framethrowerSign up for free

Best Exorcism Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of exorcism cinema — measured across 1,342 indexed frames from 15 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

Exorcism films over-index on priest, clerical collar and nun — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    The Pope’s Exorcist (2023)

    Julius AveryDP Khalid MohtasebIMDb 6.1TMDB 6.9See in full on FrameThrower →

    Father Gabriele Amorth, Chief Exorcist of the Vatican, investigates a young boy's terrifying possession and ends up uncovering a centuries-old conspiracy the Vatican has desperately tried to keep hidden.

  2. 2

    Exorcist: The Beginning (2004)

    Renny HarlinDP Vittorio StoraroIMDb 5.1TMDB 5.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    Archeologist Lankester Merrin is asked to go to East Africa to excavate a church that has been found completely buried in sand. Merrin is also an ordained Roman Catholic priest who, still haunted by what he was forced to do during World War II in his native Holland, eschews any religion or belief. He's fascinated by what he finds and that it dates hundred of years before Christianity was introduced to the area. Accompanied by a young priest, Father Francis, to keep an eye on the religious elements of what they find, Merrin makes his way to the camp. There he meets a young doctor, Sarah and soon realizes there is an air of gloom that envelops the entire site. Workmen go mad and a young boy is mauled by a pack of hyenas while completely ignoring his younger brother Joseph. Inside the church itself they find signs of desecration. Merrin is forced to re-examine his lack of faith and come face to face with the devil.

  3. 3

    The Nun (2018)

    Corin HardyDP Maxime AlexandreIMDb 5.4TMDB 5.9See in full on FrameThrower →

    When a young nun at a cloistered abbey in Romania takes her own life, a priest with a haunted past and a novitiate on the threshold of her final vows are sent by the Vatican to investigate. Together they uncover the order's unholy secret. Risking not only their lives but their faith and their very souls, they confront a malevolent force in the form of the same demonic nun that first terrorized audiences in 'The Conjuring 2,' as the abbey becomes a horrific battleground between the living and the damned.

  4. 4

    The Exorcist (1973)

    William FriedkinDP Owen RoizmanIMDb 8.1TMDB 7.7See in full on FrameThrower →

    A visiting actress in Washington, D.C., notices dramatic and dangerous changes in the behavior and physical make-up of her 12-year-old daughter. Meanwhile, a young priest at nearby Georgetown University begins to doubt his faith while dealing with his mother's terminal sickness. And, book-ending the story, a frail, elderly priest recognizes the necessity for a show-down with an old demonic enemy.

  5. 5

    The Wailing (2016)

    Na Hong-jinDP Hong Kyung-pyoIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    In the small village Goksung in South Korea, police officer Jong-Goo investigates bizarre murders caused by a mysterious disease. His partner relays gossip that a Japanese stranger, who lives in a secluded house in the mountains, would be an evil spirit responsible for the illness. Jong-Goo decides to visit the stranger along with his partner and a young priest who speaks Japanese. They find an altar with a goat head, pictures on the walls of the infected people that died, and an attacking guard dog that prevents their departure until the stranger arrives. Jong-Goo finds one shoe of his beloved daughter, Hyo-jin, in the house of the stranger, and soon she becomes sick. His mother-in-law summons the shaman Il-gwang to save her granddaughter while a mysterious woman tells Jong-Goo that the stranger is responsible. Who might be the demon that is bringing sickness to Goksung?

  6. 6

    Scary Movie 2 (2001)

    Keenen Ivory WayansDP Steven BernsteinIMDb 5.4TMDB 5.8See in full on FrameThrower →

    A group of teens including Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris) and Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall) are invited to spend a night in Hell House. Professor Oldman (Tim Curry) has convinced them it is for a school project, but the night won't go past quietly. Master Kane (Richard Moll) is long dead, but still plans on enjoying himself, especially with Alex Monday (Tori Spelling). When things really start getting bad, the gang must work together to find a way to capture this ghostly menace.

  7. 7

    Constantine (2005)

    Francis LawrenceDP Philippe RousselotIMDb 7.0TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    John Constantine is approached by Det. Angela Dodson who needs his help to prove that her twin sister Isabel's death was not a suicide. The dead woman was a devout Catholic and Angela refuses to accept she would have taken her own life. She's asked Constantine for help because he has a reputation for dealing with the mystical. In fact, he is a demon hunter whose sole purpose on Earth is to send demons back to the nether regions. John himself has been to Hell and knows that he is destined to return there on his death - but hopes his good deeds may find him a place in Heaven. As he looks into Isabel's death, he realizes demons are trying to break through to the human world, and his battles lead him into a direct conflict with Satan.

  8. 8

    The Conjuring (2013)

    James WanDP John R. LeonettiIMDb 7.5TMDB 7.5See in full on FrameThrower →

    In 1971, Carolyn and Roger Perron move their family into a dilapidated Rhode Island farm house and soon strange things start happening around it with escalating nightmarish terror. In desperation, Carolyn contacts the noted paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren, to examine the house. What the Warrens discover is a whole area steeped in a satanic haunting that is now targeting the Perron family wherever they go. To stop this evil, the Warrens will have to call upon all their skills and spiritual strength to defeat this spectral menace at its source that threatens to destroy everyone involved.

What exorcism films are made of

How much more often each element appears in a exorcism frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — priest is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.

  • priest30.8×
  • clerical collar26.4×
  • nun16.1×
  • crucifix15.2×
  • lantern7.3×
  • candle3.5×
  • teeth2.9×
  • blood2.4×

How exorcism films are shot

Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate exorcism from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.

  • 55%low keyvs 40% baseline
  • 30%dayvs 42% baseline
  • 32%naturalvs 43% baseline
  • 56%nightvs 43% baseline
  • 25%closeupvs 21% baseline

What breaks the pattern

The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2015) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.

Method

Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 1,342 frames from 15 films carrying the exorcism label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (408,752 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.

Machine-readable: /api/list/exorcism

What is FrameThrower?

Great films start with great references.

The numbers on this page come from the same index you can search directly. Every frame is tagged for lighting, lens, shot size, colour and mood — so you can find the reference you already have in your head, by describing it, by dropping in an image, or by picking a colour.

  • The largest film library in the world — searchable frame by frame
  • Search by light, colour, lens or mood — or by dropping in an image
  • Script to lookbook in an afternoon — a board for every scene, from real frames
  • Moodboards you can share on one link — your DP, designer and client see the same film
  • API and MCP access — for agentic and developer workflows
  • Free to start — no card required

A pitch trailer takes weeks of work and a budget most projects never get. The lookbook gets you there in an afternoon.

Start free — search the library7-day free trial of everything · cancel anytime

DiscoveryResearchReferencesEducation

These are real movie frames, shown at reduced resolution. All rights remain with their respective owners; they appear here for study, commentary and education under fair-use principles. How these are meant to be used