Witches have historically had a bit of a bad rap. They burnt them in Salem and they feared them in flights of three (double, double toil and trouble and all that jazz), but at the end of the day, they make for a pretty rad premise to a movie. Will they cast a spell to ruin your life or are they just looking for a mortal existence and accidentally end up a movie star? Only time and Our Nicole will tell. Whether you’re wanting to get spooked out of your socks or learn some tricks about practical magic, there’s a little something for everyone in this list of witchy flicks.

THE WITCH It is what it says on the tin… or is it? Certified spooky man Robert Eggers’ 2015 witchy flick takes place in 1630s New England, following a family of English settlers as they try to live their ordinary little lives while some unbeknown evil force lurks in the nearby woods. Lovely! Starring Anya Taylor-Joy in her debut feature film role, The Witch (or, The VVitch) is a bit of a masterpiece in the genre of modern witch-horror. Throw in some old-timey religious rituals and terrifyingly lit scenes and you’ve got yourself one spook of a hoot.

THE WITCHES There’s a special place in hell for those films that masquerade as kids’ movies only to leave their viewer tormented for life. Nicolas Roeg’s 1990 The Witches is one of those films. OK, OK, it’s based off Roald Dahl’s children’s book – but that man wasn’t exactly known for crafting fluffy stories about sunshine and rainbows. Suffice to say, The Witches is a favourite among many for good reason. Starring the one and only Anjelica Huston, this witchy classic begs to know if the world would be a better place if every single child was actually a mouse. While this one freaked the fudge out of us as kids, The Witches is quite the watch for fully-grown adults.

YOU WON’T BE ALONE Aussie cinephiles may already be familiar with Macedonian-Australian writer and director Goran Stolevski for his 2022 tear-jerking masterpiece Of an Age. But while the coming-of-age flick announced Goran as one of the leading filmmakers of the Australian scene, his lesser-known directorial debut You Won’t Be Alone tackles a whole different world of torturous human existence. Also released in 2022 (high-achiever alert!), You Won’t Be Alone unravels in 19th-century Macedonia as the mute Nevena falls under the spell of a shapeshifting witch. Dirty, gritty, excruiciating and terrific, this is one flick to make you believe in the malicious powers of witch-kind.

BEWITCHED What do you get when you mix one of the wittiest wordsmiths, a slew of familiar faces, an old sitcom, and early-noughties silliness? A brew of magical proportions. And also Bewitched, the 2005 romp written and directed by Nora Ephron. Starring Will Ferrell and Nicole Kidman, this is the kind of movie you should be reaching for if the toil and trouble of the spookier witch flicks might spook you a little too much. Riffing off the sitcom from the ’60s and ’70s, Nora Ephron’s Bewitched gets real meta in its exploration of what might happen if a witchy lass wanting to be a normal gal is cast as the witchy lass wanting to be a normal gal in a filmic remake of the original Bewitched sitcom.

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT Sometimes the scariest things are the things you can’t see. That’s the case in Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez’s 1999 cult classic of a horror flick, The Blair Witch Project. Strange things are happening in the Appalachian Mountains as three students hike into its depths to shoot a low-fi documentary about the mythical Blair Witch. What happens is the stuff of nightmares, all captured on tape by these three kids. Beloved by horror fans everywhere for its simple yet extremely effective approach to horror filmmaking, The Blair Witch Project catapulted the scary movie found footage sub-genre into the mainstream. Watch if you dare.

Still hungry for more freaky flicks? Have a squiz at our list of Australian spooky movies or final girl flicks. Sign up to our newsletter to discover great movie recommendations.