Scream 1996 is the Woodsboro slasher that started the saga, directed by Wes Craven from a Kevin Williamson script and opening in US theaters on December 20, 1996. Neve Campbell leads as Sidney Prescott in a 112 minute film rated R, which turned a $15 million budget into about $173 million worldwide, according to The Numbers.
Scream 1996 begins with a phone call that turns a chat about scary films into a deadly game. In the small town of Woodsboro, California, teenager Casey Becker is home alone when a stranger rings her, and Casey and her boyfriend are then attacked by a masked killer. By the next morning the whole town is in shock, and the story widens from one house to an entire community.
The film then follows Sidney Prescott, played by Neve Campbell, whose mother was murdered a year earlier. The anniversary is close and her grief has not settled, so when the killer comes after her too, the police, a pushy TV reporter named Gale Weathers and Sidney's circle of friends all become part of the hunt for the culprit. Think of it as a pub quiz where every wrong answer costs someone dearly, with the film buffs in the group holding the answers nobody wants to hear.
If you are planning a marathon, our scream movies in order page shows where this film starts the saga, and the scream movies hub lists all seven.
TatumRose McGowan
StuartMatthew Lillard
RandyJamie Kennedy
CaseyDrew Barrymore
KennyW. Earl Brown
Sheriff BurkeJoseph Whipp
Cotton WearyLiev Schreiber
Phone Voice (voice)Roger L. JacksonMore of the cast: Wes Craven (Fred (uncredited)).
| Market | Date | Source |
|---|---|---|
| US | December 20, 1996confirmed | boxofficemojo.com |
| UK | May 2, 1997reported | the-numbers.com |
| AU | February 14, 1997reported | the-numbers.com |
| Market | Subscription | Rent or buy |
|---|---|---|
| US | Hulu, fuboTV, HBO Max Amazon Channel, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential, Philo, Paramount+ Amazon Channel, Paramount+ Roku Premium Channel, Cinemax Amazon Channel, HBO Max, Cinemax Apple TV channel, Kanopy, Hoopla, YouTube Free (Free, Free with ads) | Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, JustWatch TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Fandango At Home, Spectrum On Demand, Plex |
| UK | Amazon Prime Video, Paramount Plus, Paramount+ Amazon Channel, Amazon Prime Video with Ads, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Basic with Ads | Apple TV Store, Rakuten TV, JustWatch TV Store, Amazon Video, Sky Store, YouTube |
| AU | Paramount Plus, Paramount+ Amazon Channel, Stan, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Basic with Ads | JustWatch TV Store, Apple TV Store, Amazon Video, YouTube, Fetch TV |
Streaming availability data from JustWatch, checked 2026-11-03.
| Director | Wes Craven |
|---|---|
| Writers | Kevin Williamson |
| Producers | Cathy Konrad, Cary Woods |
| Music | Marco Beltrami |
| Cinematography | Mark Irwin |
| Budget | $15 million |
|---|---|
| Domestic (US and Canada) | $103 million |
| International | $70 million |
| Worldwide | $173 million |
| Worldwide, in September 2026 dollars | $372 million |
Scream box office for every film.
Marco Beltrami composed the score for Scream (1996), and the album "Scream: Music from the Dimension Motion Picture" was released by TVT Soundtrax on December 17, 1996, with 11 tracks. The songs on the album come from a range of artists of the mid 1990s, and they sit alongside Beltrami's score in the film.
Two songs have a clear place in the story. "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" by Gus Black plays softly in the background while Sidney and Billy talk about their relationship. "School's Out" by Alice Cooper plays after Woodsboro High School closes.
The other nine songs on the album are:
Readers who want the songs and albums from the rest of the saga can find them on the scream soundtrack page.
Gus Black
It plays softly in the background while Sidney and Billy talk about their relationship.
It plays after Woodsboro High School closes.
Sources: musicbrainz.org, themoviedb.org, en.wikipedia.org
In Scream 1996 the two killers behind the Ghostface mask are Billy Loomis and Stu Macher, and the full plot builds toward that reveal. A masked caller quizzes Casey Becker about horror movies, then kills her and her boyfriend. Sidney Prescott is attacked at home by the same killer, who wears a black robe and a ghost mask. She fights him off, and suspicion falls on her boyfriend Billy Loomis, who is held by the police and then released.
Meanwhile, reporter Gale Weathers pushes the theory that Cotton Weary, the man convicted of Sidney's mother's murder, is innocent. The school closes and the killer keeps striking, claiming more victims among the locals. Randy, the film obsessed friend, explains the unwritten rules that horror victims follow, and the group takes that talk to a party at Stu's house, where the teens drink, watch scary movies and the body count rises.
Sidney finally gives in to Billy, and then he and Stu step out as the two killers. Billy reveals that he blamed Sidney's mother for breaking up his family. The pair stab each other to make their story look believable, and they plan to frame Sidney's father.
The plan does not hold. Sidney, helped by a wounded Gale and by Dewey, turns the tables, and Randy is nearly killed along the way. Sidney kills Stu, and then she shoots Billy in the head when he rises one last time. As such, the film ends with both killers dead and the survivors being tended to outside the house.
