20 Vampire Movies You Should Watch After 'Sinners'

Vampire movies rarely win Oscars, or so it seemed. In the early '90s, Bram Stoker's Dracula earned prizes for its costumes and makeup, and the 2000 meta horror comedy Shadow of the Vampire scored a couple of nominations, but that's about it—despite the influence of the genre stretching all the way back to 1922's Nosferatu . Until now. Sinners, writer/director Ryan Coogler's critical and box office powerhouse, is an unashamedly high-minded genre flick. Set largely in 1932, it follows twin brothers (both played by Michael B. Jordan) returning to their backwater hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi to establish a juke joint while navigating old relationships and dealing with the Klan leader who owns the sawmill they are looking to buy. By the midway point, these more grounded elements feed into a larger narrative that blends magical realism, action, and bloodsucking horror. Its thoroughly distinctive vision earned it 16 Oscar nominations —a record for any movie, let alone one featuring supernatural monsters. As a result, naming a true streamalike for Sinners is tough, but taking a slightly broader view, I've assembled this list of 20 movies that twist undead lore into wildly different, consistently surprising stories. You May Also Like Byzantium (2012) A couple of decades after Interview with the Vampire , Neil Jordan teamed up with writer Moira Buffini, who adapted her own play. Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan play mother and daughter vampires Clara and Eleanor, simultaneously predators and prey to a group of vampires with different ideas about how to live in the modern world. On the run, the pair starts over in a run-down seaside resort town, taking jobs at the title's dilapidated Byzantium Hotel. There, they recount centuries of their lives as vampires, and as women moving alone through the world, in life and in death. Jordan blends striking realism into an operatic (and occasionally incredibly violent) narrative. It's a thoroughly mature horror story. Stream Byzantium on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video . Byzantium (2012) at Prime Video Learn More Learn More at Prime Video Ganja & Hess (1973) A meditative, sultry, and entirely experimental horror film, writer/director Bill Gunn's Ganja stars Duane Jones ( Night of the Living Dead ) as Dr. Hess Green, who is attacked by his assistant with a knife belonging to a fictional ancient African tribe. He’s subsequently compelled to drink the blood of his assailant, an act that completes his vampiric transformation. Shortly thereafter, the assistant’s wife shows up looking for her husband and, even once she realizes what happened, begins a love affair with the doctor. Stylish and deliberately paced (a lot of vibes; a little plot), the movie has some smart, and very barbed, points to make about assimilation and religious hypocrisy. Spike Lee remade it in 2014 as Da Sweet Blood of Jesus but, with respect to Lee, you're much better off with the original. Stream Ganja & Hess on The Criterion Channel and Kanopy or rent it from Prime Video . Ganja & Hess (1973) at Prime Video Learn More Learn More at Prime Video A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) Iranian-American writer/director Ana Lily Amirpour's A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night would make a list of cool vampire movies on its gorgeous black-and-white style alone: Gliding down the streets of an Iranian town in her chador, The Girl (Sheila Vand) cuts an iconic figure, even when we learn that her eerie way of movement has to do with a concealed skateboard. But Amirpour has a lot of fun with the idea that a girl traveling a deserted street in the dark might be a threat far more than a potential victim, and that a chador might be less a symbol of oppression than a means of staying concealed until the moment comes to strike. Stream A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night on Kanopy or rent it from Prime Video and Apple TV+ . A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) at Prime Video Learn More Learn More at Prime Video Dracula's Daughter (1936) Like father, like daughter in this direct sequel to the Bela Lugosi film, with Countess Marya Zaleska (Gloria Holden, in full Garbo mode) running afoul of Edward Van Sloan's Van Helsing from the original. The two vampires share in common not just an archnemesis, but an eye for the ladies, as well, with Countess Zaleska seducing first despondent Lili and then kidnapping Janet. What it lacks in style (not being nearly a match for Todd Browning's film in that regard) it makes up for in sheer horniness. Producers and censors were nervous about the lesbian of it all in the lead-up to the film's release, but also chose to hype it up in the marketing, especially with the very on-the-nose tagline: "Save the women of London from Dracula's Daughter!" Rent Dracula's Daughter from Prime Video . Dracula's Daughter (1936) at Prime Video Learn More Learn More at Prime Video Bit (2019) Nicole Maines ( Supergirl ) stars here as Laurel, a trans teenage girl who's off to sunn