Highest-Rated Movies about 'Southern Gothic'

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Sling Blade (1996), The Night of the Hunter (1955), Fury (1936), Mississippi Burning (1988), Cape Fear (1962), Deliverance (1972) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Southern Gothic movies.

#16. Angel Heart (1987)

Storyline: Harry Angel has a new case, to find a man called Johnny Favourite. Except things aren't quite that simple and Johnny doesn't want to be found. Let's just say that amongst the period detail and beautiful scenery, it all gets really really nasty.

Plot Keywords: flashback, devil worship, bathtub, lust, teenage girl, serial killer, female rear nudity ...

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#17. Cape Fear (1991)

Storyline: Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte)is a small-town corporate attorney/"Leave It to Beaver" type family-man. Max Cady (Robert De Niro) is a tattooed, cigar-smoking, bible-quoting, rapist. What do they have in common? Fourteen years, ago Sam was a public defender assigned to Max Cady's rape trial, and he made a serious error: he hid a document from his illiterate client that could have gotten him acquitted. Now, the cagey, bibliophile Cady has been released, and he intends to teach Sam Bowden and his family a thing or two about loss.

Plot Keywords: revenge, adultery, stalking, family in danger, movie theater, neo noir, dysfunctional family ...

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#18. The Apostle (1997)

Storyline: Eulis 'Sonny' Dewey is a preacher from Texas living a happy life with his beautiful wife Jessie. Suddenly his stable world crumbles: Jessie is having an affair with young minister Horace. Sonny gets enraged and hits Horace with a softball bat, putting him into a coma. After that he leaves town, takes a new name, 'Apostle E.F.' and goes to Louisiana. There he starts to work as a mechanic for local radio station owner Elmo, and Elmo lets him preach on the radio. E.F. starts to preach everywhere: on the radio, on the streets, and with his new friend, Reverend Blackwell he starts a campaign to renovate an old church.

Plot Keywords: southern gothic, flashback, divorce, murder, prayer, small town, bulldozer ...

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#19. 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: leg amputation, american civil war, sexuality, womanizer, seduction, crutches, girls' school ...

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#20. 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: escaped convict, sheriff, manhunt, racism, southern u.s., outsider, small town ...

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#21. 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: independent film, death, evangelist, existentialism, extortion, fanatic, father daughter relationship ...

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#22. This Property Is Condemned (1966)

Storyline: A railroad official, Owen Legate comes to Dodson, Mississippi to shut down much of the town's railway (town's main income). Owen unexpectedly finds love with Dodson's flirt and main attraction, Alva Starr. Alva and Owen then try to escape Alva's mother's (Hazel) clutches and the town's revenge.—Kelly

Plot Keywords: railroad, small town, based on play, melodrama, southern gothic, 1920s, adolescence ...

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#23. Annihilation (2018)

Storyline: A biologist's husband disappears. She puts her name forward for an expedition into an environmental disaster zone, but does not find what she's expecting. The expedition team is made up of the biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist, a surveyor, and a linguist.

Plot Keywords: coma, expedition, lighthouse, based on novel, female protagonist, dna, secret mission ...

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#24. Black Snake Moan (2006)

Storyline: In rural Tennessee, Lazarus, a former blues musician who survives by truck farming, finds a young girl nearly beaten to death near his home. She's the white-trash town tramp, molded by a life of sexual abuse at the hands of her father and verbal abuse from her mother, who seems to delight in reminding Rae of her mistake in not aborting her. Lazarus, who is also facing personal crisis at the dissolution of his marriage, nurses Rae back to health, providing her with gentle, fatherly advice as well as an education in blues music. Rae's boyfriend, Ronnie, goaded by the man who nearly beat Rae to death, misunderstands the relationship between Lazarus and Rae, and vows to kill him. Lazarus, exhibiting a street-smart understanding of violence and its motives, calls Ronnie's bluff, senses that he is as troubled as Rae, and becomes a guiding force in the young couple's resurrection.

Plot Keywords: nymphomaniac, panties, nudity, nipples visible through clothing, scantily clad female, rear entry sex, white panties ...

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#25. Joe (2013)

Storyline: In order to provide for his destitute family of drifters, a likable, sincere, able-bodied 15-year-old boy comes to hire on among a burned-out ex-con's group of aging forest laborers. As the man becomes more and more aware of the boy's abusive home life, his deeply buried humanity is roused. Drinking and smoking incessantly to remain detached from his volatile temper, he finally takes the matter into his own hands - come what may - when the boy's alcoholic father finally goes too far.

Plot Keywords: alcoholic, teenager, murder, 15 year old, teenage boy, father son relationship, woods ...

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#27. ...E tu vivrai nel terrore! L'aldilà (1981)

Storyline: The cellar of an old hotel is built on top of the door to the beyond. Bloody zombies roam there. A young woman who is heir of the hotel wants to restaurate it. She is confronted with strange events. A painter has a lethal fall, the plumber vanishes and her friend breaks his neck. When she escapes to the hospital of a friendly doctor she doesn't know what a nightmare is waiting there...

Plot Keywords: hell, spider, eye gouging, surrealism, tarantula, blindness, cult director ...

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#28. Bernie (2011)

Storyline: We meet Bernie Tiede (1958- ), a chubby undertaker, who takes pride in his work. He's a Gospel-singing tenor. In a series of interviews with townspeople, mixed with flashbacks, we follow Bernie: he arrives in Carthage, Texas (pop. 7,000), where old ladies adore him; he befriends a wealthy, mean-spirited widow named Marjorie Nugent; they become companions in both daily routines and expensive vacations. Among those interviewed, only her stockbroker and Danny Buck, the local district attorney, are unsympathetic toward the sunny, sometimes saccharine Bernie. Marjorie changes from sour and alone to happy with Bernie; then she gets possessive. What will sweet Bernie do?

Plot Keywords: based on article, murder trial, funeral home, based on true story, airplane, older woman younger man relationship, church service ...

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#30. Killer Joe (2011)

Storyline: Finding himself in considerable debt, Chris, a Texan drug dealer, decides the only solution is to murder his mother to collect the insurance money. Getting together with his father, the ex-husband of Chris' mother, they decide to hire Joe Cooper (a contract killer) who also happens to be a police detective. The plan is that the money will go to Chris' sister Dottie. However due to the size of the contract fee, Chris agrees that Joe can take Dottie as a retainer until the insurance comes through.

Plot Keywords: female pubic hair, lingerie, pubic hair, female rear nudity, fellatio, rear entry sex, pink panties ...

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