We Ranked Every Vampire Movie We've Ever Seen

With Sinners set to sweep the Oscars here are 45 other total fangers

Collage by Heroic Collective

For all the thousands of vampire films out there it’s surprising not one of them has won a non-technical Oscar yet—especially given how deep the mythos sits in our collective psyche, drawing on the cinematic appeal of sex, death, and otherness. The genre is so worn in and pliable that it has long given filmmakers a framework to say whatever they want, from the profound to the insipid, at budgets of 10 bucks to tens of millions. The only rule for inclusion here is that one of us had to have seen the movie, even if we occasionally needed a YouTube clip reminder. If we’ve missed your favorite, take wing to the comments section.

45. Zoltan - Hound of Dracula (1977)

BRIAN J DAVIS: I bet you didn’t know that Dracula had a dog?

EMILY SCHULTZ: And he had trouble rehoming him?

BJD: The hilarious thing is a studio would now make a movie this stupid, but spend $60 million and take the fun out of it.

44. Underworld (2003)

BJD: Social commentary! But the filmmaking is everything I hate about the aughts: Matrix teal, big beats, mall bondage wear, British actors saying ridiculous things.

ES: Action as a genre is really forgettable. I have a gun. I jump through the air.

BJD: Harsh.

ES: This is much more action than horror. And how dare they do this to Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen.

43. Andy Warhol’s Blood for Dracula (1974)

BJD: After Udo Kier died, I revisited this one. He is hilarious in this.

ES: Dracula as a needy stunt queen. It works!

42. Blade II (2002)

BJD: Okay, Blade I or II? Which is better? This is going to be a battle of “blood rave” versus “Massive Attack and Mos Def” entrance music! I still work out to that track.

ES: This film seems so generic now!

BJD: Come on. We only went to see Blade II because you’re such a del Toro fan girl.

41. Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (2001)

BJD: Low-budget and high charm from Canada’s capital city Ottawa! We saw it at the Bloor Cinema in Toronto, mostly because you lived across the street at the time.

ES: My favorite thing was being able to read what was playing on the marquee from my living room window. So this is…like Suicide Girls meets Monty Python?

BJD: I’m including this mostly because I’m happy someone had fun in Ottawa somehow.

40. Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat (1989)

BJD: I saw this back on VHS and don’t know why it’s not a more well-known cult hit. There are a few vampire Westerns, though one would think vampires would avoid deserts.

39. Vampire’s Kiss (1988)

ES: I was really into Nicolas Cage when I was in eighth grade, because of Raising Arizona, and sort of remember this, but also, don’t.

BJD: I rewatched it a couple of years ago. It is not as good as I remembered. Insane Cage performance: Yes! But the satirical bite, if you will, is kind of weak. It’s a comedy but not funny.

38. Ferat Vampire (1982)

ES: Wow. This is very ’80s. Cars were so loved they’re alive, and in this film, undead.

BJD: In Soviet Union, car drains you!

37. Interview with the Vampire (1994)

ES: In the words of Norm MacDonald, “Not gay enough!”

BJD: I saw this in Detroit with a row full of Detroit goths in front of me. Real ones with fang implants, and like crows in their hair. And they were shouting “Bullshit!” and “This sucks!” throughout. They screamed like they had been staked when Guns N’ Roses came on during the credits.

36. Vamp (1986)

ES: Cliff from My Bodyguard!

BJD: Rudy from Meatballs!

ES: I definitely saw this at a sleepover. It’s After Hours, “but make it vampires.”

BJD: You could say it’s an analogy about a group of young men who travel to a club downtown and become part of a community that likes dancing, Grace Jones, and Keith Haring art.

35. John Carpenter’s Vampires (1998)

BJD: The closest we’ll get to “Cormac McCarthy’s Vampires.” But still, kind of on the waning end of Carpenter’s powers.

ES: That’s the problem of having made some of the greatest films of the ’80s—the bar is high and yes, I’d rather watch The Thing.

34. From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

ES: Only…and I mean only in the 1990s could this movie have existed.

BJD: I can’t believe you haven’t seen this, because: Salma Hayek dance. [Cues up on YouTube]

ES: Okay, my jaw went slack for a minute. No! Not the toes! In Tarantino’s mouth! No!

BJD: Guess who wrote the script….

ES: I need a Magic Mike chaser.

33. Love at First Bite (1979)

BJD: I checked with my mom and apparently when I was six and we watched this on the ABC Movie of the Week together, and I loved it way too much…. Richard Benjamin, the communism jokes. That was the first time she thought, “This one is the weird kid.”

