Gothic horror has been captivating audiences for centuries with its heady mixture of dread and chilling atmosphere. It’s time to heed the whispering in the walls and descend into this spine-tingling genre.
Gothic Horror Elements
What sets gothic horror apart from other horror subgenres like slashers and psychological horror? Well, mostly its approach to how it portrays frightening elements and a preoccupation with certain recurring themes.
Gothic horror is characterized by a sense of creeping dread and unsettling atmosphere. It tends to rely on unnerving vibes rather than sudden jump scares (though there are still plenty of thrills and chills to be found). It often involves secrets or traumatic events from the past resurfacing to haunt the present.
Common features of gothic horror include:
Haunted houses
Dark passageways
Vampires
A gloomy, misty, or shadowy aesthetic
Historical settings
Dysfunctional families
Beautiful, haunting visuals
Nature as a hostile force
Themes of insanity
Cemeteries and Catacombs
Death and Mourning
Gothic Horror Films
Nosferatu (2024)
Robert Eggers’ brilliantly twisted remake of the classic vampire film brings its themes of pestilence and inner darkness to the fore. This is a tale of dark romance with a “death and the maiden” image that’s sure to be seared into your brain forever.
Crimson Peak (2015)
Guillermo del Toro’s story of a crumbling mansion and a marriage gone wrong is absolutely loaded with the director’s trademark eye-popping visuals. With ghosts, creepy passageways, and Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain as a pair of sinister siblings, it has everything you need for a bloody good time.
Rebecca (1940)
This early Hitchcock thriller is about a young woman who finds herself unable to escape the shadow of her husband’s dead first wife. As the past bleeds into the present, she begins to lose sight of reality, but secrets from the past refuse to stay buried.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
This movie has everything you could want in a gothic horror film: visual opulence, bombastic music, and plenty of blood. Despite the name, it’s pretty far from a faithful adaptation of Stoker’s novel, but that’s okay–it’s still a must-see vampire movie.
Sleepy Hollow (1999)
This gloriously creepy tale of a headless horseman menacing a village in colonial upstate New York is easily Tim Burton’s scariest movie. A star-studded cast includes Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, and an unhinged Christopher Walken as the galloping Hessian himself.
The Pale Blue Eye (2022)
Part detective story, part descent into darkness, this film stars Christian Bale as a detective who enlists a young Edgar Allan Poe to help him solve a series of murders. It’s well worth checking out for its snowy atmosphere and unique take on a literary legend.
The Others (2001)
Nicole Kidman stars in this lyrical, haunting ghost story that’s as much about the trauma of war as it is about scares. Widely hailed as one of the best ghost movies of all time, this film gets its claws in you and refuses to let go.
Melancholia (2011)
Daring and experimental, this Lars von Trier film tells the story of a bride (played by Kirsten Dunst) who calls off her wedding near the eve of a rogue planet’s catastrophic collision with Earth. Confronting themes of depression and mental illness and filled with strange omens, this film is a dark odyssey.
The Woman in Black (2012)
This atmospheric ghost story stars Daniel Radcliffe as a young widower who travels to a small town to find that it is being terrorized by a ghostly woman. More unsettling than outright scary, this movie is a good example of traditional gothic horror filmmaking.
The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Possibly the best of the ‘30s Universal monster movies, this film finds Mary Shelley telling the story of what happened after the fiery ending of the film adaptation of her classic novel. (It also features one of the most iconic wigs in cinema history.)
Gothic Horror TV Shows
Penny Dreadful (2014)
Eva Green stars in this lavish Victorian horror series that includes various literary monsters, including Dorian Gray and Frankenstein’s monster. For a bold new spin on classic creepy stories, Penny Dreadful offers them up with a deliciously spooky atmosphere and a healthy dose of camp.
Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities (2022)
This horror anthology series allows master of the macabre Guillermo del Toro and other horror filmmakers to unleash rich imaginative visions. These eight episodes trace themes of mourning, murder, and the supernatural, and they feature original stories as well as adaptations of works by writers like H.P. Lovecraft.
The Haunting of Hill House (2018)
Mike Flanagan’s first horror series is an adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s famous novel of the same name, telling the story of a family that moves into an old house only to find they aren’t alone there. Featuring well-drawn characters and ratcheting tension, this is one gothic horror show that isn’t short on scares.
The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020)
This story of a haunted manor from Mike Flanagan focuses on the staff members who work there, grounding its sense of dread in the relationships between them. As horrors from the past touch the lives of the innocent, the residents of Bly Manor find comfort and companionship–and unexpected romance–with one another.
Hannibal (2012)
Don’t let the fact that it starts out as a detective show fool you: Hannibal has a heart as dark and macabre as a gothic cathedral (in fact, it has one of those too). When a troubled FBI profiler is sent to Dr. Hannibal Lecter for a psych evaluation, the relationship that grows between them can only end in tears–and blood.
Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire (2022)
This fantastic adaptation of the ultimate gothic book series offers a fresh take on the source novels, as the tragic vampire Louis seeks to make sense of his life 50 years after the original interview. Gorgeous, sensual, and horrific, it has everything you could want in a modern vampire story.
Anne Rice’s The Mayfair Witches (2023)
While it doesn’t always reach the heights of Interview, sister show The Mayfair Witches is still a spooky ride with tons of Southern gothic atmosphere. It follows neurosurgeon Rowan Mayfair as she discovers the secrets of her mysterious New Orleans birth family and a legacy of magical power.
The Fall of the House of Usher (2023)
This Mike Flanagan series is a Succession-style riff on the classic Edgar Allan Poe story of a wealthy family haunted by a generational curse and the decaying manor house that represents their legacy.
Midnight Mass (2021)
Mike Flanagan returns with a somber meditation on faith and grief–and vampires. A man returns to his sleepy seaside hometown after a horrible tragedy, while a young priest revitalizes the local church, helping him come to terms with loss–but something strange is at work in the congregation. This one is a slow burn, but the payoff is so worth it.
The Terror (2018)
Fans of the eco-gothic will love this supernatural horror series based on the true story of a group of arctic explorers who got lost trying to find the Northwest Passage in the nineteenth century. Hostile nature, madness, and horror meet compelling drama in this limited series.
Twin Peaks (1989)
David Lynch and Mark Frost’s strange, stellar show partakes of several genres, from soap operas to police procedurals, but it’s grounded in a pervasive sense of gothic horror. Here, the evil in the woods reaches out to touch the lives of every person in town, and the only way to face it is to “fix your hearts or die.”
This list of gothic movies and tv shows should help you start exploring this rich and varied horror subgenre. We’ve only scratched the surface of the many, many classic gothic horror films out there, so stay tuned for a future roundup of the best older gothic horror movies.