The five essential Dario Argento movies everyone must see

Watching a Dario Argento movie is an experience unlike any other in cinema history. The man credited with bringing the “giallo” genre to the masses, Argento’s movies have always been uncompromising visions that horrify, titillate, and disorient.

Indeed, to UK audiences, Argento has always seemed like a dangerous proposition. After all, several of his films were branded “Video Nasties” over the years and were banned, which certainly made them seem like forbidden fruit to many British horror fans.

If you’ve never seen an Argento film before and want to know where to start, this list is for you. It features, for our money, four of his best films and one of his weirdest. The last one has a couple of well-known Hollywood stars in it, though, which makes it a neat gateway film for someone who is tentative about entering Argento’s nightmarish world.

Diving into an extensive filmography as stylised as Argento’s can be a frightening ordeal, but that’s just how he would like it. So, put on your black raincoat and pull on those black leather gloves, because it’s time to run down the five essential Dario Argento movies everyone must see.

Five essential Dario Argento movies everyone must see:

Suspiria (1977)

No deep dive into Argento would be complete without watching Suspiria, his most famous and enduring film. If you’ve seen the recent Luca Guadagnino remake, though, you may think you’re already familiar with the tale of a Berlin dance academy run by a coven of witches. You’d be wrong.

You see, the remake is quite different from Argento’s original vision, and that may be because its writer, David Kajganich, wasn’t a fan of the 1977 movie. Kajganich’s loss is every Argento fan’s gain, though, because Suspiria is a masterpiece of supernatural horror.

Unlike Argento’s giallos, which tend to feature a black-clad serial killer stalking women, Suspiria is a colourful, vibrant, harrowing tour de force that looks beautiful in its atrocity. It’s kind of like if a painter decided to change his canvas to film, but then proceeded to paint his nightmares.

Deep Red (1975)

If you have seen James Wan’s insane 2021 horror flick Malignant, then you need to do yourself a favour by watching Deep Red. Wan has always waxed lyrical about how much influence he has taken in his career from Argento, and that influence is laid bare for all to see in Malignant, which is more giallo than most giallos.

Preposterously, because of the ‘Video Nasty’ craze in the UK, gore fiends on the British Isles wouldn’t be able to legally watch this film until 2003 – a mammoth 28 years after its original release in 1975. Thankfully, it was worth the wait, as it showcased Argento working at his most visually and aurally inventive, with truly gruesome kill scenes to match.

The film is absurd and abstract at times, painting Rome as some kind of nightmarish dreamscape instead of the beautiful tourist attraction most films have depicted it as. It’s disorienting and hypnotic in equal measure and features some of the most truly depraved deaths in any of Argento’s movies. All in all, then, it’s a must-see.

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)

Argento popularised the genre of giallo with this gruesome 1970 classic, and anyone interested in the man’s work needs to watch it. It follows an American writer, played by Tony Musante, who witnesses the horrifying attempted murder of a woman in a Rome art gallery by a figure clad in a black raincoat and black gloves. He becomes obsessed with stopping the killer before they can strike again.

This film’s opening art gallery scene is genuinely iconic, and it’s fascinating to go back and watch something that brought an entire genre to wider notice worldwide. At its best, Crystal Plumage sees Argento ratcheting up suspense to almost unbearable levels in every bit as masterful a way as Alfred Hitchcock would.

The film has one of the best Argento endings, featuring a twist that re-contextualises everything the audience has seen. It’s also much, much better than the following two entries in Argento’s thematic animal trilogy, The Cat o’ Nine Tails and Four Flies on Grey Velvet.

Tenebrae (1982)

Tenebrae was released in Italy in 1982, but it was not legally available in the UK until 1999. It’s a fascinating film, as it’s hard not to see the plot as a metafictional reaction from Argento to the many criticisms he had faced about violence toward women in his films. Even if you don’t want to indulge in a reading of the film’s thematic concerns and deeper meanings, though, it’s simply one of Argento’s most thrilling and grisly films.

Does the story of an American novelist searching for a serial killer in Rome sound familiar? Tenebrae asks fascinating questions about the role creatives have to play in influencing real-life violence. After all, the film’s writer, Peter Neal, believes the killer has been inspired to murder by his latest book, so he feels a responsibility to take part in apprehending him.

Perhaps the most memorable part of Tenebrae is the incredible crane shot that Argento uses to show the murder of a lesbian couple. The tracking shot lasted several minutes, and to accomplish it, Argento’s production team built scaffolding outside the house they were shooting in. The audience watches wonderfully as the camera swoops up the wall, over the roof, and finally settles on the window, peering in at the couple. It’s like Halloween’s opening POV shot on steroids.

Phenomena (1985)

UK horror fans who were around in the mid-’80s might know this bizarre film by a different title, as it was released by New Line Cinema in 1986 as Creepers. Unfortunately, this film version had more than 20 minutes cut from the original version released in Argento’s native Italy, and many scenes were edited in a different order.

It wasn’t an ideal way to watch the last of Argento’s films to receive a major cinematic release, and that’s a shame. You see, while Phenomena is undoubtedly one of Argento’s most bizarre films, it’s also well worth watching. For one thing, Argento himself says this is his favourite of his own filmography, and that may be because of the fantastical muscles he was permitted to flex.

In Phenomena, a teenage Jennifer Connelly plays a student with psychic abilities who becomes embroiled in the mystery of a series of murders at her Swiss boarding school. The film features Connelly – a full year before she shot to fame in Labyrinth – controlling insects with her powers, while Halloween’s Donald Pleasance plays a professor with a pet chimpanzee named Inga, who is pretty handy with a straight razor.

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