What is the iRankMovies score for A Nightmare on Elm Street?

Name: A Nightmare on Elm Street
Director: Wes Craven
Genre: horror
Released: 1984
Duration: 1 h 31 min
Rating: 7.4

A Nightmare on Elm Street has an iRankMovies score of 79.7/100, based on a weighted combination of IMDb (×3.0), Rotten Tomatoes (×2.0), Metacritic (×1.5), and TMDb (×1.0).

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

If Nancy doesn't wake up screaming, she won't wake up at all.

Release:1984

Runtime:1h 31m

Country:United States

Director:Wes Craven

Language:English

Genre

Horror

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Keywords

DreamsNightmarePsychopathSleepChild MurdersupernaturalOhiomurder

iRank80

A Nightmare on Elm Street rating: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic

IMDb7.4/10· 290K votes

Rotten Tomatoes94%

Metacritic76%

TMDb7.345/10· 6K votes

With 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, backed by 7.4/10 on IMDb and 76/100 on Metacritic, critical reception of this film has been very positive.

About A Nightmare on Elm Street

Teenagers in a small town are dropping like flies, apparently in the grip of mass hysteria causing their suicides. A cop's daughter, Nancy Thompson, traces the cause to child molester Fred Krueger, who was burned alive by angry parents many years before. Krueger has now come back in the dreams of his killers' children, claiming their lives as his revenge. Nancy and her boyfriend, Glen, must devise a plan to lure the monster out of the realm of nightmares and into the real world...

Cast of A Nightmare on Elm Street

Heather Langenkamp
as Nancy Thompson
Johnny Depp
as Glen Lantz
Robert Englund
as Fred Krueger
Amanda Wyss
as Tina Gray
Jsu Garcia
as Rod Lane
John Saxon
as Lt. Donald Thompson
Ronee Blakley
as Marge Thompson
Charles Fleischer
as Dr. King
Joseph Whipp
as Sergeant Parker
Lin Shaye
as Teacher
Joe Unger
as Sergeant Garcia
Mimi Craven
as Nurse

A Nightmare on Elm Street facts

Budget: $1.8M
Box office: $57M
Collection: A Nightmare on Elm Street Collection

Our take on A Nightmare on Elm Street

Wes Craven's 1984 horror landmark takes a deceptively simple, nightmarish idea and runs with it: teenagers in a small town are dying in their sleep, and one girl, Nancy, traces the terror to a burned killer who now stalks children through their dreams. The genius is the premise's inescapability—you can't stay awake forever—and Craven mines that dread with inventive, surreal set pieces where the rules of reality bend. It's a foundational slasher for anyone building a horror education, more imaginative and psychologically unsettling than pure gore. Nancy's plan to drag the monster into the waking world gives it a resourceful heart alongside the scares.

Ranked by the iRankMovies editorial teamUpdated August 2026Methodology Data sources

Audience opinions

What the audience liked

•Wes Craven's imaginative dream logic subverts genre conventions brilliantly
•Novel concept distinguishes film from standard slasher formula entirely
•Atmospheric dread builds through surreal, unpredictable nightmare sequences

What the audience disliked

•Low-budget limitations constrain visual effects quality somewhat obviously
•Pacing occasionally stutters during exposition and character development scenes

Saga: A Nightmare on Elm Street Collection