# Freddy vs Jason Rivalry: A $116M Crossover and 16 Lists
> Freddy vs Jason across 16 rankings: slasher villains, Halloween costumes, Mortal Kombat, Kevin Bacon, worst remakes. Crystal Lake hit Peacock on 15 October.
*By YPB Team · Published October 26, 2026 · https://youpick.best/articles/freddy-vs-jason-ranked*
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Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees, 16 rankings where they meet. Photos: Freddy cosplay at Long Beach Comic Con 2012 by Pat Loika (CC BY 2.0); Jason cosplay at Montreal Comiccon 2015 by Pikawil (CC BY-SA 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons.
Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees have shared exactly one film, Freddy vs. Jason in 2003, and the same Halloween shelf for more than forty years. Jason got to this October first. Peacock released all eight episodes of Crystal Lake, a prequel with Linda Cardellini as his mother Pamela, on 15 October,1 and Halloween falls on the Saturday after.
Their origins are four years apart. Friday the 13th opened in May 1980 and Wes Craven's Elm Street film in November 1984, both on small budgets, and both series were still releasing sequels in 1989. Each of the sixteen rankings below holds Freddy, Jason or both, from slasher villains and Halloween costumes to Mortal Kombat, Kevin Bacon and the worst remakes ever released.
> Freddy is the slasher who talks and Jason the one who never says a word, and almost every list sorts them by whether it prizes the voice or the silence.
## Freddy Krueger vs Jason Voorhees: the slasher shortlist
Top 15 Slasher Movie Villains is the list built for the question the 2003 crossover tried to answer. Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees share it with Michael Myers, Leatherface, Ghostface, Chucky and Candyman.
Freddy's claim is personality. Robert Englund played him in eight films between 1984 and 2003, and gave the character a voice, a stand-up comic's timing and a face the audience could read under the burns.
Jason's claim runs the other way. He has no lines worth quoting, no visible face for most of his series and no explanation, and twelve Friday the 13th films ran on that silence.
Michael Myers has the strongest outside case against both of them. John Carpenter's Halloween arrived first and set the rules the other two inherited: the masked killer, the holiday in the title, the teenagers who should not have gone upstairs.
Jason Voorhees against Freddy Krueger, the matchup the slasher list exists for. Play it →
## Pamela Voorhees on the horror villain list
The 25 Best Horror Movie Villains of All Time widens the field to Hannibal Lecter, Pennywise, Norman Bates, the Xenomorph and Count Dracula. Freddy and Jason become two slashers in a crowd of cannibals, clowns and aliens.
The list also holds Pamela Voorhees, the detail that settles a trivia night. Jason kills nobody in the original Friday the 13th. His mother, played by Betsy Palmer, is the killer, and Jason appears only in the lake at the end.
Freddy has no such footnote. He is the killer from the first reel of Craven's 1984 film, and the film is built around his rules.
Hannibal Lecter makes both of them look like genre figures, with an Academy Award attached to a performance of under twenty minutes.
Freddy Krueger against Jason's mother, the original Crystal Lake killer. Play it →
## A Nightmare on Elm Street vs Friday the 13th: the franchises
The ranking of eighteen horror franchises compares the whole run of each series. Both slasher series sit next to Halloween, Scream, Saw, Alien and the Conjuring Universe.
Friday the 13th has volume. The 1980 original took $39,754,601 in North America,2 and Paramount released a sequel almost every year until 1989.
The Elm Street films have a studio. Their success turned New Line Cinema into what Den of Geek calls "The House That Freddy Built",3 and the same company went on to make The Lord of the Rings.
Alien and the Conjuring films have the stronger critical record across their entries. Scream, the series Wes Craven started twelve years after Freddy, is the one that borrowed most openly from both.
Wes Craven against Wes Craven: Elm Street and the series he made in 1996. Play it →
## Halloween (1978) vs Friday the 13th (1980): the best slasher movie
The best slasher movie ranking is a list of single films, and both originals are on it, Cunningham's 1980 film and Craven's 1984 one.
Halloween (1978) is the film both answer to. Sean S. Cunningham made Friday the 13th two years after Carpenter's hit and borrowed its structure, from a date in the title to the young cast picked off one by one.
Friday the 13th adds Tom Savini's gore effects and the twist ending. Craven's Elm Street adds the supernatural, which moved the slasher from the woods into the bedroom.
Psycho, Black Christmas and Scream complete the field.
Carpenter's original against the summer-camp film that copied its calendar trick. Play it →
## The Shining, The Thing and the best horror movies of the 1980s
Top 40 Horror Movies of the 1980s is the decade both characters were born in. The two slasher originals are two of forty films, alongside The Evil Dead, Hellraiser, Poltergeist and The Fly.
Friday the 13th opened on 9 May 1980, two weeks before Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. The two films came out of the same month and went in opposite directions: one became the studio slasher template, the other a film critics still argue over shot by shot.
Freddy's first film has the better case among critics. Wes Craven's film belongs with John Carpenter's The Thing and David Cronenberg's The Fly as one of the decade's horror films with an idea at its centre.
