Film

Delirium: Photo of Gioia

A 1987 Italian giallo where a centerfold model receives photographs documenting the murders of her colleagues, each arranged around her image. It's a deliberately trashy, blood-soaked thriller that leans into the genre's obsession with beautiful women in danger and inventive kills. For fans of horror spectacle over coherence, of the era when European horror wasn't trying to be respectable.

TMDb rating2.8

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Suspiria1977

Dario Argento's masterpiece of style-over-plot giallo horror. Hypnotic primary colors, a pulsing Goblin score, and kills staged like choreography. Pure cinema as mood and sensation.

But The narrative barely holds together and moves at a dreamlike crawl. If you need plot clarity or psychological realism, this will frustrate you.

Suspiria poster

Deep Red1975

Argento again, this time with an actual mystery at its core. A pianist witnesses a murder and investigates, leading through gorgeously composed set pieces and genuine twists. Giallo done with real craft.

But Still prioritizes visual flair over coherence. The dubbing (even the restored version) can feel theatrical. Runs 105 minutes without padding.

Deep Red poster

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage1970

Argento's debut, leaner and meaner than his later work. An American in Rome stumbles into a serial killer investigation. Taut, genuinely suspenseful, with kills that genuinely shock.

But The dubbing is jarringly artificial by modern standards. Misogyny isn't incidental—it's baked into the genre's DNA, and this film doesn't interrogate it.

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage poster

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Don't Look Now1973

Both traffic in obsession and death, but one cares about the people inside the frame. Roeg shows what happens when you apply giallo's machinery to genuine tragedy.

Nic Roeg's masterpiece about a couple in Venice haunted by loss. Yes, it has a shock ending and genuine dread, but it's a completely different animal: psychologically complex, deeply felt, about actual emotion rather than spectacle.

But Meditative and slow. The famous sex scene is explicit and prolonged. No one dies in inventive ways; the horror is internal and existential.

Don't Look Now poster
More like this (7)

Tenebre1982

Argento's final masterpiece: a writer whose book inspires copycat murders. Meta, paranoid, with a killer's-eye camera that feels genuinely unhinged. The kills are baroque and memorable.

But Deliberately nasty and exploitative. The film's self-awareness doesn't soften its misogyny. Long and sometimes repetitive in structure.

Tenebre poster

Phenomena1985

A girl with an uncanny connection to insects investigates murders at a Swiss boarding school. Jennifer Connelly in her debut, practical gore effects, and Argento's visual genius at full throttle.

But Wildly uneven in tone. The script is genuinely confused about what it wants. A monkey with razor blades features prominently, and not in a way that makes sense.

Phenomena poster

Giallo2010

Argento's love letter to the genre he perfected. A serial killer stalks young women in Rome. Knowing homage to the form, with genuine style and contemporary craft. His most accessible film in decades.

But Self-aware pastiche can feel hollow compared to the real thing. New directors making new giallo often lack the visual vocabulary of the masters.

Giallo poster

Trauma1993

A young woman with trauma-induced amnesia becomes entangled with a serial killer's investigation. Gothic, operatic, with Argento's visual excess in high-definition. Bridge between 80s excess and 90s restraint.

But The plot is deliberately convoluted in ways that don't reward paying attention. Slower paced than his 70s work, which some experience as loss.

Trauma poster

The New York Ripper1982

Lucio Fulci's nasty, effective giallo: a killer murders women across New York. The misanthropy is total, the violence graphic, but the mystery is genuinely engrossing and the ending lands hard.

But Aggressively unpleasant in ways that go beyond genre convention. Graphically sexual violence mixed with murder. Many will rightfully check out.

The New York Ripper poster

Opera1987

Also 1987, also Italian, also excessive. A young opera understudy becomes a killer's obsession. Argento operating at full derangement: voyeurism, opera, violence, and a finale involving a trained raven.

But Barely coherent. The misogyny is suffocating. If Delirium feels scattered, Opera will feel incomprehensible by comparison.

Opera poster

Stolen Kisses1968

Same voyeuristic framing—watching, photographing, pursuing—but Truffaut treats it as something to be gently mocked rather than celebrated. Identity through the image, but with empathy.

Truffaut's Paris is intimate, playful, fundamentally kind. A young man gets lost in minor mysteries of the heart and society. It's also a mystery with a stalker subplot—but filtered through New Wave humanism and romance instead than objectification.

But Seems nothing like what you're looking for. Gentle to the point of aimlessness. No violence. If you came for thrills, you'll find philosophy and charm instead.

Stolen Kisses poster

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