There are cult classics, and then there are movies about cults. And if you stumbled onto this page, we’re giving you some of the best cultist films featuring the deeply difficult, upsetting, and fascinating look into influence and control. You won’t find The Room or The Rocky Horror Picture Show here. Though technically, the latter could be a contender for a cultist movie as well as a cult classic.
What are the best cultist movies as of 2025?
Movies about cults have been haunting audiences for nearly a century. It started in 1934 with a sinister Boris Karloff and human sacrifice in The Black Cat. Since then, films like Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man, Wes Craven’s Deadly Blessing, and Ari Aster’s modern horrors, such as Hereditary, have taken the genre in terrifying new directions. Even Quentin Tarantino incorporated a fictionalized, happier ending to the Manson cult murders in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Then, of course, there are more realistic cultist movies, like Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master.
We’ve narrowed our list to highlight a mix of subgenres and approaches. Some cults are supernaturally influenced, some are backwoods communities, some are unsettlingly ordinary. But all share the same core: control, influence, and the power of entrapment.
Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)
Directed by Sean Durkin, Martha Marcy May Marlene follows the harrowing story of Martha (Elizabeth Olsen), known as “Marcy May” to the members of her cult. The movie follows this young woman as she escapes a rural cult and moves in with her sister, Lucy (played by Sarah Paulson). Haunted by her experiences, Martha struggles to tell where reality ends and the psychological manipulation she endured begins.
While the movie doesn’t fall into the horror genre, the psychological drama is horrific in its subject matter. The cult, led by the charismatic and controlling Patrick, uses isolation, gaslighting, and emotional abuse to keep members loyal, all while cleverly hiding behind charisma to manipulate them into consenting to sex. The timeline jumps around, and flashbacks gradually reveal the extent of Martha’s trauma, from coercion to assault to the internalized fear and paranoia the group instilled. It’s a difficult movie to watch, but a beautiful one. You can read Roger Ebert’s review if you want to learn more.
Mandy (2018)
Leaning into the stylized thriller world of cultist films, Mandy can be a challenging movie to judge, whether it should be critiqued or praised, mainly due to its jarring mix of elements. Honestly, it’s almost better to surrender to the surrealist-thriller-horror ride. Nicholas Cage stars as Red Miller, a recovering-alcoholic-war-veteran lumberjack who lives a quiet life with his girlfriend Mandy, played by Andrea Riseborough. Unfortunately, Mandy catches the eye of a cult leader named Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache), who calls on the Black Skulls, a cannibalistic demon biker gang, to kidnap her and bring her to him.
While the Panos Cosmatos-directed film features a particular image of Nick Cage that has been heavily GIF-ed over and over, it’s hard to grasp out of context. That infamous gif shows an absolutely decimated Red Miller, who has just witnessed an atrocity committed against the love of his life. After surviving the attack and downing plenty of booze, he sets off on a brutal path of vengeance. As a warning, this one is violent.
Midsommer (2019)
The opening of Midsommar is one of the most disturbing sequences in modern horror. It’s violent, tragic, and immediately plunges us into a world of grief and loss. After Dani’s sister kills their parents before taking her own life, Dani (Florence Pugh) struggles to find some sense of normalcy in her life and in her relationship with her boyfriend, Christian (Jack Reynor). Months later, Christian and his friends, Josh and Mark, have been invited by their Swedish friend, Pelle, to attend a nine-day festival at his home. Though Dani didn’t plan to join Christian and his friends, she ended up tagging along.
Once the story shifts to Sweden, the film takes a shocking turn: bright daylight, clean whites and neutrals, and a picturesque Scandinavian village where the locals appear warm, welcoming, and deeply caring. At first, Dani and the visiting friends feel embraced by the community, invited into the fold like family. But beneath the serene beauty lies something far darker — a cult whose rituals are fueled by human sacrifice. Slowly and methodically, the group begins to be picked off one by one. Still, after watching the movie, it’s somehow still hard to determine who the film’s antagonists are.
Beyond the layers of themes and symbolism, what makes Midsommar so unsettling isn’t just the violence, but the contrast between sun-drenched visuals and psychological manipulation (and not just from the villagers). While Ari Aster and cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski are masters of traditional horror’s darkness and shadows, Midsommar shows that horror doesn’t need darkness to be terrifying and can thrive in full, blinding daylight. And while the film is absolutely a cultist movie, it’s also a very clever breakup movie.
Women Talking (2022)
Taking a more realistic and devastating approach to cultish movies, Women Talking tells the story of a group of Mennonite women in a remote colony who are dealing with systemic abuse and betrayal within their tightly controlled community. When they learn that their male counterparts have been committing repeated sexual assaults, the women are forced to confront questions of faith, justice, and autonomy, ultimately deciding how (or if) they can continue living under the strict rules imposed on them.
Written and directed by Sarah Polley, Women Talking is based on the 2018 novel by Miriam Toews, who drew inspiration from real events in a Mennonite community in Bolivia. The film stars an outstanding ensemble cast including Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, and Frances McDormand. This one is a slow, quiet burn, especially compared to some of our other picks on this list. Still, it’s well worth watching for its content, cinematography, and measured exceptional performances. Women Talking was nominated for the 2023 Academy Award for Best Picture and took home the award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Suspiria (1977 / 2018)
Also ranked on our list of the best Halloween movies, Suspiria — both Dario Argento’s 1977 classic and the 2018 adaptation — centers on a young dancer who enrolls in a prestigious dance conservatory in Berlin. What begins as a dream opportunity quickly turns nightmarish, as she discovers the school is run by a coven of witches whose influence reaches far beyond the dance studio. While this could be looked at solely as a witch movie, the definition of a cult involves enacting control and influence over people, removing autonomy, and taking away the ability to leave. Sounds like a cultist movie to us.
In both versions, the academy is steeped in rituals and dark power, and leaving is not an option for anyone who becomes entangled in the coven’s sinister designs. The original leans heavily into vivid colors, surreal horror, and an intense soundscape. At the same time, the remake expands the story, increases the violent imagery (the “dance of death” scene in Luca Guadagnino‘s version, featuring choreography by Damien Jalet, is absolutely brutal), and intertwines political tension. Either version you decide to watch is fantastic.
How we picked the best cultist movies
There are so many great cultist movies, so we made our choices by choosing from the best across different subgenres. We have straight-up horror, while others lean into surrealism or focus on supernatural elements. There are stories about controlling religious organizations and naturalistic cults where manipulation and psychology drive the tension.
