Remember that neighbor from your childhood who gave out such terrible candy (or worse, boxes of raisins) that by fourth grade, you didn’t even bother with their house anymore and basically avoided eye contact from August through November? Don’t be that person. To ensure you’re giving out the good stuff or eating it on your own while you binge a bunch of Halloween movies, we’ve carefully ranked all the best Halloween candy of 2022, from worst to best. You’re welcome.
The Best Halloween Candy of All Time, Super Scientifically Ranked from Trash to Tasty
Published Aug 20, 2022
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Amazon
45. Strawberry Hard Candies
Congratulations. You trick-or-treated at the actual devil’s house and made it out alive.
Amazon
44. Gum (specifically Dubble Bubble)
If you’re looking for saccharine-sweet flavor for seconds followed by disappointment, well, look no further.
Amazon
43. Dots
It’s like they’re not even trying to get our attention. We’re almost sorry we dissed that box of raisins.
Amazon
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.
Walmart
41. Hot Tamales
Too spicy.
Amazon
40. Lemonheads
Too sour.
Walmart
39. 3 Musketeers
Is it just us, or is this the chintziest of all the candy bars? Plain old nougat…it’s just meh.
Amazon
38. Payday
This would be ever so slightly better if it were enrobed in chocolate. It just feels a little sad.
Amazon
37. Baby Ruth
Great baseball player? Yes. Great candy? Not so much. This one loses points for appearance and the fact that we had to Google what it’s even made of.
Walmart
36. Crunch Bar
Tell us again, why did we need to ruin perfectly mediocre chocolate with surprise bits of mystery gravel?
Amazon
34. Mr. Goodbar
He’s good, but not, like, amazing.
Amazon
33. Blow Pops
Does anyone actually like the plasticky chewing gum that lurks in the center of these things? We didn’t think so.
Amazon
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. We want treats, not tricks!
Amazon
31. Sweetarts
Had we wanted to eat chalk for dessert, we would’ve done so when our kindergarten teacher wasn’t looking.
Amazon
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 they’re actually worth something.
Amazon
29. Caramel Apple Pops
We’d kinda sorta like these fall-ified lollypops, if they didn’t threaten to rip our teeth clean from our mouth in one go. Eat at your own risk, folks.
Walmart
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 all do so much better.
Amazon
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.)
Walmart
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.
Walmart
24. Rolos
Sure, these caramel-chocolate bites are pretty inoffensive in the grand scheme of things. But they’re certainly not *Milk Duds.*
Amazon
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.
Amazon
22. Original Tootsie Roll
See above. Slightly waxy, vaguely chocolaty and found in a grandparent’s jacket pocket, they’re a Halloween classic, and there’s nothin’ wrong with that.
Amazon
21. Sprees
Nonbelievers will say they’re chalky and boring, but we must disagree. Plus, have you ever had the chewy kind?
Amazon
20. Sugar Babies
Just make sure you put your dentist on speed dial before cracking open a box. Can you say “cavities?”
Walmart
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 no. 45.)
Walmart
18. Almond Joy
Real talk: We would prefer Almond Joys if they were made with milk chocolate and, well, zero almonds. (But alas, Bounty bars aren’t sold in the United States.)
Amazon
17. Trolli Sour Brite Crawlers
This is the only kind of worm we want to see in our Halloween candy, to be quite honest.
Walmart
15. Air Heads
Getting a mystery flavor Air Head is like winning the Halloween candy lottery. (FYI, we still don’t know what flavor it is.)
Amazon
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.
Walmart
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?
Amazon
12. Milk Duds
What’s the opposite of a dud? A victory? Yeah, they should rename these to that…or maybe not, but you get the idea.
Amazon
11. Twizzlers
Strawberry Twizzlers are in a whole other class from regular licorice. And that, friends, is a very, very good thing.
Walmart
10. Kit Kat
Break us off a piece of that. Or just, like, give us a whole one. We don’t actually want to share with anybody.
Amazon
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.
Amazon
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.
Amazon
7. Starburst (pinks)
We would do unspeakable things to get our hands on pink Starbursts and pink Starbursts only. Good thing they make bags full of just the good stuff, so we don’t have to.
Walmart
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.
Amazon
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.)
Amazon
4. Sour Patch Kids
Would we coat our lives in the sugary dust that settles at the bottom of the bag? Let’s just say the answer isn’t no.
Amazom
3. Reese’s Take 5
We appreciate how hard they’re trying with five different flavors in one bar. And to be honest, we’ll eat anything that involves pretzels, peanut butter and caramel.
Amazon
2. Twix
This crunchy cookie/gooey caramel situation is universally satisfying—the Tom Hanks of candies, if you will.
Walmart
1. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Salty, sweet and color-coordinated to the holiday. Disagree? Come at us. (Oh, and the pumpkin-shaped ones are even better.) There’s simply no denying that this is the best Halloween candy of all time.
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