisses her fears. The dread grows anyway. Monroe’s performance is almost architectural here: she builds a house of unease, brick by brick, glance by glance. And she manages to keep the audience feeling edgy throughout.
6. Significant Other (2022)
Director: Dan Berk and Robert Olsen
Monroe’s Character: Ruth
A couple heads into the forest for a romantic hike. What could go wrong? Everything, of course — and not in the way you expect. Monroe brings a slippery quality to Ruth: with a mix of warmth and quiet suspicion — you’re never fully sure what she’s thinking. It’s simple but smart casting: the story works because we trust her at first, then start to question everything.
7. Villains (2019)
Director: Dan Berk and Robert Olsen
Monroe’s Character: Jules
Two petty criminals break into a house expecting an easy score. Instead, they stumble upon a couple who are far worse.
Monroe plays Jules with a sense of sharp instinct in acting. With the film being part crime caper, part horror show, she fully makes you root for someone who technically doesn’t deserve it.
8. Hot Summer Nights (2017)
Director: Elijah Bynum
Monroe’s Character: McKayla Strawberry
Okay, this isn’t horror. But it’s where Monroe’s eeriness leaks into straight drama. Set in Cape Cod during a sticky summer of crime and romance, McKayla is the girl you want to know and probably shouldn’t. McKayla is magnetic — the girl you can’t quite read, and Monroe plays her with that signature chill.
9. Greta (2018)
Director: Neil Jordan
Monroe’s Character: Erica Penn
A young woman befriends a lonely older woman, only to discover an obsession underneath the kindness. Monroe plays Erica, the loyal friend with sharp edges.
It’s a supporting role, but she uses it to good effect — the voice of reason in a world that’s about to get very unreasonable.
10. Longlegs (2024)
Director: Osgood Perkins
Monroe’s Character: Lee Harker
This is the film that took Monroe from “scream queen” to something bigger. Playing opposite Nicolas Cage, she’s an FBI agent investigating a satanic serial killer.
The case is brutal and strange, and Lee slowly realizes the evil isn’t just out there, but it’s creeping into her. Monroe’s performance is tight and trembling, the face of someone who knows something unspeakable is staring right back. It’s the most powerful, unsettling performance of her career so far.
Why Maika Monroe Works
- She doesn’t rely on big, dramatic terror – her fear is quiet, lived-in, and believable.
- Her face is perfect for horror: open, intelligent, and just slightly off-center.
- Directors use her like a barometer – if she’s scared, we instinctively are too.
- Her characters are rarely naive; they’re sharp, bruised, and stubborn.
- She’s deliberately stayed franchise-free, giving her freedom to shape her own path. Because of that, she’s not tied to one IP – she lingers on the edges of the genre, making it richer.
- She has a knack for turning one-off films into cult favorites.
A Final Word
Horror has a habit of crowning its queens — Jamie Lee Curtis, Neve Campbell, Toni Collette. Maika Monroe is the modern heir. She’s built a filmography that’s oddly elegant in its chill. No sequels. No endless lore. Just one perfectly constructed unease after another.
And perhaps that’s the ultimate horror trick: not to dominate the genre but linger in it.
