Film

The Beguiled

Name: The Beguiled
Genre: Drama
Released: 2017
Cast: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, Oona Laurence

Other titles called The Beguiled: the 1971 film.

Period drama

Sofia Coppola's Civil War chamber piece traps a wounded Union soldier in a Southern girls' school where desire, resentment, and isolation curdle into something darker. It's languid and tense by turns, hypnotic in its refusal to explain itself. For anyone who finds psychological complexity more gripping than plot.

TMDb rating

3.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you are drawn to slow-burning, gothic chamber pieces where the tension lives in glances, rooms and rituals more than in action, and you enjoy ambiguity about who holds the power.

Skip it if you need plot momentum or a clear moral centre, since the pace is deliberately languid and the mood close and humid.

What it asks of you: A lean 93 minutes that lingers on stillness, with dim interiors and long silences doing much of the talking; it is patient and unhurried rather than urgent.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Stoker2013

Park Chan-wook's portrait of a girl's dangerous infatuation, wreathed in sumptuous visuals and unspoken violence. Shares The Beguiled's obsession with desire as a corrupting force in enclosed spaces.

But Relies on visual suggestion over explicit narrative. Some viewers will find it arch or emotionally distant.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer2017

Yorgos Lanthimos traps a surgeon and his family with a vengeful stranger. Same claustrophobic dread, same slow accumulation of social breakdown, same sense that politeness is a fragile mask.

But Deliberately alien in tone and pacing. The moral logic is murky by design, which frustrates viewers who want clarity.

The Nightingale2018

Jennifer Kent's Tasmania-set revenge tale uses intimate, cramped framing and mounting psychological pressure. A woman's rage in a confined world—visceral where The Beguiled is controlled, but the tension is kin.

But Graphically violent in places. Exhausting emotionally; it does not offer comfort or resolution.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Beguiled

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Housemaid2010

Both are about permission and transgression—how a single outsider can crack open a social order by refusing to accept its rules.

Park Chan-wook's Korean thriller about a servant who destabilises a wealthy family from within. It mirrors The Beguiled's structure—a newcomer entering a closed world, breeding suspicion and desire—but inverts the power dynamics and trades Southern Gothic for contemporary psychological horror.

But Faster and more overtly thriller-like; some find its final act veers toward melodrama. Subtitled.

Carol2015

Todd Haynes' 1950s romance between two women captures the same electric charge of forbidden desire and social transgression. Gorgeous, formal, and deeply felt about what cannot be spoken.

But Primarily a love story, not a thriller—some expect more plot momentum than it delivers.

The Lighthouse2019

Two men, a lighthouse, isolation, and a mounting pressure cooker of resentment and madness. Monochrome, claustrophobic, and hallucinogenic—masculine where The Beguiled is feminine, but the trapped-space psychology is exact.

But Wilfully strange and sometimes impenetrable. The accent work is difficult; the atmosphere is relentlessly grim.

Fried Green Tomatoes1991

A Southern women's world, secrets underneath genteel surfaces, forbidden bonds between women. Warmer in tone but equally preoccupied with how desire and loyalty corrode propriety from within.

But Much more mainstream and sentimental than The Beguiled; lacks its psychological edge and ambiguity.

The Witch2016

Robert Eggers traps a 1600s family in wilderness paranoia and moral collapse. Like The Beguiled, it uses period setting and formal language to make the psychological horror feel inevitable.

But Dialogue in archaic English is hard to follow. No clear villain—just gathering dread and social disintegration.

Suspiria2018

Luca Guadagnino's remake uses a dance academy as pressure cooker for power, sexuality, and witchcraft. Operatic where The Beguiled is restrained, but the same fascination with women's bodies as sources of danger.

But Nearly three hours long. Deliberately baroque and difficult. Some find its ambitions exhausting rather than rewarding.

We Need to Talk About Kevin2011

Both films trust silence and visual language over exposition, and both ask uncomfortable questions about what we owe to people we are bound to by circumstance rather than choice.

Lynne Ramsay's fractured narrative about a mother and son after an act of violence. Like The Beguiled, it refuses chronological comfort and forces you to sit with the banality of catastrophe. Wordless stretches, formal compositions, and the uncanny intimacy of enclosed spaces.

But Extremely dark; structured in a way that demands active viewing. Many find it bleak to the point of being unwatchable.

Johnny Got His Gun1971

Both use a wounded soldier as a catalyst for women's unspoken needs; both are fascinated by nursing and tending as acts of control dressed as care.

Dalton Trumbo's anti-war nightmare: a soldier, immobilised and trapped in his own body, cared for by an all-female staff. Formally experimental, claustrophobic in the way The Beguiled is, and equally preoccupied with bodies as sites of power, desire, and disgust.

But Unrelentingly grim and absolutely without humour. The final act is genuinely disturbing. Feels dated in some of its technique.