American Gothic Films: An Incomplete List

Addendum to The Original American Gothic Series

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This is a list of films with American Gothic elements. Obviously there are a wide range of films here. Our basic criteria is that that the American Gothic Film is a dark take on America with special reference to traditional American images and activities. To understand the criteria for this list please read our original American Gothic series. Keeping in mind that American Gothic has little to do with ‘Goth’.

An American Gothic vision of history in Bruce Beresford’s stunning Black Robe

American Gothic History

Gone with the Wind

Grapes of Wrath

It’s a Wonderful Life

Miller’s Crossing

Moby Dick

Sleepy Hollow

Little Women

Black Robe

Last of the Mohicans

A strange little film that mixes Civil War Gothic and American Gothic Horror – Dead Birds

Civil War Gothic

Cold Mountain

Andersonville Trial

Beguiled

Ride with the Devil

Dead Birds

The Deer Hunter presents yet another extraordinarily dark vision of America

Vietnam & US Military Gothic

Apocalypse Now

The Deer Hunter

Hamburger Hill

Black Hawk Down

The Seven Faces Dr Lao is a curious blending of Carnival and Western Gothic based on Jack Finney’s American Gothic novel The Circus of Dr. Lao

Carnival Gothic

Funhouse

Nightmare Alley

Freaks

The Seven Faces of Doctor Lao

Violent and Hallucinogenic Hippie Western Gothic Jodorowsky’s El Topo

Hippie Gothic

Easy Rider

Gimme Shelter

The Trip

El Topo

An older Lillian Gish in The Night of the Hunter

Southern Gothic

Adaptation

To Kill a Mockingbird

Wise Blood

The Apostle

Sling Blade

Cabin in the Cotton

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Monster

Deceiver

Winter’s Bone

O Brother Where Art Thou

Rainmaker

The Night of the Hunter

Spitfire Grill – A New England Gothic with a touch of Southern Gothic

New England Gothic

Affliction

Ethan Frome

Beautiful Girls

A Simple Plan

Spitfire Grill

Storm of the Century

Dolores Claiborne

The Perfect Storm

Nobody’s Fool

Primal Noirish Sleazebag New York style American Gothic from the Apocalyptic Seventies. Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver

New York City Gothic

Taxi Driver

Stranger Than Paradise

Requiem for a Dream

Pi

Last Exit to Brooklyn

Kids

Bringing Out the Dead

Being John Malkovich – A New Jersey Suburban New York Pomo Gothic featuring Puppetry and a mood that shifts from comedy to increasing darkness.

New Jersey Gothic

Jersey Girl

Dummy

Being John Malkovich

Garden State

Dead Man – Jim Jarmusch makes a Western Gothic with Johnny Depp

Western Gothic

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence

Brigham City

The Wild Bunch

Unforgiven

Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Tender Mercies

The Searchers

Ravenous

Dead Man

Jeremiah Johnson

An interesting example of Gringo made Latin American, or more specifically Mexican, Gothic the first Rodriguez / Tarantino version of From Dusk Til Dawn. It is also an American Gothic Vampire film and one of the few films north of the border to include Aztec imagery in its mix.

Latin American Gothic

Sante Sangre

Men with Guns

From Dusk Till Dawn

Narcotic Suburban Gothic in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet

Suburban Gothic

Wicked

Twin Peaks

Poltergeist

Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door

Fun

Rebel Without a Cause

Promised Land

Blue Velvet

Bully

West Coast Gothic in a Classic Hitchcockian Mode with Kim Novak in Vertigo

West Coast Gothic

The Big Lebowski

Vertigo

Chinatown

Citizen Kane

Donnie Darko

Abraham Polonsky’s Dark Gothic Noir Force of Evil 1948

Gothic Noir

(See most Film Noir)

Sleaze Noir film 8mm takes Nicolas Cage through the underbelly of the porn world

Sleaze Gothic

Hardcore

8mm

(Taxi Driver could easily fit here as well)

Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is not only a landmark in horror films and film in general it is also a milestone in American Gothic cinema

American Gothic Horror

Eaten Alive

Carrie

The Birds

Blair Witch Project

Cabin Fever

Deadly Blessing

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

The Exorcist

Jeepers Creepers

Jeepers Creepers 2

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre one of the most crucial films in the American Gothic Canon

Homicidal Killer Gothic

Psycho

Deliverance

Fargo

Maniac

Wrong Turn

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The Penalty

Nightmare on Elm Street

Mother’s Day

Candyman

Last House on the Left

Joyride

The Hills Have Eyes

I Spit on Your Grave

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer

American Perfekt

Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark from 1987. Vampires in a Radically American Gothic mode

American Gothic Vampires

Near Dark

The Last Man on Earth

Carmilla

An American Gothic Scene from The Walking Dead, complete with Horse and Cowboy

Zombie Films

Night of the Living Dead

Dawn of the Dead

The Walking Dead (series)

Harry Dean Stanton’s presence alone would justify calling Riddley Scott’s Alien an American Gothic Science Fiction film. But there is much more than that.

Science Fiction Gothic

Alien

Butterfly Effect

The Thing

The Book of Eli

The Road

Signs

Ghosts of Mars

Brother’s Keeper is America in full decay.

American Gothic Docs

Crumb

Brother’s Keeper

Paradise Lost

 

Definitely American Gothic

(But hard to classify)

American Splendor

Kill Bill

The Village

A somewhat unclassifiable American Gothic Film – The Village