Gothic melodramas (1940 - 1961)
by veidt05 | created - 01 Aug 2011 | updated - 20 Oct 2011 | PublicThe movies of the following list are full of old gothic mansions, dozens of burning candles, foggy streets illuminated by gaslight, mysteries and haunting family secrets, victorian ladies walking through dark corridors, byronic heroes like Orson Welles or James Mason and tragic ghost stories. The list is in no particular order and please leave a comment if you know other Gothics from that time period!
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1. Jane Eyre (1943)
Approved | 97 min | Drama, Romance
After a harsh childhood, orphan Jane Eyre is hired by Edward Rochester, the brooding lord of a mysterious manor house, to care for his young daughter.
Director: Robert Stevenson | Stars: Orson Welles, Joan Fontaine, Margaret O'Brien, Peggy Ann Garner
Votes: 9,498 | Gross: $3.82M
2. My Cousin Rachel (1952)
Approved | 98 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
A young man plots revenge against the woman he believes murdered his cousin, but his plans are shaken when he comes face to face with the enigmatic beauty.
Director: Henry Koster | Stars: Olivia de Havilland, Richard Burton, Audrey Dalton, Ronald Squire
Votes: 3,398
3. The Innocents (1961)
Not Rated | 100 min | Horror
A young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted.
Director: Jack Clayton | Stars: Deborah Kerr, Peter Wyngarde, Megs Jenkins, Michael Redgrave
Votes: 33,073 | Gross: $2.62M
4. Terror House (1942)
79 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A pair of young teachers look into the disappearance of their friend in the Yorkshire Moors. They soon run across the man they suspect is the murderer, and have to sit out a storm with him.
Director: Leslie Arliss | Stars: James Mason, Wilfrid Lawson, Mary Clare, Joyce Howard
Votes: 861
5. Bluebeard (1944)
Passed | 72 min | Crime, Horror, Thriller
In Paris, an artist hires portrait models, and after he finishes their portraits, he strangles them.
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer | Stars: John Carradine, Jean Parker, Nils Asther, Ludwig Stössel
Votes: 2,134
6. The Queen of Spades (1949)
95 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
An army officer becomes obsessed with learning the secret to a card game for which an elderly countess sold her soul years earlier.
Director: Thorold Dickinson | Stars: Anton Walbrook, Edith Evans, Yvonne Mitchell, Ronald Howard
Votes: 2,398
7. Gaslight (1944)
Passed | 114 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Ten years after her aunt was murdered in their London home, a woman returns from Italy in the 1880s to resume residence with her new husband. His obsessive interest in the home rises from a secret that may require driving his wife insane.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, May Whitty
Votes: 33,921
8. Phantom of the Opera (1943)
Approved | 92 min | Drama, Horror, Music
An acid-scarred composer rises from the Paris sewers to boost his favorite opera understudy's career.
Director: Arthur Lubin | Stars: Nelson Eddy, Susanna Foster, Claude Rains, Edgar Barrier
Votes: 8,315 | Gross: $3.49M
9. House of Usher (1960)
Approved | 79 min | Drama, Horror
Upon entering his fiancée's family mansion, a man discovers a savage family curse and fears that his future brother-in-law has entombed his bride-to-be prematurely.
Director: Roger Corman | Stars: Vincent Price, Mark Damon, Myrna Fahey, Harry Ellerbe
Votes: 15,446 | Gross: $3.16M
10. Wuthering Heights (1939)
Passed | 104 min | Drama, Romance
A servant in the house of Wuthering Heights tells a traveler the unfortunate tale of lovers Cathy and Heathcliff.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Flora Robson
Votes: 19,774 | Gross: $0.76M
11. Rebecca (1940)
Approved | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
A self-conscious woman juggles adjusting to her new role as an aristocrat's wife and avoiding being intimidated by his first wife's spectral presence.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson
Votes: 146,781 | Gross: $4.36M
12. The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
Not Rated | 80 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
In the sixteenth century, Francis Barnard travels to Spain to clarify the strange circumstances of his sister's death after she had married the son of a cruel Spanish Inquisitor.
Director: Roger Corman | Stars: Vincent Price, Barbara Steele, John Kerr, Luana Anders
Votes: 16,406 | Gross: $4.36M
13. Great Expectations (1946)
Approved | 118 min | Adventure, Drama, Mystery
A humble orphan boy in 1810s Kent is given the opportunity to go to London and become a gentleman, with the help of an unknown benefactor.