“Twilight” by Elizabeth Peyton, 2009

32. Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)

BJD: Okay, back in the aughts it’s safe to say we’re total snobs, far above anything to do with Twilight.

ES: Correct. But then we end up jumping in on the third movie, totally lost. Why do My Chemical Romance control all the vampires? Why is Anna Kendrick in this for one scene? Why are Abercrombie & Fitch models fighting?

BJD: What happened was my niece was staying with us and how do you entertain a then 14-year-old? We take her to Twilight: Eclipse. And I have to say, seeing the movie through her eyes? She believed in all-powerful love for two hours. And that’s when I accepted the power of Twilight.

31. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

BJD: You’re not a fan of this movie?

ES: There was so much hype leading up to it, and then for me it was such a letdown. I’m not dissing on actors I love, but in a vampire movie, you want chemistry.

BJD: Oh, I think wolf-mode Gary Oldman had lots of chemistry!

30. Requiem for a Vampire (1972)

ES: Oh I remember this one. They end up in a saucy castle. It’s episodic right?

BJD: “Dreamlike” would be charitable. The only Jean Rollin film that is almost a proper film. There’s no beating the surreal opening of two clowns having a gunfight.

29. Abigail (2024)

BJD: I’m still angry about this. A great fun movie kneecapped at the box office by a horrible ad campaign.

ES: It will be a cult film one day.

28. The Blood Splattered Bride (1972)

BJD: You know, girl meets vampire girl, they kill men, make out in a grave. That idea.

ES: Every woman has that moment in her life, that’s why these plots are popular!

27. Blade (1998)

ES: Oh my god, Stephen Dorff, the blood rave…. The sequel has a young and clean-looking Norman Reedus. But this really is the best Blade.

26. Def by Temptation (1990)

ES: It’s Dwayne Wayne!

BJD: Def by Temptation is awesome. It’s nearly a Spike Lee film—Ernest Dickerson as DP, Samuel L. Jackson. And it looks like an ultra-violent Luther Vandross video.

ES: I didn’t see this. But why didn’t I see this!

25. Nadja (1994)

BJD: As close to a Hal Hartley vampire film as you can get. Elina Löwensohn, Martin Donovan.

ES: It’s gorgeous. I need to watch this now that I have a TV larger than nine inches.

BJD: I’m on my second Pixelvision camera that I bought that doesn’t work! I’m jealous they got theirs to work.

24. Blacula (1972)

BJD: Blacula is exploitation as much as Ganja & Hess is authentic, but still there’s so much awesome. The slow-motion vampire running down the hall? Childhood nightmares courtesy of WKBD Detroit.

23. Cronos (1992)

ES: Ron Perlman! You just don’t have a del Toro movie without him!

BJD: Really, this is every girl’s relationship with their grandfather. “What’s that weird machine connected to you? Are you dead?”

22. Lifeforce (1985)

BJD: People can read our full talk about this one here, but I’ll leave it with your memorable blurb…

ES: It’s like a horny Ghostbusters.

21. The Lost Boys (1987)

BJD: Okay, Lost Boys. I don’t get your love for it.

ES: It’s like a giant grilled cheese sandwich. There’s nothing original, but all the elements are satisfying.

BJD: This is your Highlander. I accept it.

ES: Exactly.

20. Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

ES: I think this is fused in my mind with Herzog’s version of Nosferatu.

BJD: But this one has Cary Elwes as the cinematographer saying the immortal line, “The camera is loaded…and so am I.” And of course, Willem Dafoe would go on to…

19. Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu (2024)

ES: I admit it. I fell asleep.

BJD: An honest response to the first half. That part really put me off in how traditional it was then…Robert Eggers goes the full Georges Bataille’s Eroticism, and it is lunatic, and worth waiting for.

ES: I will rewatch.

18. Alucarda (1977)

BJD: Mexico knows how do a vampire movie: Nuns on fire, goat men, exorcisms, blood-drenched vampires. Frolicking in a glen.

ES: I’d roll down a hill with Alucarda too!

17. Vampyros Lesbos (1971)

ES: It’s really the soundtrack, isn’t it?

BJD: Life-changing music! Maybe I like vampire movie soundtracks better than vampire movies. But Jess Franco actually made good movies, better than this. She Killed in Ecstasy is amazing.

ES: Lesbian vampires do not move quickly.

BJD: As in mortal life!

ES: You know what, if this was all you had before the internet…it really delivers on the title.

16. Rod Hardy’s Thirst (1979)

BJD: I really like this Australian gem. It’s a TV movie budget, but it’s about an elite group of blood drinkers searching for a new leader—a descendent of Elizabeth Báthory who has no idea she is. It’s more emotionally intense than you think. And the human farm scenes with all these Australian hippies!

