Film
The Woman in Black
A handsome, patient piece of gothic dread: young lawyer Arthur Kipps is sent to settle an estate in a fog-locked marsh village and finds the house — and the woman who haunts it — very unwilling to be left alone. It trades gore for atmosphere, creaking dolls and long silences for jump scares, and works best watched at night, alone, with the lights off.
If you liked this
The Others2001
Nicole Kidman in a shuttered house full of rules and shadows — the same slow-building dread, the same Victorian gloom, and a twist that rewards patience rather than punishing it.
But Deliberately paced almost to the point of stillness; if you want scares every ten minutes, this isn't it.

The Innocents1961
The gothic ghost story's blueprint — a governess, a haunted estate, children who may or may not be possessed, shot in black-and-white that makes every shadow feel like a threat.
But Sixty years old and it shows in its pacing and formality; not for anyone allergic to older cinema.

Crimson Peak2015
Guillermo del Toro's lavish, blood-red gothic romance-horror, all crumbling mansions and vengeful spirits — bigger, more operatic, and gorgeous to look at.
But More melodrama than scare machine; the ghosts are almost secondary to the doomed romance.

The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Uninvited1944
Same engine as Kipps' story — a house that won't release its dead — but built forty years earlier when restraint was the only special effect available.
A cliffside house, a dead woman who won't leave, and a genuinely eerie atmosphere built with nothing but shadow, sound and suggestion — decades before Woman in Black, and it still works.
But Black-and-white, 1940s pacing, and a period charm that some viewers find quaint rather than frightening.

More like this (8)
The Orphanage2007
A Spanish ghost story soaked in grief, about a mother searching a decaying orphanage for her missing son — genuinely unsettling and quietly devastating by the end.
But Subtitled, and the emotional gut-punch lands harder than any scare, so go in braced for sadness.

The Awakening2011no page yet
Rebecca Hall as a ghost-debunker forced to confront a haunting she can't explain, set in a 1920s boarding school with the same damp, candlelit unease as Kipps' marsh house.
But Less well-known and the twist is divisive — some find it a masterstroke, others a cheat.
The Haunting1963
No visible ghost, no special effects, just sound design and a house that seems to breathe — proof that suggestion is scarier than anything shown outright.
But Extremely restrained by modern standards; if you need something to actually appear, you'll be waiting.

The Conjuring2013
A slicker, more modern haunted-house machine, built on the same bones — isolated family, dark history, escalating dread — but with sharper jolts and bigger set pieces.
But Louder and more effects-driven; the subtlety Woman in Black relies on gets traded for jump scares.

Insidious2011
Takes the haunted-house formula somewhere stranger and more mythological, with a genuinely creepy antagonist and some of the best-executed scares of the last fifteen years.
But Goes fully supernatural-mythology in its back half, a tonal left turn some find thrilling and others silly.

Session 92001
An abandoned asylum, a crew slowly unraveling, and a slow dread that never fully explains itself — a masterclass in atmosphere over exposition.
But Ambiguous almost to a fault; if you want answers by the credits, this will frustrate you.

Ghostwatch1992
Same vengeful, grief-born spirit haunting a house full of secrets, but delivered as a mockumentary — proof the format itself can be the scare.
A fake live BBC broadcast investigating a haunted council house that convinced actual British viewers it was real and caused a genuine national panic — chilling, clever, and utterly unlike a period drama.
But Its found-footage, live-TV conceit is very of-its-moment; some of the dated production values undercut the dread now.

The Babadook2014
Trades the Victorian remove for domestic modern horror, but it's the same idea underneath — an unprocessed maternal grief that refuses to stay buried.
A widowed mother and her troubled son are stalked by something that may be grief given monstrous shape — raw, exhausting, and far more emotionally naked than anything in a period ghost story.
But Intensely psychological and claustrophobic; it's more harrowing character study than atmospheric chiller.

People
Cast
Daniel RadcliffeArthur Kipps
Ciarán HindsMr. Daily
Janet McTeerMrs. Daily
Liz WhiteJennet Humfrye
Tim McMullanMr. Jerome
Jessica RaineNanny
Shaun DooleyFisher
Mary StockleyMrs. Fisher
Roger AllamMr. Bentley
Daniel CerqueiraKeckwick
David BurkePC Collins
Sophie StuckeyStella Kipps
Directing
- James WatkinsDirector
- Dominic FyshFirst Assistant Director
- Caroline BowkerScript Supervisor
Writing
- Susan HillNovel
- Jane GoldmanScreenplay
Production
- Karen Lindsay-StewartCasting
- Carolyn McLeodCasting Associate
- Ben HoldenCo-Producer
- Paul RitchieCo-Producer
- Sean WheelanCo-Producer
- Todd ThompsonCo-Producer
- Guy EastExecutive Producer
- Marc SchipperExecutive Producer
- Neil DunnExecutive Producer
- Nigel SinclairExecutive Producer
- Roy LeeExecutive Producer
- Tobin ArmbrustExecutive Producer
- Tyler ThompsonExecutive Producer
- Xavier MarchandExecutive Producer
- Brian OliverProducer
- Richard JacksonProducer
- Simon OakesProducer
- Jennifer WynneProduction Manager
Recommended by
The Others, Crimson Peak, The Innocents, The Boy, The Haunting of Bly Manor, The Stone Tape, The Ghost & Mrs. Muir, The Uninvited, Dark Water, Sleepy Hollow