MRQE Ranks: Cinema's Best Vampire Movies

1

Vampyr (1932)

Cast: Henriette Gerard, Rena Mandel, Julian West, Jan Hieronimko

Director: Carl-Theodor Dreyer

Synopsis: Vampyr ranks in many circles as one of the greatest horror films of all time. Inspired by Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla, the story concerns a mysteri... [MORE]

2

Let the Right One In (2008)

Cast: Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl, Karin Bergquist

Director: Tomas Alfredson

Synopsis: A 12-year-old boy befriends a mysterious young girl whose appearance in town suspiciously coincides with a horrifying series of murders in director... [MORE]

3

Nosferatu (1922)

Cast: Max Schreck, Alexander Granach, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schroeder, G.H. Schnell

Director: F.W. Murnau

Synopsis: F. W. Murnau's landmark vampire film Nosferatu isn't merely a variation on Bram Stoker's Dracula: it's a direct steal, so much so that Stoker's wid... [MORE]

4

The Monster Squad (1987)

Cast: Andre Gower, Robby Kiger, Stephen Macht, Duncan Regehr, Tom Noonan

Director: Fred Dekker

Synopsis: A group of adolescent monster movie enthusiasts form a club that meets in a treehouse in this pre-teen horror feature. When Dracula, The Mummy, Fra... [MORE]

5

Near Dark (1987)

Cast: Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, Jenette Goldstein

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Synopsis: In Kathryn Bigelow's tale of vampires in the American Southwest, the creatures of the night aren't elegant, cloaked aristocrats. They're a gun-toti... [MORE]

6

Dracula (1931)

Cast: Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners, Dwight Frye, Edward Van Sloan

Director: Tod Browning

Synopsis: "I am....Drac-u-la. I bid you velcome." Thus does Bela Lugosi declare his presence in the 1931 screen version of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Director To... [MORE]

7

Cronos (1993)

Cast: Federico Luppi, Ron Perlman, Claudio Brook, Margarita Isabel, Tamara Shanath

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Synopsis: This surreal variant on the classic vampire tale is the directorial debut of Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who garnered international accla... [MORE]

8

Let Me In (2010)

Cast: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloë Grace Moretz, Richard Jenkins, Cara Buono, Elias Koteas

Director: Matt Reeves

Synopsis: John Ajvide Lindqvist's celebrated vampire novel makes the leap to the big screen once again with the second feature adaptation in so many years (T... [MORE]

9

28 Days Later... (2002)

Cast: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, Christopher Eccleston

Director: Danny Boyle

Synopsis: Animal rights activists free a group of infected chimpanzees to horrifying results in this speculative sci-fi horror effort from Trainspotting dire... [MORE]

10

Dracula (1992)

Cast: Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu Reeves

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

11

Fright Night (1985)

Cast: Chris Sarandon, Roddy McDowall, William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse, Stephen Geoffreys

Director: Tom Holland

Synopsis: A teenage horror film addict is shocked to discover that his new next-door neighbor is a vampire in this delightful mix of horror and comedy. The p... [MORE]

12

Thirst (2009)

Cast: Song Kang-ho, Kim Ok-bin, Shin Ha-kyun, Kim Hae-suk, Park In-hwan

Director: Chan-wook Park

Synopsis: Song Kang-ho, Shin Ha-kyun, and Kim Ok-bin star in Oldboy director Park Chan-wook's frightener concerning a priest whose life takes a turn for the ... [MORE]

13

Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (2002)

Cast: Wei-Qiang Zhang, Tara Birtwhistle, David Moroni, CindyMarie Small, Johnny A. Wright

Director: Guy Maddin

Synopsis: Idiosyncratic Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin resurrects the style and visual grammar of the silent cinema in this ambitious screen adaptation of the... [MORE]

14

Rabid (1977)

Cast: Marilyn Chambers, Frank Moore, Joe Silver, Howard Ryshpan, Patricia Gage

Director: David Cronenberg

Synopsis: For his second commercial feature, following a pair of experimental films and 1977's Shivers, Canadian horror auteur David Cronenberg continued to ... [MORE]

15

Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

Cast: John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Cary Elwes, Eddie Izzard

Director: E. Elias Merhige

Synopsis: The torturous production of the classic 1922 vampire film Nosferatu is recreated in this stylized account of director F.W. Murnau and his obsession... [MORE]

16

Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)

Cast: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Christian Slater, Kirsten Dunst, Stephen Rea

Director: Neil Jordan

Synopsis: Anne Rice's best-selling romantic horror tale about the origins of a centuries-old vampire inspired this popular, atmospheric chiller. One of direc... [MORE]

17

I Am Legend (2007)

Cast: Will Smith, Alice Braga, Dash Mihok, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Charlie Tahan

Director: Francis Lawrence

Synopsis: Adapted from acclaimed author Richard Matheson's influential novelette of the same name, Constantine director Francis Lawrence's I Am Legend follow... [MORE]

18

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

Cast: Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Juliette Lewis, Cheech Marin

Director: Robert Rodriguez

Synopsis: In this action-horror flick from director Robert Rodriguez and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino, Tarantino stars with George Clooney as a pair of bad... [MORE]

19

The Hunger (1983)

Cast: Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, Susan Sarandon, Cliff De Young, Beth Ehlers

Director: Tony Scott

Synopsis: The exquisitely beautiful Catherine Deneuve plays Miriam, a centuries-old vampire capable of bestowing the gift of immortality on her lovers -- nam... [MORE]

21

Blade II (2002)

Cast: Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Ron Perlman, Leonor Varela, Norman Reedus