Director: David Lean | Stars: John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Tony Wager, Jean Simmons
Votes: 26,414
14. Dragonwyck (1946)
Not Rated | 103 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
A simple Connecticut farm girl is recruited by a distant relative, an aristocratic patroon, to be governess to his young daughter in his Hudson Valley mansion.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Gene Tierney, Walter Huston, Vincent Price, Glenn Langan
Votes: 5,401
15. House of Wax (1953)
GP | 88 min | Horror
An associate burns down a wax museum with the owner inside, but he survives only to become vengeful and murderous.
Director: André De Toth | Stars: Vincent Price, Frank Lovejoy, Phyllis Kirk, Carolyn Jones
Votes: 20,262 | Gross: $23.75M
16. The Man in Grey (1943)
Approved | 90 min | Drama, History, Romance
After a brutish, hedonistic Marquis marries a pretty young Clarissa to act as a 'brood sow,' he begins an affair with her friend who plots to take her place.
Director: Leslie Arliss | Stars: Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, Phyllis Calvert, Stewart Granger
Votes: 1,592
17. Gaslight (1940)
Not Rated | 84 min | Mystery, Thriller
Twenty years after the murder of Alice Barlow, her house is finally occupied again. However, the husband from the couple who have moved in has a secret which he will do anything to keep hidden.
Director: Thorold Dickinson | Stars: Anton Walbrook, Diana Wynyard, Frank Pettingell, Cathleen Cordell
Votes: 5,278
18. The Inheritance (1947)
Not Rated | 98 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Following her father's death, a teenage British heiress goes to live with her guardian uncle--who is broke and schemes to murder her for her inheritance.
Director: Charles Frank | Stars: Jean Simmons, Derrick De Marney, Katina Paxinou, Derek Bond
Votes: 827
19. The Woman in White (1948)
Approved | 109 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
A ghostly woman warns a beautiful Victorian heiress about a count, and a strange spell haunts a mansion and its inhabitants in an adaptation of Wilkie Collins' novel.
Director: Peter Godfrey | Stars: Alexis Smith, Eleanor Parker, Sydney Greenstreet, Gig Young
Votes: 1,764
20. The House of the Seven Gables (1940)
Approved | 89 min | Drama, Thriller
Based on the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, this classic film follows a family feud between two brothers and an ancient curse that haunts them.
Director: Joe May | Stars: George Sanders, Margaret Lindsay, Vincent Price, Dick Foran
Votes: 1,516
21. Horror of Dracula (1958)
Not Rated | 82 min | Drama, Horror
When Jonathan Harker rouses the ire of Count Dracula for accepting a job at the vampire's castle under false pretenses, his friend Dr. Van Helsing pursues the predatory villain.
Director: Terence Fisher | Stars: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling
Votes: 27,983
22. The Uninvited (1944)
Passed | 99 min | Fantasy, Horror, Mystery
A composer and his sister discover that the reason they are able to purchase a beautiful gothic seacoast mansion very cheaply is the house's unsavory past.
Director: Lewis Allen | Stars: Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp, Cornelia Otis Skinner
Votes: 12,468
23. Black Sunday (1960)
Approved | 87 min | Horror
A vengeful witch and her fiendish servant return from the grave and begin a bloody campaign to possess the body of the witch's beautiful look-alike descendant.
Director: Mario Bava | Stars: Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Andrea Checchi, Ivo Garrani
Votes: 17,605
24. The Strange Woman (1946)
Approved | 100 min | Drama, Romance, Thriller
In 1820s New England beautiful but poor and manipulative Jenny Hager marries rich old man Isaiah Poster but also seduces his son and his company foreman.
Directors: Edgar G. Ulmer, Douglas Sirk | Stars: Hedy Lamarr, George Sanders, Louis Hayward, Gene Lockhart
Votes: 2,456
25. The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
Approved | 82 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
While awaiting execution for murder, Baron Victor Frankenstein tells the story of a creature he built and brought to life - only for it to behave not as he intended.
Director: Terence Fisher | Stars: Peter Cushing, Hazel Court, Robert Urquhart, Christopher Lee
Votes: 12,648 | Gross: $17.44M
26. Blanche Fury (1948)
90 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
The childless widow of Allan Fury bequeaths the Fury estate to her Fuller relatives, but Allan's illegitimate son who masquerades as a servant hopes to grab the estate for himself.
