RING

A group of teenage friends are found dead, their faces twisted in terror. Reiko, a journalist and the aunt of one of the victims, sets out to investigate. In the process, she uncovers an urban legend about a cursed videotape, the contents of which causes anyone who views it to die within a week.

Inaugurating the explosion of “J-horror” exports at the turn of the millennium, this wild—and wildly successful—chiller sounded the arrival of one of the most fertile scenes in modern horror cinema. Forget the American remake, Hideo Nakata’s cursed-video classic remains the definitive scarefest.