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Synopsis: Four years after scoring a box-office touchdown with Blade (1998), actor Wesley Snipes returns to portray the Marvel Comics character again in this... [MORE]

22

Day Watch (2006)

Cast: Konstantin Khabensky, Maria Poroshina, Dima Martynov, Galina Tyunina

Director: Timur Bekmambetov

Synopsis: The apocalyptic sci-fi thriller Day Watch (aka Dvevnoy Dozor, 2006) constitutes the second installment in a planned supernatural trilogy by Russian... [MORE]

23

The Wisdom of Crocodiles (1998)

Cast: Jude Law, Elina Lowensohn, Timothy Spall, Kerry Fox, Jack Davenport

Director: Po Chih Leong

Synopsis: Stephen Griscz, the protagonist of The Wisdom of Crocodiles, is a handsome but enigmatic man of many talents. He is also an incurable womanizer, al... [MORE]

24

The Lost Boys (1987)

Cast: Corey Haim, Jason Patric, Dianne Wiest, Edward Herrmann, Barnard Hughes

Director: Joel Schumacher

Synopsis: In this hit '80s hybrid of the horror movie and the teen flick, a single mom and her two sons become involved with a pack of vampires when they mov... [MORE]

25

Blade (1998)

Cast: Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, Kris Kristofferson, N'Bushe Wright, Donal Logue

Director: Stephen Norrington

Synopsis: British director Stephen Norrington helmed this David S. Goyer adaptation of the Marvel Comics character created in 1973 by scripter Marv Wolfman a... [MORE]

26

30 Days of Night (2007)

Cast: Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston, Ben Foster, Mark Boone Jr.

Director: David Slade

Synopsis: Hard Candy director David Slade took the helm for this adaptation of Steve Niles' terrifying comic-book series of the same name. In Barrow, AK, one... [MORE]

27

Daybreakers (2009)

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill, Isabel Lucas, Vince Colosimo

Director: Peter Spierig, Michael Spierig

Synopsis: Fresh off the success of their inventive take on the zombie genre, Undead masterminds Michael and Peter Spierig direct Ethan Hawke in an ambitious ... [MORE]

28

Marebito (2004)

Cast: Shinya Tsukamoto, Tomomi Miyashita, Kazuhiro Nakahara, Miho Ninagawa, Shun Sugata

Director: Takashi Shimizu

29

Twilight (2008/I)

Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser

Director: Catherine Hardwicke

Synopsis: When Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) reluctantly moved to the perpetually overcast town of Forks, WA, and set out to carve a niche for herself, she as... [MORE]

30

Eclipse (2010/I)

Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Billy Burke, Bryce Dallas Howard

Director: David Slade

Synopsis: The third film in the Twilight series explores a love triangle between Bella (Kristen Stewart), Edward (Robert Pattinson), and Jacob (Taylor Lautne... [MORE]

31

Night Watch (2004)

Cast: Gonzalo Heredia, Moro Anghileri, Rafael Ferro, Darío Tripicchio, Gregg Dayton

Director: Edgardo Cozarinsky

Synopsis: Argentinean filmmaker Edgardo Cozarinsky's 2005 feature Night Watch (or Ronda Nocturna) is a searing, scorching character study of Victor (Gonzalo ... [MORE]

32

Vampires (1998)

Cast: James Woods, Sheryl Lee, Daniel Baldwin, Thomas Ian Griffith, Maximilian Schell

Director: John Carpenter

33

Underworld (2003)

Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Michael Sheen, Shane Brolly, Bill Nighy

Director: Len Wiseman

Synopsis: A young man who has pledged his life to helping others finds himself in a pitched battle between two gangs of supernatural villains in this blend o... [MORE]

34

The Last Man on Earth (1964)

Cast: Vincent Price, Franca Bettoia, Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, Emma Danieli, Umberto Rau

Director: Ubaldo Ragona, Sidney Salkow

Synopsis: In a post-epidemic nightmare world, scientist Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) is the only man immune to the plague which has transformed the entire p... [MORE]

35

Martin (1976)

Cast: John Amplas, Lincoln Maazel, Christine Forrest, Elayne Nadeau, Sarah Venable

Director: George A. Romero

Synopsis: Nearly a decade after George A. Romero changed the face of modern horror films with Night of the Living Dead -- and following the less successful p... [MORE]

36

Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (1979)

Cast: Klaus Kinski, Isabelle Adjani, Bruno Ganz, Roland Topor, Walter Ladengast

Director: Werner Herzog

Synopsis: For Werner Herzog's 1979 remake of F.W. Murnau's classic 1922 silent horror-fest Nosferatu, star Klaus Kinski adopts the same makeup style used by ... [MORE]

37

Black Sunday (1977)

Cast: Robert Shaw, Bruce Dern, Marthe Keller, Fritz Weaver, Steven Keats

Director: John Frankenheimer

Synopsis: Bruce Dern is ideally cast as Lander, a crazed Vietnam veteran, in Black Sunday. Lander joins terrorists Dahlia (Marthe Keller) and Fasil (Bekim Fe... [MORE]

39

Blacula (1972)

Cast: William Marshall, Vonetta McGee, Denise Nicholas, Thalmus Rasulala, Gordon Pinsent

Director: William Crain

Synopsis: Advertised as the 100th production of American International studios, Blacula stars actor/singer William Marshall in the title role. An 18th centur... [MORE]

40

The Vampire Lovers (1970)

Cast: Ingrid Pitt, Pippa Steele, Peter Cushing, Madeleine Smith, George Cole

Director: Roy Ward Baker

Synopsis: This sexy horror story from Britain's Hammer Films finds Ingrid Pitt playing three roles, the most notable being a lesbian vampire who will resort ... [MORE]