The Scream 1996 release date in the US was December 20, 1996, two days after a Los Angeles premiere on December 18, 1996 at the AVCO Theater in Westwood. Yahoo News describes a red carpet event for the premiere, and the film opened in American theaters later that week.
Outside the US the film arrived later. The Numbers lists a theatrical release in Australia on February 14, 1997 and in the UK on May 2, 1997. Those two dates are reported rather than confirmed by a studio release.
The film is rated R in the US, 18 in the UK and MA 15+ in Australia. At the box office, Scream (1996) earned about $103 million in the US and Canada and about $173 million worldwide on a budget of $15 million, according to The Numbers. For comparison, scream 2 made about $172 million worldwide, and the full table for the saga is on our scream box office page.
The ending of Scream 1996 reveals two killers, Billy Loomis and Stu Macher, and it closes with Sidney Prescott alive and the story ready to continue. Billy's stated motive is that he blamed Sidney's mother for breaking up his family, which turns the earlier murder of her mother into the root of the whole film. The question "Who is the real killer?" therefore has a two part answer, and the structure is the clever part.
Why two killers? It lets them stab each other to make their story look believable. They also plan to frame Sidney's father, so the finale is as much about a cover story as it is about a chase. In my opinion, that is the neatest piece of plotting in the film, because the party at Stu's house gives the killers an alibi built out of a crowd.
The ending also pays off Randy's rules. He explains the unwritten rules that horror victims follow, and the party is the exact setting those rules warn about, with drinking, scary movies and a body count that rises. The film lets its characters know the genre and then tests whether knowing it helps. It could be argued that Sidney survives because she stops playing by the rules she has been told, and Billy rising one last time is the genre's oldest trick, answered with a gunshot.
As for what comes after, Gale reports from outside the house while Sidney, Dewey and Randy are tended to. The trauma is clear and so is the media attention, which is why the sequels could pick up the case. Scream 2 opens with a screening of Stab, a movie based on the Woodsboro murders, and scream 3 is set around the making of Stab 3. Billy even returns as a vision troubling Sam Carpenter in scream 2022. For the wider story, see the scream timeline and our page on ghostface killers.
Scream 1996 was filmed in several California towns, with Woodsboro assembled from Glen Ellen, Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, Tomales and Sonoma.
The opening sequence house, where Casey Becker takes the phone call, was filmed in Glen Ellen. Santa Rosa supplied Sidney's house, the video store and the interiors of Tatum's home. Healdsburg stood in for the Woodsboro town square and the police station exterior, and Tomales provided Stu's house for the finale.
The school is the odd one out. The production was refused permission to shoot at Santa Rosa High School, so the Woodsboro High scenes were filmed at the Sonoma Community Center instead, with about 150 local extras.
If you want to compare settings across the saga, scream 7 was filmed in Georgia and at Great Point Studios in Atlanta, a long way from the Northern California towns of the original.
The best known piece of Scream 1996 trivia is that the film was shot under the working title Scary Movie. Wes Craven was refused permission to shoot at Santa Rosa High School under that name, and in April 1996 the Santa Rosa school board turned down the request. About 800 people came to the meeting where it was debated, according to the local Press Democrat.
The replacement school scenes were filmed at the Sonoma Community Center with about 150 local extras. Drew Barrymore was not present for that shoot because her character, Casey, had already been killed off earlier in the film.
Casting had its own turns. Neve Campbell hesitated at first to take the lead role of Sidney because she had just appeared in The Craft, and Reese Witherspoon turned down the lead role. Jamie Kennedy won the part of Randy over Breckin Meyer.
The film's legacy is easy to count. Six more films followed, starting with scream 2, and the next entry in development is scream 8. If you want to rank them, our scream movies ranked page does exactly that, and scream merchandise covers the collectibles.
Scream 1996 is a suspense-driven slasher, and how scary it feels depends on the viewer. It opens with a phone call in which a stranger turns a chat about horror films into a deadly game, then follows a masked killer who murders Casey Becker and her boyfriend and goes after Sidney Prescott. It is rated R in the US, 18 in the UK and MA 15+ in Australia.
Spoiler: no pregnancy storyline for Billy Loomis appears in the plot of Scream 1996. The motive the film gives for Billy is that he blamed Sidney Prescott's mother for breaking up his family, and that grudge drives his role as one of the two killers.
Neither the studio nor trade coverage describes Scream 1996 as based on a real case. The screenplay is credited to Kevin Williamson, and the story is set in the small town of Woodsboro, California, with scenes shot across several Northern California towns.
Spoiler: there are two killers, Billy Loomis and Stu Macher. Sidney Prescott kills Stu and then shoots Billy when he rises one last time. The full explanation is in the Scream 1996 ending explained section and on our page about the ghostface killers.
As of November 3, 2026, according to JustWatch data on TMDB, Scream 1996 streams in the US on Hulu, HBO Max and Paramount Plus. In the UK it is on Amazon Prime Video and Paramount Plus, and in Australia on Paramount Plus and Stan. It can also be rented or bought on services such as Apple TV Store, Amazon Video and YouTube. Availability changes often, so check our where to watch scream page.
Scream 1996 was released in US theaters on December 20, 1996, after a premiere in Los Angeles on December 18, 1996. Its runtime is 112 minutes. It opened in Australia on February 14, 1997 and in the UK on May 2, 1997, according to The Numbers.
