Influential sci-fi/fantasy/horror novelist and screenwriter, his works include:
- Born of Man and Woman: His first published short story, told from a point of view of a deformed child locked in the basement by its parents.
- Bid Time Return, which was made into the movie Somewhere in Time.
- The Incredible Shrinking Man: The Trope Namer, Matheson wrote the original novel and the screenplay adaptation.
- I Am Legend: 1954 novel, adapted to film three times - The Last Man On Earth (1964, with Vincent Price), The Omega Man (1971, with Charlton Heston), and I Am Legend (2007, with Will Smith).
- Hell House: 1971 novel, source for the 1973 film The Legend of Hell House.
- What Dreams May Come: 1978 novel, adapted to film in 1998.
- A Stir of Echoes: 1958 novel, adapted to film in 1999.
- The Night Stalker, a Made-for-TV Movie adaptation of a (then unpublished) novel by Jeffrey Grant Rice, and its sequel TV movie, The Night Strangler. Both movies were huge ratings hits, which led to the development of the series Kolchak: The Night Stalker (which Matheson was not involved with).
- The short stories "Prey" and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" ("There's...something on the wing!"). "Prey" was adapted into one of the stories in the TV movie Trilogy of Terror, "Nightmare" into a Twilight Zone episode. Both adaptations have been critically acclaimed.
- The short story "Button, Button," which was also adapted into a Twilight Zone episode and then the movie The Box.
- Duel, a short story that was made into the first film directed by Steven Spielberg.
- "The Splendid Source", a 1956 short story adapted into an episode of Family Guy in 2010.
- All three of the stories featured in Trilogy of Terror.
- The short story "Steel," the basis for a Twilight Zone episode that was in turn the basis for Real Steel.