Director: Marc Allégret | Stars: Stewart Granger, Valerie Hobson, Walter Fitzgerald, Michael Gough
Votes: 1,018
27. Wuthering Heights (1954)
91 min | Drama, Romance
A partial retelling of Wuthering Heights in 19th century Mexico.
Director: Luis Buñuel | Stars: Irasema Dilián, Jorge Mistral, Lilia Prado, Ernesto Alonso
Votes: 1,377
28. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)
Not Rated | 104 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
In 1900, a young widow finds her seaside cottage is haunted and forms a unique relationship with the ghost.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Gene Tierney, Rex Harrison, George Sanders, Edna Best
Votes: 20,901
29. Experiment Perilous (1944)
Approved | 91 min | Film-Noir, Romance, Thriller
In 1903, a doctor suspects murder in the gothic Bederaux family.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Hedy Lamarr, George Brent, Paul Lukas, Albert Dekker
Votes: 2,126
30. The Body Snatcher (1945)
Approved | 78 min | Horror, Thriller
A ruthless doctor and his young prize student find themselves continually harassed by their murderous supplier of illegal cadavers.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Henry Daniell, Edith Atwater
Votes: 10,192
31. The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)
Not Rated | 90 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
Having escaped execution and assumed an alias, Baron Frankenstein transplants his deformed underling's brain into a perfect body, but the result proves to be mortally perilous.
Director: Terence Fisher | Stars: Peter Cushing, Francis Matthews, Eunice Gayson, Michael Gwynn
Votes: 6,124
32. The Brides of Dracula (1960)
Unrated | 85 min | Horror
Vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing returns to Transylvania to destroy handsome bloodsucker Baron Meinster, who has designs on a beautiful young schoolteacher.
Director: Terence Fisher | Stars: Peter Cushing, Martita Hunt, Yvonne Monlaur, Freda Jackson
Votes: 8,882
33. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
Passed | 113 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Dr. Jekyll allows his dark side to run wild when he drinks a potion that turns him into the evil Mr. Hyde.
Director: Victor Fleming | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner, Donald Crisp
Votes: 9,874 | Gross: $3.92M
34. Bedlam (1946)
Approved | 79 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
Nell Bowen, the protégé of Lord Mortimer, wants to help change the conditions of notorious St. Mary's of Bethlehem Asylum (Bedlam). Though she tries to reform Bedlam, the cruel Master Sims ... See full summary »
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Boris Karloff, Anna Lee, Billy House, Richard Fraser
Votes: 4,378
35. The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
Not Rated | 110 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A corrupt young man somehow keeps his youthful beauty, but a special painting gradually reveals his inner ugliness to all.
Director: Albert Lewin | Stars: George Sanders, Hurd Hatfield, Donna Reed, Angela Lansbury
Votes: 14,451
36. Hangover Square (1945)
Passed | 77 min | Crime, Drama, Music
A promising classical musician finds his life poisoned by a music hall dancer -- and by the strange gaps in his memory.
Director: John Brahm | Stars: Laird Cregar, Linda Darnell, George Sanders, Glenn Langan
Votes: 4,139
37. Othello (1951)
Approved | 90 min | Drama, Romance
The Moorish General Othello is manipulated into thinking that his new wife Desdemona has been carrying on an affair with his Lieutenant Michael Cassio when in reality, it is all part of the scheme of a bitter Ensign named Iago.
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Micheál MacLiammóir, Robert Coote, Suzanne Cloutier
Votes: 9,454
38. The Curse of the Cat People (1944)
Passed | 70 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
The young, friendless daughter of Oliver and Alice Reed befriends her father's dead first wife and an aging, reclusive actress.
Directors: Gunther von Fritsch, Robert Wise | Stars: Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph, Ann Carter
Votes: 7,177
39. Under Capricorn (1949)
Approved | 117 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A young gentleman goes to Australia where he reunites with his now married childhood sweetheart, only to find out she has become an alcoholic and harbors dark secrets.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, Michael Wilding, Margaret Leighton
Votes: 8,110
40. A Place of One's Own (1945)
Not Rated | 92 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
An elderly couple move into an old, supposedly haunted abandoned house. A young girl comes to live with the pair as a companion for the wife. However, soon the girl is possessed by the ... See full summary »
Director: Bernard Knowles | Stars: Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, Barbara Mullen, Dennis Price
Votes: 958
41. Crimes at the Dark House (1940)
Not Rated | 69 min | Drama
A madman kills a man who has just inherited a large estate, then impersonates his victim to gain entrance to the estate so he can murder his enemies.