Jason's original has the stronger box office claim, and the longer shadow over the decade: Paramount's sequels and a wave of copies such as My Bloody Valentine and Sleepaway Camp, both on this list, followed within three years. The Shining and The Thing carry this list on reputation, and neither slasher is the obvious first pick here.
Kubrick and Carpenter, the two names both slashers have to get past in the 1980s. Play it →
## The Exorcist vs A Nightmare on Elm Street: best horror movie ever
The best horror movie of all time ranking holds sixteen films, and Freddy's debut is one of them. Friday the 13th is not.
That gap is the clearest split between the two on any list here. Freddy's first film is admired as a horror film in its own right, for Wes Craven's dream logic and a teenage heroine who fights back. Jason's first film is remembered as a hit and a template.
The Exorcist, The Shining and Psycho carry the list. Craven's film opened on 9 November 1984 with $1,271,000 and grew to $25,504,513 in North America,4 which is how a modest New Line release ends up next to William Friedkin.
The Exorcist against Elm Street, on a list where Friday the 13th has no entry. Play it →
## Dream Warriors vs Jason Lives: the best horror sequels
The best horror movie sequel ranking has one entry from each series. Dream Warriors (1987), the third Elm Street film, and Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986) are the sequels fans of each franchise name first.
Dream Warriors brought Wes Craven back as a co-writer and Heather Langenkamp back as Nancy. The teenagers fight Freddy inside the dream with powers of their own, and the film set the tone for the rest of the series.
Jason Lives opens with a lightning bolt bringing Jason back from the grave. Director Tom McLoughlin played the film for knowing jokes, the first time the series admitted it was a series.
Aliens, Evil Dead II and Bride of Frankenstein are the sequels both have to get past.
Jason Lives against Dream Warriors, the two sequels each fan base defends first. Play it →
## Freddy vs. Jason on the best Friday the 13th movie list
The best Friday the 13th movie ranking is Jason's own list, and it includes the film he shares with Freddy. Freddy vs. Jason (2003) is the eleventh entry in Jason's series and the eighth in Freddy's.
The crossover was a box office event for both. It opened to $36.4 million in North America and reached $116,643,421 worldwide.5
Friday the 13th Part III (1982) has a different claim. Jason wears his hockey mask for the first time in that film, shot in 3D by Steve Miner.6
The 1980 original and The Final Chapter (1984) are the usual picks of fans who rate the early films over the later ones.
Part III, where the hockey mask arrives, against The Final Chapter. Play it →
## Wes Craven's New Nightmare vs Freddy vs. Jason
Freddy's own list, the best Elm Street movie ranking, holds nine films, and Freddy vs. Jason is on it as well. No other film appears on both characters' series lists.
Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994) is the entry critics took most seriously after the original, and the one Craven came back to direct, ten years after the original. Craven wrote a film about the real cast and crew of the series being haunted by Freddy, with Robert Englund playing himself, two years before Scream made the same self-awareness a box office hit.
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) promised an ending in its title and did not deliver one. The 2010 remake, with Jackie Earle Haley under the makeup, is the only entry without Englund.
For Jason fans the crossover counts as a Friday film too. On this list it is the only time Freddy shares his own ranking with anyone.
New Nightmare against the crossover, on Freddy's own list. Play it →
## Michael Myers vs Jason Voorhees: the Halloween costume
The best Halloween costume ranking is about what people wear on 31 October, and both slashers are on it next to Michael Myers, Pennywise and a bedsheet ghost.
Jason's costume is one object. A hockey mask and a machete read from across the street, and a child can wear the whole thing.
Freddy's costume takes more work: the striped sweater, the fedora, the bladed glove and ideally the burns. Michael Myers needs even less than Jason, a white mask and navy coveralls.
Two masks and a machete: Jason against Michael Myers in the costume aisle. Play it →
## Jaws, Psycho and the most iconic horror movie themes
The 26 Most Iconic Horror Movie Themes puts both series in a music ranking. Friday the 13th is on it for Harry Manfredini's whispered "ki ki ki, ma ma ma", built from the words "kill her, mommy" in Pamela Voorhees's voice.
Freddy's series is on it for Charles Bernstein's score and for a children's rhyme. "One, two, Freddy's coming for you" is the line most people can sing from either series.
Jason's sound is the more recognisable of the two, a whisper that works without a picture. Freddy's tune needs the lyrics.
John Williams's two notes for Jaws and Bernard Herrmann's strings for Psycho set the bar for both slashers, with Carpenter's Halloween piano close behind.
Jaws against Psycho, the two scores every slasher theme is measured against. Play it →
## Monster makeup: The Fly vs Freddy Krueger's burns
Top 15 Monster Makeup Designs in Movie History is a craft list. Freddy's first film is on it for David B. Miller's burned face. Friday the 13th is not, although Tom Savini designed the corpse that leaps from the lake in 1980.
Freddy's makeup became part of the performance. The scars move when Robert Englund grins, which is half the reason the character could talk at all.
An American Werewolf in London took the first makeup Oscar, and The Fly (1986) won it five years later.
