The Best (And Worst) 2025 Halloween Candies, Ranked

Each year on Halloween night, familiar sounds ring out in neighborhoods across the country: "Ding dong!" "Trick-or-treat!" "Yo, they got the king-sized ones!" They're sounds that I loved as a child, clad in whatever last-minute costume I could throw together or, in years where I was particularly lucky, picked out at Spirit Halloween. I still love the sounds as an adult. It's the one night that kids can just be kids, dress up in fun costumes, and tromp around their neighborhood, eyeing up which houses will give them the best bang for their buck when it comes to the highlight of the holiday: the candy. 

As an adult, Halloween is arguably less fun, especially if you live in a suburban neighborhood like mine. One year, I ended up shelling out $50 on Halloween candy just so I could live vicariously through kids wearing Woody doll and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles costumes. All of this trick-or-treating has trained these kids well. They want the best, biggest, and most top-shelf candies, and no one wants to be the house they skip because your candy selection, as the kids would say, is "mid." 

I wanted to decide, once and for all, what the best Halloween candy is. I made a trip to my local candy aisle, bought everything from individually-wrapped classics to seasonal selections, then tasted and ranked them from worst to best based on seasonal-ness, flavor, texture, and appeal. It's important to note that I couldn't get every candy under the sun (have I mentioned they're wicked expensive?), but I tried to hit as many bases as possible. With that aside, let's go door-to-door on these favorites! 

The first question I have to ask: Are you surprised that the most divisive Halloween candy ever made — now packaged with pumpkins and what I think are supposed to be a chocolate-ified version of candy corn (though I really can't tell) — are at the bottom of the list? You shouldn't be: They're a bad candy. 

Although candy, by definition, is sweet, this one has no flavor besides sweet — unless you're talking about the aforementioned chocolate-ified candy corn, which tastes a little like licorice. There is no butteriness or vanilla, just a deafening combination of corn syrup and sugar. I don't even think Great Value is the problem here (though I will give it some flack for only including three pumpkins in the whole bag), as there is nothing redeemable about candy corn or candy corn-adjacent confections that would make it worth buying. 

Going into this ranking, I wanted to include some oddball additions — not just the contemporary Halloween candies of my youth. Tootsie caramel apple pops is one of those wacky and whimsical fall creations that was probably better off left in someone's head than manifested into an actual candy. It consists of a rock-hard caramel coating encasing a florescent green apple-flavored lollipop. 

This candy is nothing short of nightmare for any pre-teen with braces. The caramel coating is very hard and lacks the buttery flavor I've come to expect from a good caramel (I would know, my mom hand-made the confection when I was a kid). It doesn't really melt or soften, and I felt myself picking out stubborn pieces of caramel for hours after I tried it. Once I was able to mine underneath and gain access to the green apple lollipop, I wasn't impressed by its green Jolly Rancher-like flavor. Its structure is worse than the other candies on this list, and if I wanted a lollipop, I'd just grab a Dum-Dum.

I shouldn't have to tell you that Smarties are a bad candy — on Halloween or any of the other 364 days of the year. This package costs about the same as the other, much smaller bags, and comes with 137 multi-colored rolls of Smarties in it.

Whenever I got Smarties (read: sweetened chalk) in my trick-or-treat bag on Halloween, I always felt the same way Charlie Brown did when he found a rock in the hit seasonal movie. Have people been living under a rock and not realized this candy is so 2007? It's tasteless and though not as hard as I remember, its recipe hasn't made any notable improvements. In short, don't be the house that hands out Smarties, unless you're asking trick-or-treaters not to come back next year.

If you were waiting for an allergen-friendly candy, now's your chance. This Dum-Dums fall mix contains seven flavors: hot chocolate, sour apple, cinnamon roll (fall? I think not), apple cider, caramel apple, pumpkin pie, and mystery.

I can't give you a full synopsis of every single flavor, but I can say the following: Whoever decided to make hot chocolate a lollipop flavor needs to get a pink slip immediately. Allergen-free or not, this flavor isn't fit for human consumption, as it tastes nothing like chocolate. Pumpkin pie? Meh, I think I can spare it until next year, as it has some questionable spice flavor, but nothing strongly pumpkin enough to warrant eating. Caramel apple was better, though it wasn't the best caramel apple-flavored product I sampled for this review, and the same can go for sour apple, which isn't entirely out of Dum-Dum's wheelhouse. Cinnamon roll only tastes sweet, making it yet another flop. The best flavor in the bag was the apple cider, which was sweet-ish and tasted like apple juice — so I guess it could have passed as cider. And in case you were wondering, the mystery flavor is undoubtedly green apple — a challenge once in awhile would be nice, eh, Dum-Dums? 