ES: We’re maybe only two years away from the discovery there really are blood drinking elites.

BJD: Salmon sperm is a slippery slope. Next is “Hey guys, working-class blood on the skin gives it such a sheen.”

15. Park Chan-wook’s Thirst (2009)

ES: Holy shit, I remember that was an intense film.

BJD: All Park Chan-wook’s films are beloved, except for this one and I don’t know why. It really pushes the vampire conventions.

14. Ganja & Hess (1973)

ES: Okay, I can’t say if I saw this or not, but there are images in this that are very burned in my mind. I must have.

BJD: This is another gem I saw because we grew up outside of Detroit and WKBD played this once a month. I believe my first joint at fourteen was while watching this at one in the afternoon. And it’s still astounding.

ES: This is what you get when you ask an artist for a horror movie.

13. Habit (1995)

ES: We saw this at a film festival held in a mental health hospital.

BJD: But we weren’t patients there! They just had a cool festival.

ES: I remember really liking it.

BJD: It’s one of the better vampire-as-addiction films. And a great 1990s NYC indie time capsule—“Kelly Reichardt as Party Girl.”

12. Kiss of the Damned (2012)

BJD: This is a great film from Xan Cassavetes. I think it’s the only contemporary movie to capture 1970s Euro-cult: the music and mood is stunning.

ES: This movie is about how hot you’ll get for someone and overlook every red flag. Good date movie.

11. Lair of the White Worm (1988)

BJD: My first Ken Russell movie! According to Hugh Grant, Russell was hammered by noon every day and would tell the cast, “The script is shit, so make it up.”

ES: I hated this the first time you made me watch it. Ten times in, I’m coming around to it.

BJD: There are pagan priestesses with strap-ons and it is still not the weirdest Hugh Grant movie.

ES: Which one is?

BJD: Have you seen Love, Actually?

10. Salem’s Lot (1979)

ES: I didn’t see this as a kid. I saw it as an adult. But if I had seen it as a kid…it probably would have been as formative for me as The Exorcist was for you.

BJD: I was a creepy floaty vampire kid, so this representation really speaks to me still!

9. Sinners (2025)

ES: It’s not a perfect movie. But it’s a really entertaining one.

BJD: Again, the music history montage—sublime.

ES: The ending is a little rough around the edges.

BJD: Novelists! You’re never happy with endings.

8. The Hunger (1983)

BJD: How can I account for discovering Bauhaus, Catherine Deneuve, and male-gaze lesbianism all in one film?

ES: This movie tells the truth. When two women kiss for the first time, opera music plays out of nowhere.

BJD: My favorite Hunger story is that mega producer Don Simpson was up on coke at 4 a.m. when The Hunger came on cable and he thought it was the best movie ever made, then hired Tony Scott that morning to direct Top Gun.

7. Byzantium (2012)

BJD: If you like what risks Sinners took with the vampire mythos, you’ll love Byzantium.

ES: Vampires go to gender studies!

BJD: Vampire Women versus the Vampire Manosphere.

ES: Caleb Landry Jones and Saoirse together, that is some twee hotness!

6. Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)

ES: I like this more with every rewatch—it’s a subtle vampire movie. And again, about addiction.

BJD: Addiction to art! Which is a message I love, and I love how much it loves Detroit for what it is.

5. Daughters of Darkness (1971)

BJD: The Citizen Kane of Belgian lesbian vampire movies.

ES: I still can’t believe Delphine Seyrig leaves her vampire girlfriend for the boring blonde!

4. Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)

BJD: I’ll say it. Werner Herzog’s best narrative film. He dives fully into German consciousness and gives us an apocalyptic movie about fascism as an infection.

ES: Damn. The images in this film. The caskets on the ship and the rats. Haunting.

3. Let the Right One In (2008)

ES: I really love this film.

BJD: It is so profoundly haunting. Only Scandinavians could make the most heartbreaking kinder-vampire movie.

ES: It’s a testament to the power of loneliness.

BJD: Okay, let’s watch the cat lady scene, because there is humor in it!

2. Near Dark (1987)

ES: The most perfect vampire movie. It is everything you want in a vampire movie.

BJD: The Wild Bunch as vampires. Flat out, the fucking best. Bill Paxton, The Cramps, Tangerine Dream, Kathryn Bigelow.

1. What We Do in the Shadows (2014)

BJD: How can you make another vampire movie after this?

ES: I don’t know how to talk about things I genuinely love.

BJD: The secret to this movie is that it’s not just funny. There is melancholic gravity throughout.

[Emily bursts out laughing]

ES: No there’s not.

BJD: There are stakes to the storytelling!