There has always been something fascinating about fanatical ‘true believers,’ those people who exist on the fringe of acceptable society due to their extreme beliefs, and films about cults cater to this curiosity. Not to be confused with cult classics — films that acquire a group of highly dedicated fans and often become funnier with time — a cult film is a small subgenre of cinema (usually within the horror genre) which focuses on the often shadowy affairs of certain (usually religious) groups.
Scholar of religion Megan Goodwin is careful to point out that the term ‘cult’ can sometimes be derogatory, an insulting term for “a religion I don’t like,” as she puts it. Thus, it may be useful to follow Harvard researcher and psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton’s definition of cults– a group with a charismatic and obsessively worshiped leader, which uses coercion and persuasion as a kind of ‘thought reform’ (or ‘brainwashing’) and engages in sexual, emotional, or economic exploitation of its members.
Updated October 2, 2022: Curious about extreme cults and fascinated by their potential to create truly horrifying cinema? This article has been updated to help you choose your next favorite.
While scares can come from many places on the big screen, there are few things more sinister than a fanatical, fundamentalist group of the dangerously devout, portrayed cinematically as far back as the Satanic cults of 1934’s The Black Cat and 1943’s The Seventh Victim. This has been seen on screen to great effect more recently, with the horror films Saint Maud, The Perfection, and Midsommar all capturing the specific terror of cults, and Netflix’s extremely successful Wild, Wild Country documenting their real-life goings-on.
It’s even been announced that Academy Award winner Leonardo DiCaprio will portray Jim Jones, the 1970’s cult leader who was behind the Jonestown mass suicide which took more than 900 lives. Until his film is made, there is a great spectrum of movies that capture the curiosity over these scary and mysterious groups. These are the best horror films about cults.
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12/12 Apostle (2018)
Following a drifter’s desperate and perilous mission to rescue his kidnapped sister from a nefarious cult on a secluded Welsh island, Apostle stars Dan Stevens as Thomas Richardson, a reckless young man who infiltrates the sinister group under the guise of being a convert. Thomas quickly realizes he is in over his head as the cult’s truly terrifying intentions and roots are exposed, causing him to fight against the island’s leader and his devoted and deranged followers.
Apostle was lauded for its chilling atmosphere, commanding performances and intriguing inclusion of Pagan-esque folklore, with director Gareth Evans (The Raid, Havoc) earning praise for his slow-burn pacing and beautifully dark cinematography.
11/12 The Ritual (2017)
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Based on the 2011 novel by Adam Nevill and surely inspired by The Blair Witch Project, The Ritual stars Rafe Spall (The Big Short, Hot Fuzz} as part of a group of hikers who stumble upon a cult in the woods that seeks to summon an ancient demon. The film was generally praised for its performances and use of Scandinavian settings, but what made The Ritual particularly striking is the remarkable tonal shift of its ending, once the demon is summoned and the movie transforms from an exceptional slow-burn to a horrifying monster movie.
10/12 The Void (2016)
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In the indie horror hit The Void, a group of people are trapped inside an isolated hospital by a freaky cult that knows there’s a gateway to another dimension in the basement. Directors Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski throw all sorts of Lovecraft-inspired tentacled madness at the audience, and critics compared the film to classic horror flicks from the ’80s for good reason. The cult members in the film are silent and dress entirely in white robes with black triangles covering their faces, creating an effectively chilly vibe throughout this violent, surprising gem.
9/12 V/H/S/2 (2013)
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This 2013 sequel of V/H/S is presented as an anthology of short films is linked together with the concept of found footage. Fans of the franchise have agreed that the most shocking entry out of the entire franchise is “Safe Haven” from V/H/S/2, which follows a news crew as they investigate an Indonesian cult. As they probe deeper into the group’s activities, it becomes apparent that the cult is preparing for a “reckoning,” which entails mass suicide, zombies, and, ultimately, a monstrous supernatural entity.
It’s intense and overpowering, and the “reckoning” certainly echoes the terrible real-life events at Jonestown and the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide — thereby highlighting why cult films are still being made today.
8/12 Kill List (2011)
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Acclaimed British director Ben Wheatley’s intense genre-mashing classic from 2011, Kill List, may be his best film to date. The seamless tonal shifts from family drama to hitman thriller and eventually psychological horror are adeptly handled by Wheatley, and the scene in which our “heroes” are pursued by dozens of shrieking naked cultists is one of the most memorably scary of the decade. Wheatley’s warped storytelling technique effectively resurfaces in his later films, particularly his most recent pandemic mind-melter In The Earth, but is used best here.