Dum-Dums is really only batting one-for-seven here on the list of lollipops I'd eat again. It could have been worse, but at least it was more palatable than the lower-ranked candies. 

This small, individually-wrapped bag of Payday bars doesn't explicitly say "Halloween." However, I felt like including it for two reasons: It doesn't fall in the chocolate or gummy candy camp, as most of the other selections on this list do, and because who eats these candies outside of Halloween? I don't think I've ever seen anyone buy a full-sized Payday bar, and after trying this candy for myself for this review, I can see why. 

This candy is flat-out boring. The caramel isn't particularly flavorful, and because it's not sticky, the massive peanuts don't adhere to it at all. It's messier than I'd anticipate a candy with caramel to be, and it really is in dire need of a chocolate coating to add some pizzazz. A 50-year-old trying to relive their trick-or-treating glory days might appreciate it, but it's just not a good candy.

I was swindled by these chocolates, as I thought they were going to have something a little more festive than just a pumpkin printed on the navy blue foil. While I will give my props to its packaging designer for making such an appealing packaged candy, I was very sad to tear apart the wrapper to reveal a plain ol' Dove chocolate bite. There was nothing unique about it, and if you had stripped all the candies of their foil, you couldn't tell them apart from Dove's normal chocolate offerings. 

I won't say this candy wasn't good — because it was. It was perfectly creamy and decadent, and arguably richer and less sweet than the sugar-laden M&M's and Kit Kats I still had to try by this point in the ranking. But Dove, would it kill you to try and stay on-theme a little bit more? 

I'll state the obvious: No one is handing out Werther's Original harvest caramels on Halloween. But, your grandma might be keeping them on her coffee table ... you know ... for "guests." Granted, I tried these caramels on the day I bought them — not after they had been sitting in a candy bowl on a coffee table for who-knows-how-long — and I'll admit that they were pretty good, and even hit my high standards for caramel. Werther's may be known for its hard candies, but it does soft ones well, too. This caramel had an excellent toothsome pull. 

The green apple flavor was less synthetic than the Tootsie caramel apple lollipops, and it only came through at the end of the bite. I'm torn here, because I wish the flavor was more pronounced, but I fear adding any more would make it taste too synthetic. But, it has just enough apple flavor to score it a spot on this ranking — and a pretty respectable one for a "grandma" candy, too. 

M&M's are a good candy all around. They're made with cheap chocolate, are too sweet for their own good, and the brand's array of anthropomorphic candy characters are just plain odd. But, when you get a handful of these candies at the movie theater, or dump them on top of a popcorn bowl, they're great. 

M&M's are no stranger to the candy aisle, nor the seasonal one. I found mini packs of peanut, regular, and peanut butter M&M's on the shelf at my local Walmart. But I chose to review the Halloween blend, which is simply black and orange-colored milk chocolate M&M's. The candy strikes me as one that bakers would want to have on hand for topping seasonal treats like brownies, or perhaps stocking in the candy bowl at work. It's not individually packaged, so you can't hand it out to kids. But, I think it would do better than the multi-colored M&M's if it was because it just has a little more seasonal pizzazz — even if it's just its color. 

I included the Nerds candy corn in this ranking of Halloween candies for giggles — and it did surprisingly better than I thought it would. Nerds are known for being these easy-to-eat, tip-the-box-back candies — they're delectably crunchy, fruity, and sweet all at once. These candy corn pieces, on the other hand, are like a SweeTart, Nerds gummy cluster, and candy corn had a lovechild. They're very flavorful and almost juicy, and that sweet, artificial fruit flavor is more pronounced than Nerds normally are. The only remnant of the candy corn, thankfully, is the shape — the Halloween staple was obviously not the father of the Nerds candy corn I tried — potentially just a distant relative. 

It's frankly an odd candy that, though freakish, works. The flavor is almost juicy, though I do miss the crisp snap of the Nerds. I felt my hand creeping back towards the bag for another handful, which is not my norm for non-gummy, fruity candies. However, the fact that it's not individually packaged pushes it down on the list. I think a kid would be glad to have it land in their trick-or-treat bag. 

Sour Patch Kids has done some other seasonal renditions, including its Valentine's Day hearts (which are, as I can attest, pretty good). However, this measly pack of five Sour Patch Kids candies had nothing Halloween-y about them. The pop of purple on the package implied it would be unique, but the candy itself was not novel or fun in any way. 

Sour Patch Kids are agreeable candies, and I doubt, like many of my top picks, that anyone is going to complain about their quality. The big downside to not having seasonal packaging is that you can repurpose the leftovers and enjoy them throughout the year, but I was left wishing there would be just a little more spookiness infused into these fun little candies. 