Director: George King | Stars: Tod Slaughter, Sylvia Marriott, Hilary Eaves, Geoffrey Wardwell
Votes: 610
42. The Wolf Man (1941)
Passed | 70 min | Horror, Mystery, Romance
Larry Talbot returns to his father's castle in Wales and meets a beautiful woman. One fateful night, Talbot escorts her to a local carnival where they meet a mysterious gypsy fortune teller.
Director: George Waggner | Stars: Claude Rains, Warren William, Lon Chaney Jr., Ralph Bellamy
Votes: 30,728
43. The Undying Monster (1942)
Not Rated | 63 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
Surviving members of an aristocratic English family are threatened by a legendary monster when they venture out on chilly, foggy nights.
Director: John Brahm | Stars: James Ellison, Heather Angel, John Howard, Bramwell Fletcher
Votes: 1,537
44. I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
Passed | 69 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A nurse is hired to care for the wife of a sugar plantation owner, who has been acting strangely, on a Caribbean island.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Frances Dee, Tom Conway, James Ellison, Edith Barrett
Votes: 13,666
45. The Spiral Staircase (1946)
Approved | 83 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
In 1916, a shadowy serial killer is targeting women with "afflictions"; one night during a thunderstorm, the mute Helen feels menaced.
Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, Ethel Barrymore, Kent Smith
Votes: 11,273
46. Isle of the Dead (1945)
Not Rated | 71 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
On a Greek island during the 1912 war, several people are trapped by quarantine for the plague. If that isn't enough worry, one of the people, a superstitious old peasant woman, suspects ... See full summary »
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Boris Karloff, Ellen Drew, Marc Cramer, Katherine Emery
Votes: 5,264
47. The Lodger (1944)
Passed | 84 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
A landlady suspects that her new lodger is Jack the Ripper.
Director: John Brahm | Stars: Laird Cregar, Merle Oberon, George Sanders, Cedric Hardwicke
Votes: 4,105
48. Macbeth (1948)
Passed | 107 min | Drama, History, War
Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders his king and takes the throne for himself.
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Jeanette Nolan, Dan O'Herlihy, Roddy McDowall
Votes: 7,797
49. The Black Castle (1952)
Passed | 82 min | Adventure, Horror, Mystery
Man investigates the disappearance of two of his friends who were the guests of a sinister Austrian count.
Director: Nathan Juran | Stars: Richard Greene, Boris Karloff, Stephen McNally, Paula Corday
Votes: 1,640
50. The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960)
Approved | 88 min | Horror
Dr. Henry Jekyll experiments with scientific means of revealing the hidden, dark side of man and releases a murderer from within himself.
Director: Terence Fisher | Stars: Paul Massie, Dawn Addams, Christopher Lee, David Kossoff
Votes: 3,368
51. Mill of the Stone Women (1960)
Approved | 96 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
In 19th century Holland, a professor of fine arts and an unlicensed surgeon run a secret lab where the professor's ill daughter receives blood-transfusions from kidnapped female victims who posthumously become macabre art.
Director: Giorgio Ferroni | Stars: Pierre Brice, Scilla Gabel, Wolfgang Preiss, Dany Carrel
Votes: 2,091
52. The Curse of the Werewolf (1961)
Approved | 93 min | Horror
In eighteenth-century Spain, an adopted boy becomes a werewolf and terrorizes the inhabitants of his town.
Director: Terence Fisher | Stars: Clifford Evans, Oliver Reed, Yvonne Romain, Catherine Feller
Votes: 6,834
53. Lust of the Vampire (1957)
82 min | Horror
Paris. Young girls are found dead, drained from their blood. A journalist investigates these murders while the beautiful Gisele, from a noble family, tries to seduce him.
