The Best Halloween Candy of All Time, Super Scientifically Ranked from Trash to Tasty
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Remember your childhood neighbor who always gave out terrible candy (or worse, boxes of raisins), so much so that by fourth grade, you didn’t even bother to stop at their house anymore and basically avoided eye contact with them from August through November? No one wants to be that person. To ensure you’re giving out the good stuff (or eating it on your own while binging your favorite Halloween movies), we’ve carefully ranked all the best Halloween candy of 2023 from worst to best. You can thank us later, friend.
65 Halloween Dessert Ideas, from Totally Spooky to Extra Sweet
The Top 5 Halloween Candies
As of 2022, the most popular Halloween candy in the U.S. was Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, according to CandyStore.com. In second place were Skittles, followed by M&M's, Starburst and—wait for it—Hot Tamales. Our list differs in four of five spots (to each their own, right?). Scroll down for our top picks.
45. Strawberry Hard Candies
Congratulations. You trick-or-treated at the actual devil’s house and made it out alive.
44. Gum (Specifically Dubble Bubble)
If you’re seeking saccharine-sweet flavor for seconds followed by tough-to-chew disappointment...well, look no further.
43. Dots
It’s like they’re not even trying to get our attention. We’re almost sorry we dissed that box of raisins.
42. Junior Mints
These taste like toothpaste—they do, so sue us. They’d be marginally better if you didn’t actually need to brush the sugary scum from your teeth after.
41. Hot Tamales
Not to be rude, but we're shocked these ranked so high in CandyStore.com's list. Too spicy.
40. Lemonheads
Too sour. We prefer the '90s band, thank you very much.
39. 3 Musketeers
Is it just us or is this the chintziest of all candy bars? Plain old nougat…it’s just meh.
38. Payday
This would be ever so slightly better if it were enrobed in chocolate. It just feels a little...anticlimactic.
37. Baby Ruth
Great baseball player? Yes. Great candy? Not so much. This one loses points for its TK appearance and the fact that we had to Google what it’s even made of (for the record, it's peanuts, caramel, milk chocolate-flavored nougat and chocolate).
36. Crunch Bar
Remind us, why did we need to ruin perfectly mediocre chocolate with surprise bits of mystery gravel?
35. Whoppers
If we’re in a dark movie theater, sure, we’ll down an entire king-size box of these. But on Halloween, our standards are suddenly much, much higher.
34. Mr. Goodbar
He’s good, but not, like, amazing.
33. Blow Pops
Does anyone actually like the plasticky chewing gum that lurks in the center of these things? We didn’t think so.
32. Bottle Caps
It’s all fun and games until you think you’re biting into a root beer bottle cap and it turns out to be an orange one that tastes like medicine. Give us treats, not tricks!
31. Sweetarts
Had we wanted to eat chalk for dessert, we would’ve done so when our kindergarten teacher wasn’t looking.
30. Snickers
Listen, these peanut-nougat bars are just fine, if settling for fine on the most sugary holiday of the year is your thing. But turn them into Snickers dip and now we're talking.
29. Caramel Apple Pops
We’d kinda sorta like these fall-ified lollipops—if they didn’t threaten to rip our teeth clean from our mouth in one go. Eat at your own risk, folks.
28. Jolly Ranchers
It’s not that Jolly Ranchers are inherently bad (minus the grape ones, those are the worst); it’s just that we could do so much better.
27. Hershey’s Chocolate
Like the Michael Bluth of the Halloween candy haul: Fine…but pretty boring compared to the rest of the family. (The one exception—and this is crucial—is if the neighbor is giving out full-size chocolate bars.)
26. Smarties
We’ll admit that these sugar tablets are really only good when eaten in threes...or the entire roll shoved in your mouth at once.
25. Mounds
Coconut and dark chocolate felt sophisticated when we were 11. Now, we just wish it came in milk. (Come on, you do too.)
24. Rolos
Sure, these caramel-chocolate bites are pretty inoffensive in the grand scheme of things. But they’re certainly not *Milk Duds.*
23. Tootsie Fruit Chews
These guys are a little fruity, a little waxy and taste like something our grandpa would keep in his pocket for “emergencies.” All things considered, we do have a soft spot for the vanilla ones.
22. Original Tootsie Rolls
See above. Slightly waxy, vaguely chocolaty and found in a grandparent’s jacket pocket, they’re a Halloween classic. Nothin’ wrong with that.
21. Sprees
Nonbelievers will say they’re chalky and boring, but we must disagree. Plus, have you ever had the chewy kind?
20. Sugar Babies
Just make sure you put your dentist on speed dial before cracking open a box. Can you say “cavities?”
19. Starburst (Reds, Yellows and Oranges)
We’ll never know how these flavors got to share a package with those delicious pink guys, but we suppose it could be worse. (See number 45.)
18. Almond Joy
Real talk: We would prefer Almond Joys if they were made with, well...zero almonds. (If you agree, might we suggest Bounty bars?.)
17. Trolli Sour Brite Crawlers
This is the only kind of worm we want to see in our Halloween candy, to be quite honest. The chewy-yet-soft texture is so dreamy.
16. Skittles
We've tasted the rainbow, and we wish they'd bring back lime instead of that cursed green apple nonsense. (Bonus points if you get a sour bag.)
15. Airheads
Getting a mystery flavor Airhead is like winning the Halloween candy lottery. (Rumor has it that it's a combination of a few other Airheads flavors.)
14. Nerds
What the heck are Nerds? They’re tiny, crunchy bits of sugar that you can pour straight into your mouth. And that’s why we love ’em so.
13. M&M’s
Listen, we’ll trade you six green M&M’s for three red ones. We know all the colors taste the exact same...or do they?
12. Milk Duds
What’s the opposite of a dud? A victory? Yeah, they should rename these. OK, maybe not, but you get the idea.
11. Twizzlers
Strawberry Twizzlers are in a league of their own—especially compared to regular licorice. And that, friends, is a very good thing.
10. Kit Kat
Break us off a piece of that. Or just give us a whole one, please and thank you. We don’t actually want to share our bar with anyone.
9. Reese’s Fast Break
Finding one of these in your Halloween candy bag is like finding an all-marshmallow box of Lucky Charms—a diamond in the rough, if you will.
8. Hershey’s Cookies And Cream
We don’t even care that it’s not “real” white chocolate, or even chocolate at all. Haters, stay back.
7. Starburst (Pinks)
We would do unspeakable things to get our hands on pink Starbursts. Good thing they make bags full of just the good stuff now, so we don’t have to painstakingly pick them out ourselves anymore.
6. Candy Corn
Is it the most polarizing of all the Halloween candy? Perhaps. Do we love it more than the holiday itself? Forever and ever.
5. Butterfinger
If you didn’t get one of these hopelessly stuck in your molars, did Halloween really even happen? (Apologies to dentists all over the world.)
4. Sour Patch Kids
Would we coat our mouths in the sugary dust that settles at the bottom of the bag? Let’s just say the answer isn’t no.
3. Reese’s Take 5
We appreciate how hard they’re trying with five different components in one bar. And to be honest, we’ll eat anything that involves pretzels, peanut butter and caramel.
2. Twix
This crunchy cookie/gooey caramel situation is universally satisfying—the Tom Hanks of candies, if you will.
1. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
There’s simply no denying that this is the best Halloween candy of all time. Salty, sweet and color-coordinated to the holiday. Disagree? Come at us. (Oh, and the pumpkin-shaped ones are even better.)