I will admit some bias here: I am a big Haribo candy fan — specifically of its Happy Cherries, which are not included in this 45-pack of Star Mix, gummy bears, and sour bats. The company does gummy candies quite well, and I was excited to see that it offered this variety pack. However, aside from the sour bats, I'm struggling to see this as a true Halloween candy. 

Let's first focus on what Haribo does well. The texture of each of the respective candies is perfect. It's toothsome and gives your molars a workout, helping slow down the process of eating your body weight in candy on November 1. The flavors are fresh and fruity, and there are just enough candies in each bag to scratch your sweet tooth. The Star Mix is a hodgepodge mixture of gummy eggs, gummy bears, and gummy cola bottles, which taste nothing like cola, and I would have liked to see the sour bats have an actual sour coating on them. I wouldn't complain about seeing these candies in my Halloween trick-or-treat bag, but I also wouldn't call them the most festive option out there. 

Some people might think worms are spooky, but I just think they're cool (the vermiculture system in my basement is a topic for another time). So I was kind of wishing that Trolli used its candy-making magic for something a little more seasonally appropriate — like gummy spiders. The brand is the unequivocal king of sour candies, and these Crawlers are no different. The execution is flawless — sour, tongue-twisting flavors and enough artificial color and flavor to make RFK twitch. I could sit here and eat bag after bag — but there were more candies to be had. 

Trolli's quality candy and perfect portion size make it an excellent choice for stocking up on this Halloween season. However, is it entirely Halloween-y? Not really. I did give this candy some brownie points for the googly-eyed worms on the packaging though — which are decidedly the stuff of nightmares.

I saved the three candies that I thought would be in the top spots for last. I had my sights set on Snickers pumpkins, but was not able to find them. Instead, I brought back a bag of these Ghoulish Green candies, which just replace the tan-colored nougat inside of the classic candy with a green-colored one. Do we need to be eating more food dyes? It's Halloween — spare me the lip service. While there's nothing different about these Snickers other than their color, by that alone, they score above all the Halloween-ish-but-not-really candies on this list. 

Snickers aren't as satisfying as the two top-ranking candies I tried. They don't have a delectable snap, though they do have more complexity than something like a Payday. While folks with peanut allergies can't eat them, they have appeal to the masses. I wouldn't go out of my way to get a Snickers bar on the other 364 days of the year, but if one found its way into the office candy bowl, I wouldn't be in the least bit upset.

Are the best Halloween candies the ones that aren't shaped like their originals? I think you can ask our top two contenders in this competitive race and find out. The second place finisher, KitKat Counts, bear little resemblance to the boring blocks enjoyed on non-holidays. These Dracula-shaped candies have the same chocolate and wafer filling with a fun, and yes, seasonally appropriate design. 

KitKat Counts are generous in size and pretty weighty, which means you won't feel shortchanged if you get one or two in your candy stash. While you may not get the same feeling of cracking open the sticks of a KitKat bar, you can still experience that super-sweet chocolate and crunchy wafer center. KitKats are a well-designed candy, and these Counts are just a more fun way to eat them. The Count himself could come for my — by this point in the ranking — very sweet blood and I wouldn't even be mad about it. But, even the Count couldn't swoop in the dead of night and nab the candy crown from the best Halloween candy of all time. 

I'm going to ask you the same question I did at the start of this ranking: Are you surprised? Reese's Cups aren't anything particularly interesting, but something about these seasonal peanut-butter-and-chocolate candies — including hearts, pumpkins, trees, and more — tastes much better than the OG cup. I assume it's because the chocolate coating is softer and thinner. 

Haters might say (read in a whiny voice for maximum effect), "But Sara! That 'pumpkin' looks like a pillbug, not like a pumpkin!" and I will tell you you're wrong and that it doesn't matter. Even if the bats look a little blob-like and the ghosts could pass as Reese's amoebas (another great shape to add to the lineup), it doesn't change the fact that the formula of this creamy, peanut buttery candy is different (and better) than the original. To hell with the king-sized candy bars, if you pass these out on Halloween night, you'll be known as the best house on the block. 

I take candy very seriously — which is odd for someone without a big sweet tooth — so I was primed to take on the challenge of ranking Halloween candies from worst to best. I couldn't get every single candy ever made, so I apologize to all the Twix lovers, Milky Way stans, and Tootsie Roll lovers (who I don't really think exist, but that's besides the point) out there in advance.

While you can pair Halloween candy with cheese, I tried them alone. As I sampled each one, I considered the flavor and texture first, as well as how approachable or niche of a confection it was. Candies that were easy to enjoy, could be enjoyed by folks regardless of their confection preferences, and that sent me back for another ranked higher than those that were one-bite-wonders (if that). The candies also had to have some sort of seasonal pull to them, be that of a unique color, packaging, or flavor.