Film
The Falling
A 1969 British girls' school descends into hysteria when a student dies and classmates begin mysteriously fainting. Maisie Williams and Florence Pugh navigate grief, friendship, and the supernatural in a visually stunning, psychologically unsettling drama about adolescent rupture and unexplained contagion. Moody, intimate, disquieting.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you like slow-burn period mysteries where the unease builds from repressed rooms and whispered friendships rather than jump scares, and you don't mind the answers staying murky.
Skip it if you need a clear plot that explains itself, since the story leans on atmosphere and ambiguity, and its hysteria-filled corridors can feel airless and repetitive.
What it asks of you: It takes its time, lingers on faces and silences across 103 minutes, and needs patience while it slowly tightens its grip instead of hurrying toward answers.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Picnic at Hanging Rock1975
A vanishing at a girls' school in 1900s Australia becomes a mystery that's less about answers and more about collective delusion, atmosphere, and the strangeness lurking beneath social order. Hypnotic and evocative.
But Takes its time building unease rather than offering plot momentum. Some find the deliberately mysterious ending more frustrating than profound.

We Need to Talk About Kevin2011
Tilda Swinton as a mother reckoning with her son's violence through fragmented, haunting flashbacks. Explores how family and school trauma distort identity, with a visual style that mirrors psychological fracture.
But Deeply uncomfortable and deliberately punishing to watch. Not cathartic; it wants you to sit with dread.

The Virgin Suicides2000
Five sisters in suburban Michigan become objects of obsession after one suicide sparks a cascade. Sofia Coppola captures girlhood as simultaneously alluring and doomed, with an eerie, elegiac tone.
But Romanticizes youth despair in ways that haven't aged smoothly. Narrated by men gazing at women, which is the point but still grates.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Falling
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Goodnight Mommy2015
Both use genre grammar to explore adolescent rupture and psychological contagion—how trauma spreads through bodies and communities, and how schools/families become pressure cookers of unreality.
An Austrian horror film about twin boys and their mother post-surgery: body horror, psychological fracture, and a twist that recontextualizes everything before it. Visually precise and morally ambiguous in ways that linger.
But Genuinely disturbing imagery of facial trauma. The plot requires you to sit with wrongness without conventional resolution. Not mainstream horror comfort.

More like this (8)
Carrie1976
A girl at her breaking point discovers telekinetic power in a school setting; De Palma's direction turns adolescent rage and shame into operatic horror. Prom scene is unforgettable.
But The period-typical misogyny can feel dated rather than critical. And if you know the ending, the buildup loses teeth.

Saint Maud2020
A care worker's obsessive faith and fractured mind spiral into delusion while nursing a dying woman. Rose Glass's debut is gorgeously shot, psychologically acute, and quietly devastating about loneliness and belief.
But Slow-burn with a third act that commits fully to its ambiguity. Some find it self-consciously artful; others find it genuinely unhinged.

Mulholland Drive2001
Lynch's LA nightmare spirals through identity, friendship, and grief across a shattered narrative structure. Absolutely gripping even when—or because—it refuses to cohere.
But Demands active interpretation and rewards repeat viewing. A single watch leaves many people frustrated rather than illuminated.

The Innocents1961
A governess at an isolated house begins seeing ghosts—or does she? Jack Clayton's masterpiece toys with reality, sexuality, and repression with chilling restraint. Black-and-white cinematography is sublime.
But Glacially paced and unresolved. If you need clarity, this will feel like a con.

Thoroughbreds2018
Two affluent girls—one psychopathic, one depressed—bond over a dark plan. Cory Finley's debut is darkly funny, psychologically intricate, and features a score that unsettles in real time.
But Glossy and detached in a way that some read as shallow. The morality is deliberately murky, which isn't for everyone.

The Neon Demon2016
A teenage model enters LA's fashion world and descends into a nightmare of jealousy, predation, and cannibalism. Refn makes surfaces beautiful and grotesque; the film is hypnotic trash.
But Style overwhelms substance entirely. If you need plot coherence or find exploitative imagery of teen girls repellent, this is not your film.

Heathers1989
Both films use extreme contagion—physical or psychological—as a lens to examine how high schools weaponize cruelty and how girls navigate impossible social hierarchies. One is realist horror, one is satirical; both invert the victim narrative.
Dark comedy-thriller about a girl using a jilted boyfriend to systematically murder her high school's popular kids. Wickedly smart, formally inventive, and genuinely funny while dealing in blood and suicide. A cult artifact that deserves wider love.
But Treats suicide, murder, and teenage despair as comedy. The tonal whiplash alienates plenty of viewers; some find the premise morally indefensible.

Suspiria1977
Both films treat schools as haunted spaces where rational explanation collapses and the supernatural feels more real than the mundane. Both are intensely visual, color-coded mysteries about female bodies as sites of contagion and power.
Dario Argento's masterpiece: a girl arrives at an elite German ballet school ruled by a coven of witches. Kaleidoscopic colour, impossible logic, an opera-metal score. It's a fairy tale told in blood and synth. Pure cinema.
But Surreal, narratively incoherent, and gratuitously violent. If you need plot clarity or realism, you will hate this. It's style as substance, and demands surrender.

People
Cast
Maisie WilliamsLydia Lamont
Maxine PeakeEileen Lamont
Greta ScacchiMiss Edith Mantel
Monica DolanMiss Martha Alvaro
Mathew BayntonMr. Hopkins
Florence PughAbbie Mortimer
Joe ColeKenneth Lamont
Morfydd ClarkMiss Pamela Charron
Anna BurnettSusan
Evie HootonJanet- Katie Ann KnightConnie
Lauren McCrostieGwen
Directing
- Carol MorleyDirector
- Elaine MackenzieFirst Assistant Director
- Lola DaudaScript Supervisor
- Tracey WarrenSecond Assistant Director
- Hannah GreenThird Assistant Director
Writing
- Carol MorleyScreenplay
Production
- Lisa LloydAssistant Accountant
- Shaheen BaigCasting
- Anna McAuleyCasting Assistant
- Aisha BywatersCasting Associate
- Philip HerdCo-Producer
- Andrew OrrExecutive Producer
- Christine LanganExecutive Producer
- Compton RossExecutive Producer
- Ian DaviesExecutive Producer
- Lizzie FranckeExecutive Producer
- Norman MerryExecutive Producer
- Peter HampdenExecutive Producer
- Phil HuntExecutive Producer
- Rebecca LongExecutive Producer
- Hannah Marie WilliamsExtras Casting
- Donall McCuskerLine Producer
- Tom WhileLocation Assistant
- Chris BunyanLocation Manager
- Cairo CannonProducer
- Luc RoegProducer
- Sophie MacClancyProduction Coordinator
- Joanne CrowtherProduction Manager
Recommended by
Picnic at Hanging Rock, Tomboy, My Summer of Love, Lost and Delirious, Dare Me, Breathe