Highest-Rated Movies about 'Southern Gothic'

White Lightnin' (2009), Cool Hand Luke (1967), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird (2010), Baby Doll (1956), Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Southern Gothic movies.

#2. Cool Hand Luke (1967)

Storyline: Luke Jackson is a cool, gutsy prisoner in a Southern chain gang, who, while refusing to buckle under to authority, keeps escaping and being recaptured. The prisoners admire Luke because, as Dragline explains it, "You're an original, that's what you are!" Nevertheless, the camp staff actively works to crush Luke until he finally breaks.

Plot Keywords: prison, rebellion, american south, classic, paul newman, 1960s, escape ...

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#3. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

Storyline: Loosely based on Homer's "Odyssey," the movie deals with the picaresque adventures of Ulysses Everett McGill and his companions Delmar and Pete in 1930s Mississipi. Sprung from a chain gang and trying to reach Everett's home to recover the buried loot of a bank heist they are confronted by a series of strange characters--among them sirens, a cyclops, bank robber George "Baby Face" Nelson (very annoyed by that nickname), a campaigning governor and his opponent, a KKK lynch mob, and a blind prophet who warns the trio that "the treasure you seek shall not be the treasure you find."

Plot Keywords: adventure, comedy, crime, musical, drama, period piece, road movie ...

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#4. Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)

Storyline: Aged, wealthy Charlotte Hollis has lived as a recluse in the crumbling family plantation mansion in Hollisport, Louisiana since her father Sam Hollis' death thirty-six years ago. The only people who regularly see her are her hard-as-nails but seemingly loyal housekeeper, Velma Crowther, and her longtime friend and physician, Dr. Drew Bayliss. She has lived there most of her life except for a short stint in London thirty-seven years ago following the vicious murder of her married lover, John Mayhew, at the plantation's summer house while Sam was hosting one of his legendary grand balls in the mansion. She and John had planned to run off together that night, but instead he was bludgeoned to death, his head and right hand severed from his body. Nobody was ever convicted for his murder, but most people believe Charlotte did it after John changed his mind about running off with her. They also believe that Charlotte, whom they haven't seen in years, is a crazy old woman. Conversely, ...

Plot Keywords: thriller, mystery, drama, horror, psychological, film noir, crime ...

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#5. Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)

Storyline: A wealthy harridan, Violet Venable, attempts to bribe Dr. Cukrowicz, a young psycho-surgeon from a New Orleans mental hospital that is desperately in need of funds, into lobotomizing her niece, Catherine Holly. Violet wants the operation performed in order to prevent Catherine from defiling the memory of her son, the poet Sebastian. Catherine has been babbling obscenely about Sebastian's mysterious death that she witnessed while on holiday together in Spain the previous summer.

Plot Keywords: psychological thriller, drama, film noir, gothic, literary adaptation, psychoanalysis, family secrets ...

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#6. Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird (2010)

Storyline: It is our national novel. Reading to Kill a Mockingbird is something we all have in common. Harper Lee's first and only novel turns 50 this summer and the author hasn't given an interview since 1964 or published a second book. In compelling interviews with Scott Turow, James McBride, Wally Lamb, Rosanne Cash, Anna Quindlen, Oprah Winfrey,Tom Brokaw, among others, and with rare cooperation from Harper Lee's sister and friends, Mary Murphy traces the history of this astonishing phenomenon.—Anonymous

Plot Keywords: documentary, literature, biography, american literature, social issues, alabama, 1960s ...

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#7. Baby Doll (1956)

Storyline: Living in Tiger Tail County, Mississippi, middle aged Archie Lee Meighan and nineteen year old "Baby Doll" Meighan née McCargo have been married for close to two years. Their marriage is not based on love, but each getting what they want from the other. Their marriage agreement has them consummating their marriage on her twentieth birthday, which is in three days, the act to which Baby Doll is not really looking forward. But she does taunt him and other men with her overt "baby doll" sexuality, the baby doll aspect which she fosters by sleeping in their house's nursery in a crib. Baby Doll's now deceased father allowed the marriage on the stipulation that Archie Lee provide Baby Doll financial security as displayed by the most resplendent house in the south. They currently live in a dilapidated mansion with her Aunt Rose Comfort, and although Archie Lee is making some renovations on it, he no longer has the financial means to make it what Baby Doll wants as his cotton ginning competitor, the recently arrived Sicilian Silva Vacarro who runs the cotton plantation syndicate, has effectively put him and many others in the area out of business. The Meighan's fortunes may change after Vacarro's cotton gin burns down in a case of arson. Vacarro is certain Archie Lee is the arsonist. After meeting the Meighans and learning more about their marriage, Vacarro believes the way to get what he wants is through Baby Doll. This action begins the three way battle of wills between Vacarro, Archie Lee and Baby Doll.—Huggo

Plot Keywords: drama, comedy, erotic, black comedy, marriage, seduction, love triangle ...

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#8. Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)

Storyline: Drifter Chance Wayne returns to his hometown after many years of trying to make it in the movies. Arriving with him is a faded film star he picked up along the way, Alexandra Del Lago. While trying to get her help to make a screen test, he also finds the time to meet his former girlfriend Heavenly, the daughter of the local politician Tom 'Boss' Finley, who more or less forced him to leave the town many years ago.—Mattias Thuresson

Plot Keywords: drama, romance, american, adaptation, stage play, paul newman, hollywood ...

