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The Best Halloween Candy of All Time, Super Scientifically Ranked from Trash to Tasty

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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.

62 Halloween Dessert Ideas, from Totally Spooky to Extra Sweet


best halloween candy strawberry hard candies
Amazon

45. Strawberry Hard Candies

Congratulations. You trick-or-treated at the actual devil’s house and made it out alive.

best halloween candy double bubble gum
Amazon

44. Gum (specifically Dubble Bubble)

If you’re looking for saccharine-sweet flavor for seconds followed by disappointment, well, look no further.

best halloween candy dots
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.

best halloween candy junior mints
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.

best halloween candy lemonheads
Amazon
best halloween candy 3 muskateers
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.

best halloween candy payday
Amazon

38. Payday

This would be ever so slightly better if it were enrobed in chocolate. It just feels a little sad.

best halloween candy baby ruth minis
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.

best halloween candy crunch
Walmart

36. Crunch Bar

Tell us again, why did we need to ruin perfectly mediocre chocolate with surprise bits of mystery gravel?

best halloween candy whoppers
Amazon

35. Whoppers

If we’re in a dark movie theater, sure, we’ll down an entire king-size box of these (don’t tell anyone, though). But on Halloween, our standards are suddenly much, much higher.

best halloween candy mr goodbar
Amazon

34. Mr. Goodbar

He’s good, but not, like, amazing.

best halloween candy blow pops
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.

best halloween candy bottlecaps
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!

best halloween candy sweetarts
Amazon

31. Sweetarts

Had we wanted to eat chalk for dessert, we would’ve done so when our kindergarten teacher wasn’t looking.

best halloween candy snickers
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.

best halloween candy caramel apple pops
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.

best halloween candy jolly ranchers
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.


best halloween candy hersheys milk chocolate
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.)


best halloween candy smarties
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.

best halloween candy mounds
Amazon

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.)

best halloween candy rolos
Walmart

24. Rolos

Sure, these caramel-chocolate bites are pretty inoffensive in the grand scheme of things. But they’re certainly not *Milk Duds.*

best halloween candy tootsie fruit chews
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.

best halloween candy tootsie rolls
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.

best halloween candy sprees
Amazon

21. Sprees

Nonbelievers will say they’re chalky and boring, but we must disagree. Plus, have you ever had the chewy kind?

best halloween candy sugar babies
Amazon

20. Sugar Babies

Just make sure you put your dentist on speed dial before cracking open a box. Can you say “cavities?”


best halloween candy starburst
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.)

best halloween candy almond joy
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.)


best halloween candy trolli sour brite crawlers
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.

best halloween candy skittles
Amazon

16. Skittles

We’ve tasted the rainbow, and we wish it would bring back lime instead of that cursed green apple nonsense. (Bonus points if you get a sour bag.)

best halloween candy air heads
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.)

best halloween candy nerds
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.

best halloween candy mms
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?

best halloween candy milk duds
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.

best halloween candy twizzlers
Amazon

11. Twizzlers

Strawberry Twizzlers are in a whole other class from regular licorice. And that, friends, is a very, very good thing.

best halloween candy kit kat
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.


best halloween candy reeses fast break
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.

best halloween candy hersheys cookies and cream
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.

best halloween candy starburst all pink
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.

best halloween candy candy corn
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.


best halloween candy butterfinger
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.)

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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.

best halloween candy take 5
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.

best halloween candy twix
Amazon

2. Twix

This crunchy cookie/gooey caramel situation is universally satisfying—the Tom Hanks of candies, if you will.


best halloween candy reeses peanut butter cups
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.