Directors: Riccardo Freda, Mario Bava | Stars: Gianna Maria Canale, Carlo D'Angelo, Dario Michaelis, Wandisa Guida
Votes: 1,939
54. Carnival of Sinners (1943)
Approved | 80 min | Fantasy, Horror
Roland Brissot bought for a nickel a talisman that gives him love, fame, and wealth. The talisman is a cut left hand, and it works perfectly. Of course, there is nothing free in this world,... See full summary »
Director: Maurice Tourneur | Stars: Pierre Fresnay, Josseline Gaël, Noël Roquevert, Guillaume de Sax
Votes: 1,796
55. Blood of the Vampire (1958)
Approved | 87 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
In 1870s Transylvania, scientist Dr. Callistratus is put to death by villagers who wrongly believe he's a vampire. However, his horribly disfigured henchman, Carl is on hand to orchestrate a life-saving heart transplant.
Director: Henry Cass | Stars: Donald Wolfit, Vincent Ball, Barbara Shelley, Victor Maddern
Votes: 1,479
56. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
Not Rated | 87 min | Horror, Mystery
When a nobleman is threatened by a family curse on his newly inherited estate, detective Sherlock Holmes is hired to investigate.
Director: Terence Fisher | Stars: Peter Cushing, André Morell, Christopher Lee, Marla Landi
Votes: 12,385
57. The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959)
Approved | 83 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A centenarian artist and scientist in 1890 Paris maintains his youth and health by periodically replacing a gland with that of a living person.
Director: Terence Fisher | Stars: Anton Diffring, Hazel Court, Christopher Lee, Arnold Marlé
Votes: 2,427
58. The Beast with Five Fingers (1946)
Passed | 88 min | Horror, Mystery, Romance
In a turn-of-the-century Renaissance Italian mansion, its tyrannical owner, a wheelchair-bound one-handed pianist with a strong belief in the occult is murdered.
Director: Robert Florey | Stars: Robert Alda, Andrea King, Peter Lorre, Victor Francen
Votes: 3,011
59. Man of Evil (1944)
90 min | Drama, Romance
Returning to 1870's London after finishing at boarding school, Fanny witnesses the death of her father in a fight with Lord Manderstoke. She then finds that her family has for many years ... See full summary »
Director: Anthony Asquith | Stars: Phyllis Calvert, James Mason, Wilfrid Lawson, Stewart Granger
Votes: 634
60. Corridors of Blood (1958)
Not Rated | 86 min | Crime, Horror, Thriller
Dr. Thomas Bolton fights for the use of anesthetic in surgery and uses himself as a guinea pig, but soon finds himself addicted.
Director: Robert Day | Stars: Boris Karloff, Betta St. John, Christopher Lee, Finlay Currie
Votes: 2,273
61. The Haunted Strangler (1958)
Approved | 78 min | Crime, Mystery, Horror
A researcher investigating a notorious serial killer who was hanged 20 years earlier seemingly becomes possessed by the long-dead strangler.
Director: Robert Day | Stars: Boris Karloff, Anthony Dawson, Derek Birch, Dorothy Gordon
Votes: 2,041
62. The Mad Magician (1954)
Not Rated | 72 min | Drama, Horror
An illusionist becomes homicidal when his best kept magic secrets are stolen by his rival.
Director: John Brahm | Stars: Vincent Price, Mary Murphy, Eva Gabor, John Emery
Votes: 2,196
63. Oliver Twist (1948)
Not Rated | 105 min | Drama
In Charles Dickens' classic tale, an orphan wends his way from cruel apprenticeship to den of thieves in search of a true home.
Director: David Lean | Stars: Robert Newton, Alec Guinness, Kay Walsh, Francis L. Sullivan
Votes: 13,659
64. Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954)
Approved | 83 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
When several women are found mutilated and murdered, the Paris police are baffled as to who the killer may be. All evidence points to Dupin, but soon it becomes apparent that it is someone (or something) stronger and deadlier than a human.
Director: Roy Del Ruth | Stars: Karl Malden, Claude Dauphin, Patricia Medina, Steve Forrest
Votes: 1,128 | Gross: $1.45M
65. The Devil Commands (1941)
Approved | 65 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
Scientist becomes obsessed with the idea of communicating with his dead wife.
Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: Boris Karloff, Anne Revere, Amanda Duff, Richard Fiske
Votes: 1,439
66. The Black Cat (1941)
Passed | 70 min | Comedy, Mystery
Elderly Henrietta Winslow lives in an isolated mansion with her housekeeper and beloved cats. As her health fails, her greedy relatives gather in anticipation of her death.
Director: Albert S. Rogell | Stars: Basil Rathbone, Hugh Herbert, Broderick Crawford, Bela Lugosi
Votes: 2,082
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