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#9. Sparrows (1926)

Storyline: Evil Mr.Grimes keeps a rag-tag bunch orphans on his farm deep in a swamp in the US South. He forces them to work in his garden and treats them like slaves. They are watched over by the eldest, Molly. A gang in league with Mr. Grimes kidnaps Doris, the beautiful little daughter of a rich man, and hides her out on Grimes' farm, awaiting ransom. When the police close in, and Mr. Grimes threatens to throw Doris into the bottomless mire, Molly must lead her little flock out through the alligator-infested swamp.—John Oswalt <jao@jao.com>

Plot Keywords: silent film, drama, kidnapping, rescue, orphans, melodrama, classic hollywood ...

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#10. The Fugitive Kind (1960)

Storyline: Having fled New Orleans to avoid arrest, the undeniably alluring Valentine "Snakeskin" Xavier (Val), a trouble-prone guitar-playing drifter, wanders into a small Mississippi town aiming to go straight and lead a quiet, simple life. He gets a job in the dry goods store owned by a sexually-frustrated middle-aged woman named Lady Torrence, whose sadistic elderly husband, Jabe, is dying. With an obscure past and passions of her own, Lady finds herself attracted to Val, pulsating with passion anew, as he presents an arousing antidote to her bitter marriage and small-town hum-drum life, but also vying for Val's attention are the alcoholic, sex-crazed Carol Cutrere and the unhappily-married Vee Talbot. Each bring their share of problems into Val's plans, himself equally tempted by these women though he succumbs to the charms of Lady. But the jealous Jabe is friends with Sheriff Talbot, who's also Vee's wife - things can't possibly end well for Val and Lady. The screenplay by Meade Roberts and Tennessee Williams is based on Williams' own 1957 play "Orpheus Descending".—pdlussier1

Plot Keywords: crime, drama, film noir, adaptation, fugitive, loneliness, social outcasts ...

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#11. The Chase (1966)

Storyline: Most everyone in town thinks that Sheriff Calder is merely a puppet of rich oil-man Val Rogers. When it is learned that local baddie Bubber Reeves has escaped prison, Rogers' son is concerned because he is having an affair with Reeves' wife. It seems many others in town feel they may have reasons to fear Reeves. Calder's aim is to bring Reeves in alive, unharmed. Calder will have to oppose the powerful Rogers on one hand and mob violence on the other, in his quest for justice.—Buxx Banner <bux572@aol.com>

Plot Keywords: crime, drama, thriller, fugitive, small town, american south, race relations ...

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#12. The Beguiled (1971)

Storyline: As the costly American Civil War still rages on, a twelve-year-old student of the forgotten Miss Martha Farnsworth's Seminary for Young Ladies in warm and humid Mississippi stumbles upon a gravely wounded Union soldier, Corporal John McBurney (Clint Eastwood). Taken in to recover from his injuries, McBurney is imprisoned in a small room inside the mansion. However, before long, the seductive and unwanted guest will manage to take advantage of the female inhabitants' wartime-subdued desires. But is McBurney really in control over the situation?

Plot Keywords: drama, thriller, war, historical, psychological, suspense, female perspective ...

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#13. Tarnation (2003)

Storyline: Part documentary, part narrative fiction, part home movie, and part acid trip. A psychedelic whirlwind of snapshots, Super-8 home movies, old answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, snippets of '80s pop culture, and dramatic reenactments to create an epic portrait of an American family travesty. The story begins in 2003 when Jonathan learns that his schizophrenic mother, Renee, has overdosed on her lithium medication. He is catapulted back into his real and horrifying family legacy of rape, abandonment, promiscuity, drug addiction, child abuse, and psychosis. As he grows up on camera, he finds the escapist balm of musical theater and B horror flicks and reconnects to life through a queer chosen family. Then a look into the future shows Jonathan as he confronts the symbiotic and almost unbearable love he shares with his beautiful and tragically damaged mother.—Sujit R. Varma

Plot Keywords: documentary, autobiographical, experimental, lgbtq+, mental health, personal journey, low budget ...

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#14. Wise Blood (1979)

Storyline: US Army war veteran Hazel Motes may not be a believing Christian, somehow observations like the state of a run-down country church, meeting the ridiculous frauds on the streets and memories inspire him to take up, after initially fierce refusal, the part of a traveling preacher when a cab driver insists he looks like one in his new hat. He starts his own new Church of Truth, without the crucified Jesus, his first disciple being an 18-year old simpleton with a 'prophetic gift'...—KGF Vissers

Plot Keywords: religion, faith, redemption, existentialism, antihero, black comedy, isolation ...

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#15. The Glass Menagerie (1950)

Storyline: This first movie version of the Tennessee Williams play about a faded, aging Southern belle, her shy, crippled daughter and her "selfish dreamer" of a son more or less sticks to the original story, except for a compromise ending which strives to be more upbeat.—Eugene Kim <genekim@concentric.net>

Plot Keywords: drama, family, classic, black and white, adaptation, play adaptation, american ...

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