20 Vampire Movies You Should Watch After 'Sinners'[html]
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Vampire movies rarely win Oscars, or so it seemed. In the early '90s, Bram Stoker's Dracula earned prizes for its costumes and makeup, and the 2000 meta horror comedy Shadow of the Vampire scored a couple of nominations, but that's about it—despite the influence of the genre stretching all the way back to 1922's Nosferatu. Until now.
Sinners, writer/director Ryan Coogler's critical and box office powerhouse, is an unashamedly high-minded genre flick. Set largely in 1932, it follows twin brothers (both played by Michael B. Jordan) returning to their backwater hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi to establish a juke joint while navigating old relationships and dealing with the Klan leader who owns the sawmill they are looking to buy. By the midway point, these more grounded elements feed into a larger narrative that blends magical realism, action, and bloodsucking horror.
Its thoroughly distinctive vision earned it 16 Oscar nominations—a record for any movie, let alone one featuring supernatural monsters. As a result, naming a true streamalike for Sinners is tough, but taking a slightly broader view, I've assembled this list of 20 movies that twist undead lore into wildly different, consistently surprising stories.
Byzantium (2012)
A couple of decades after Interview with the Vampire, Neil Jordan teamed up with writer Moira Buffini, who adapted her own play. Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan play mother and daughter vampires Clara and Eleanor, simultaneously predators and prey to a group of vampires with different ideas about how to live in the modern world. On the run, the pair starts over in a run-down seaside resort town, taking jobs at the title's dilapidated Byzantium Hotel. There, they recount centuries of their lives as vampires, and as women moving alone through the world, in life and in death. Jordan blends striking realism into an operatic (and occasionally incredibly violent) narrative. It's a thoroughly mature horror story. Stream Byzantium on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.
Ganja & Hess (1973)
A meditative, sultry, and entirely experimental horror film, writer/director Bill Gunn's Ganja stars Duane Jones (Night of the Living Dead) as Dr. Hess Green, who is attacked by his assistant with a knife belonging to a fictional ancient African tribe. He’s subsequently compelled to drink the blood of his assailant, an act that completes his vampiric transformation. Shortly thereafter, the assistant’s wife shows up looking for her husband and, even once she realizes what happened, begins a love affair with the doctor. Stylish and deliberately paced (a lot of vibes; a little plot), the movie has some smart, and very barbed, points to make about assimilation and religious hypocrisy. Spike Lee remade it in 2014 as Da Sweet Blood of Jesus but, with respect to Lee, you're much better off with the original. Stream Ganja & Hess on The Criterion Channel and Kanopy or rent it from Prime Video.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)
Iranian-American writer/director Ana Lily Amirpour's A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night would make a list of cool vampire movies on its gorgeous black-and-white style alone: Gliding down the streets of an Iranian town in her chador, The Girl (Sheila Vand) cuts an iconic figure, even when we learn that her eerie way of movement has to do with a concealed skateboard. But Amirpour has a lot of fun with the idea that a girl traveling a deserted street in the dark might be a threat far more than a potential victim, and that a chador might be less a symbol of oppression than a means of staying concealed until the moment comes to strike. Stream A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night on Kanopy or rent it from Prime Video and Apple TV+.
Dracula's Daughter (1936)
Like father, like daughter in this direct sequel to the Bela Lugosi film, with Countess Marya Zaleska (Gloria Holden, in full Garbo mode) running afoul of Edward Van Sloan's Van Helsing from the original. The two vampires share in common not just an archnemesis, but an eye for the ladies, as well, with Countess Zaleska seducing first despondent Lili and then kidnapping Janet. What it lacks in style (not being nearly a match for Todd Browning's film in that regard) it makes up for in sheer horniness. Producers and censors were nervous about the lesbian of it all in the lead-up to the film's release, but also chose to hype it up in the marketing, especially with the very on-the-nose tagline: "Save the women of London from Dracula's Daughter!" Rent Dracula's Daughter from Prime Video.
Bit (2019)
Nicole Maines (Supergirl) stars here as Laurel, a trans teenage girl who's off to sunny LA following her transition. She's looking for a fresh start, and it's all going great until a club afterparty leads to lots of making out—and then some blood drinking. It’s not long before Laurel is offered the chance to join an all-female group of vampires dedicated to taking care of the many predatory men walking the city’s streets. Stream Bit on Prime Video and Tubi.
What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
Starring, written, and directed by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, Shadows precedes the equally great show of the same name with a similar premise: A houseful of old-world vampires (with old-school vampire trappings) looks desperately uncool when faced with the modern world. Many vampire narratives derive pathos from the idea of people trapped in a state of dull, unchanging immortality. Shadows takes that notion and mines it for solid laughs. Rent What We Do in the Shadows from Apple TV+.
Lifeforce (1985)
Wildly inconsistent but beloved horror director Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Poltergeist) took a stab at adapting a novel called The Space Vampires, with bizarre results. Hidden within the coma of Halley's Comet, scientists discover an interstellar spaceship which, when examined by a U.S./British space shuttle crew, reveals three suspended humanoid beings and a handful of bat-like creatures. What else to do but ignore the extremely obvious red flags and take it all back to Earth for closer examination? Though the crew is found dead upon the shuttle's return, we then ignore these even more obvious alarm bells and take the alien bodies in for study. What could go wrong? Hooper's vampires drain energy instead of blood, and the movie is impressively bold in its use of Lovecraftian themes and it's refusal to rein in the scale: the threat from these energy-suckers very quickly ramps up into one that threatens entire civilizations. To some, it's clever and sneakily intelligent; to others, it's vampires from space. Both work. Stream Lifeforce on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.
Daughters of Darkness (1971)
Erotic bisexual vampire movies, believe it or not, had a moment in the 1970s; few (if any) were more successful, and more genuinely sexy, than Daughters of Darkness. The movie has a look and feel that borders on arthouse, with a grand and elegant style, as well as a willingness to go deeper with themes (western decadence, gendered power dynamics, etc.) that have been discussed in many an academic context in the decades since. If all that makes it sound like a bore, I'll repeat that it's still very much an erotic bisexual vampire movie. Delphine Seyrig plays Countess Elizabeth Báthory, who happens upon a newlywed couple honeymooning in a remote region, and immediately sets about seducing the wife away from human sexual and moral conformity. Stream Daughters of Darkness on Tubi and Shudder or rent it from Prime Video.