7/12 The Invitation (2015)
The Invitation (a 2015 film not to be confused with Jessica M. Thompson’s recent film) doesn’t exactly reveal what’s going on until deep into its claustrophobic horror. What begins as an uncomfortable ensemble drama about a group of estranged friends reconnecting at a dinner party turns into suspenseful and then terrifying mystery as they wonder why they’ve been assembled in the first place. With her satirical but deadly depiction of life in Los Angeles, director Karyn Kusama’s hit indie film bitingly bounces between dark laughs and unbearable tension, with a crazy twist and final image which haunts viewers long after the movie’s end.
6/12 Mandy (2018)
The psychological and hallucinatory Nicolas Cage stunner Mandy was a surprise hit with audiences and critics alike, following a man named Red living in a mountain town with his girlfriend Mandy. After a notorious hippie cult kidnaps her, Red goes on a captivating and brutal balls-to-the-walls revenge escapade.
Director Panos Cosmatos (Beyond the Black Rainbow) is a master at dark, beautiful cinematography and hyper-stylized genre work, elevating this violent movie with his use of lighting, heavy music, and bold color schemes. Cage’s surprisingly superb but simple turn seals the deal, making this a ‘cult’ classic in every sense.
5/12 Hereditary (2018)
While Ari Aster’s follow-up film Midsommar lays out its intentions from the start, Hereditary holds back on the reveal of its cult for much of the film. What starts out as a somber family drama eventually explodes into a crazy supernatural horror flick as the central family (led by parents played by never-better Toni Collette and a generous Gabriel Byne) becomes haunted by a mysterious presence after the death of their secretive grandmother. The critically acclaimed psychological horror film made over $80 million on a $10 million budget, ultimately becoming A24’s highest-grossing film worldwide.
4/12 The Endless (2017)
Written, directed, produced by, and starring the increasingly popular (and future members of the Marvel crew) Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, The Endless is one of the strangest films about cults, and that’s saying something. The indie auteurs play two brothers returning to the cult in which they were raised after years of deprogramming, only to discover that the cult’s obsession with time and mysterious, spectral forces have some legitimacy.
Brilliantly meta (featuring an incredible scene that leads the actor-directors onto the set of their first film, the excellent Resolution), artistically playful, and genuinely endearing, the movie is a bizarre but beautiful meditation on the sense of belonging that cults exploit so deviously.
3/12 The Wicker Man (1973)
The influence of this masterpiece of the subgenre continues to be felt today, as it’s hard to discuss any cult-centered film without mentioning The Wicker Man. This British folk horror film follows a police sergeant who arrives on a small Scottish island to investigate the report of a missing child.
A conservative Christian, the policeman observes the residents’ frivolous sexual displays and strange pagan rituals, and the more he learns about the islanders’ strange practices, the closer he gets to tracking down the missing child. With its religious and feminist motifs and game-changing genre-bending, it’s no surprise that The Wicker Man has been deemed by Cinefantastique to be “the Citizen Kane of horror movies.”
2/12 Midsommar (2019)
You can’t say the acclaimed director Ari Aster doesn’t like a scary cult when it comes to storytelling, and it’s just an unnerving thrill ride to see how the story unfolds and arrives at a point of cult conversion. Midsommar follows a group of American college kids who visit a rural town’s fabled Swedish midsummer festival in Scandinavia. What begins as an idyllic retreat quickly devolves into an increasingly violent and bizarre competition at the hands of a pagan cult. Utilizing a surprisingly bright and colorful palette that points back to The Wicker Man, Aster’s film is the finest cinematic usage of cults in recent memory.
1/12 Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Roman Polanski’s masterpiece set the template for many horror films about cults, in particular the way that it efficiently holds back on the reveal of the cult and instead uses a steady build of mystery and paranoia, shifting from drama to horror along the way. In Rosemary’s Baby, Mia Farrow beautifully plays a pregnant woman who moves into a new apartment with her struggling-actor husband (played charmingly by great American director John Cassavettes) with overly friendly neighbors.
As it turns out, people in Rosemary’s life are conspiring to bring the burgeoning mother into a Satanic world in preparation for the Antichrist. Farrow’s performance and Polanski’s masterful direction helped make the film a smash hit and instant classic, and the greatest film about cults of all time.
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