The Fly against Freddy's burns, on a craft list Jason never needed. Play it →
## Freddy Krueger vs Jason Voorhees in Mortal Kombat
The best Mortal Kombat guest fighter ranking holds seventeen characters from outside the series, and both slashers are among them. Freddy was downloadable content for the 2011 Mortal Kombat. Jason followed in Mortal Kombat X, released for season-pass owners on 5 May 2015.7
Jason is the more natural fit for a fighting game. He is built like a heavyweight, has a machete and needs no dialogue.
Freddy brought what the game usually lacks, a character who taunts. His glove gave the designers a weapon no other fighter had.
Kratos, the Predator, the Terminator and Homelander are the guests both have to beat, and Kratos had the advantage of a PlayStation exclusive.
Jason against Freddy again, this time in NetherRealm's renders. Play it →
## Kevin Bacon and Johnny Depp: two careers that started at the slashers
The 22 Best Kevin Bacon Movies includes Friday the 13th, where Bacon plays Jack, a camp counselor killed by an arrow through the throat from under a bed. Tom Savini built the effect, and it is the best-known kill of the 1980 film.
Freddy has the matching story. Johnny Depp made his film debut as Glen Lantz in Craven's 1984 film, the boyfriend pulled into his own bed.8 Wes Craven was not impressed at first: "This isn't the boy next door, and he can't act, and he's so nervous."
Footloose, Apollo 13 and Mystic River carry Bacon's list. Friday the 13th came between Animal House and Diner, four years before Footloose made him a star.
Footloose against the summer-camp film where Kevin Bacon dies under a bed. Play it →
## Freddy's Nightmares among horror anthology TV series
The best horror anthology TV series ranking is a television list, and Freddy is on it for a spin-off few people remember. Freddy's Nightmares ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990, with Robert Englund introducing each episode in character.
The field includes The Twilight Zone, Tales from the Crypt and Black Mirror, and this is where Freddy looks weakest. Most episodes did not feature him beyond the introduction.
Jason never had a television series of his own until Crystal Lake, and that show is about his mother.
Tales from the Crypt is the closer comparison. It had a horror host too, the Crypt Keeper, and stayed on HBO for seven seasons.
Freddy's Nightmares against Tales from the Crypt and its Crypt Keeper. Play it →
## Elm Street 2010 vs Friday the 13th 2009: the worst horror remakes
The 23 Worst Horror Movie Remakes holds both reboots, and both came from Michael Bay's company Platinum Dunes within fourteen months of each other.
Friday the 13th (2009) made money. It opened to $40,570,365 in North America and reached $91,509,154 worldwide,9 although fans complained that it compressed the first three films into one.
The 2010 Elm Street remake had the worse reception. It holds 14% on Rotten Tomatoes from 184 reviews,10 and Jackie Earle Haley's Freddy, given a grimmer backstory, lost the humour Englund had brought to the character.
The Wicker Man (2006) and Psycho (1998) are the remakes both have to be compared with, and each has a larger cult of people who watch it for the wrong reasons.
The two Platinum Dunes reboots, a year apart, against each other. Play it →
## Freddy speaks, Jason waits
Freddy collects the lists that reward craft and voice: the makeup, the best horror films of all time, the sequel with a screenwriter's idea behind it. Jason collects the lists that reward an image: the costume, the theme, the fighting game, the mask that first appeared in 3D. The 2003 film settled nothing. Each list here gets decided by matchups between two options, and [the pairwise method behind it](/articles/what-is-pairwise-comparison) explains why a small field can still produce a clear order.
Your own slasher question is one ranking away: pick the field, and let the matchups sort it.
## More rankings, more angles
- [Halloween: a $325,000 Movie and a $13 Billion Night](/articles/halloween-ranked-many-ways) — Michael Myers, the slasher both of them copied
- [Dracula vs the Greats: Best Horror Villain of All Time? 12 Lists](/articles/dracula-ranked-many-ways) — the villain with 538 films behind him
- [Batman vs Superman: Who Is the Better Hero? 14 Lists](/articles/batman-vs-superman-ranked) — another crossover that put two icons in one film
Sources
Dread Central — Crystal Lake: all 8 episodes on Peacock from 15 October 2026, Linda Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees: dreadcentral.com (checked 2026-10-26)
Den of Geek — A Nightmare on Elm Street and New Line Cinema, "The House That Freddy Built": denofgeek.com (checked 2026-10-26)
Box Office Mojo — A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), release 9 November 1984, opening $1,271,000, domestic gross $25,504,513: boxofficemojo.com (checked 2026-10-26)
Box Office Mojo — Freddy vs. Jason (2003), $36.4M domestic opening, $116,643,421 worldwide: boxofficemojo.com (checked 2026-10-26)
Dread Central — Friday the 13th Part III (1982) retrospective: first appearance of the hockey mask, 3D, dir. Steve Miner: dreadcentral.com (checked 2026-10-26)
MP1st — Jason Voorhees in Mortal Kombat X, 5 May 2015 for Kombat Pack owners: mp1st.com (checked 2026-10-26)
Far Out — Johnny Depp's film debut as Glen Lantz, and Wes Craven's quote: faroutmagazine.co.uk (checked 2026-10-26)
