The Exorcist Movies Ranked

Spoiler alert: this ranking of every movie in the "Exorcist" series concludes with the first film, William Friedkin's 1973 masterpiece about demonic possession and the battle between good and evil, in the top position. Sorry. There was no other way. And it wasn't even close. When the /Film horror braintrust determined the order, it was a runaway. Not a contest. 50 years after it shocked audiences around the world in its initial release, the film remains a triumph of not just horror cinema, but cinema in general. Hundreds of movies have chased it. Very few have even come close to matching it. It's one of the best movies ever made.

But the rest of the series? That's where the debate gets interesting. "The Exorcist" was followed by two divisive initial sequels, both of which have developed a following over the decades. And then there were the two (!) prequels, each of which couldn't be more different from the other, and demand to be watched back-to-back and compared endlessly. And then there's "The Exorcist: Believer," director David Gordon Green's attempt to ignore all of the other sequels and make a follow-up to just the original movie. 

A locked-in-the-canon masterpiece. Some off-kilter follow-ups. A handful of big swings. A few truly terrible misses. And a lot of overlap in those descriptions. What a weird franchise. What an odd collection of movies. They defy a traditional ranking. But rank them we must. 

The story behind the making of "Exorcist: The Beginning" is more fascinating than the final movie. After Paul Schrader's character-driven, methodically paced, and, quite frankly, extremely not-scary attempt at making an "Exorcist" prequel failed to impress the studio, Warner Bros. chose the nuclear option. They scrapped Schrader's film entirely (but eventually released it straight to video, as this list attests) and hired schlock-master Renny Harlin to film a new movie from scratch, using the same basic premise — Father Merrin's first encounter with a demonic presence — and some of the same actors. The result is surreal if you watch both films back-to-back. "Exorcist: The Beginning" is slick and stupid and action-packed and loaded with silly B-movie nonsense. It has none of the raw nerve and chilly menace that makes the first film a masterpiece ... but it's also confident enough in its brazen stupidity to prove weirdly winning at times. A Harlin speciality.

There are definite pleasures to be had here. Stellan Skarsgård is inspired casting as a young Merrin, and he slides into "strapping action hero priest" mode with aplomb. The film's period setting lends the film's hokey horror a throwback aura, like something you'd see sandwiched between Actually Good Universal and Hammer horror films in an all-night marathon. But anyone hoping for a movie that can live up to the franchise name will be rightfully disappointed. This is junk food, which makes it the worst "Exorcist" movie by default. (Jacob Hall)

In a scene from "The Exorcist: The Version You've Never Seen," Father Merrin surmises the reason for Pazuzu's possession of the innocent Regan, saying that "I think the point is to make us despair." Indeed, just as the overwhelming power of the demon undoes Merrin in the end, it seems director David Gordon Green and his collaborators were similarly intimidated at the idea of following up William Friedkin's mighty horror classic, as "The Exorcist: Believer" is a curiously muted affair for a horror film. With such missteps as a rushed second act, a too-hidden demonic antagonist, and Ellen Burstyn returning as Chris MacNeil only to be stabbed in the face and bow out of most of the movie, "Believer" asks too much of the franchise's faithful.

Which is a shame, because there's a lot of underrated material to still be found in the film. The first half is wonderfully constructed, approaching the supernatural with at least as much eerie, grounded aplomb as "The X-Files" or "Millennium." Leslie Odom Jr., Ann Dowd and the possessed girls (Lidya Jewett and Olivia O'Neill) give fantastic performances. Green brings a fascinatingly secular (or at least generally spiritual) theme to the series, opining that Catholicism may not (perhaps even should not) be the only force that can battle Evil, and that in an age where our differences continue to violently divide us, humanity's strength can still be found in the love and acceptance of others. The film may not make any new converts, but, like Fox Mulder, it could make you want to believe. (Bill Bria)

Let's get one thing out of the way: Paul Schrader is a madman, but there's a reason "The Exorcist" author William Peter Blatty once called "Dominion: A Prequel to The Exorcist" "a handsome, classy, elegant piece of work." Is the film particularly scary? Heaven's no, but it is a fascinating examination of the appeal of demonic power, and the hypocrisy inherent in humanity. It's difficult not to discuss one "Exorcist" prequel without the other, considering their intertwined production histories, but "Dominion" is a much more mature film with a vested interest in the life of Father Lankester Merrin before Regan MacNeil came into the picture, when the demon Pazuzu ironically helped him find his faith once more.

The strength and longevity of the original "Exorcist" was never solely on the shoulders of its scares, but of the relatable human elements that pulled empathy from deep within viewers. "Dominion" takes a similar approach, and the film's willingness to embrace the emotional turmoil that comes with human issues like guilt and self-doubt, all against the backdrop of divine questioning, is its strength. Rather than rely on a bevy of jump scares or gross-out moments, there's an atmospheric stillness and overwhelming sense of dread that follows from frame to frame. That said, the production woes that surround the film are unignorable, and one of the greatest "what if" stories in horror history will forever be what could have been Schrader's uninterrupted vision. (BJ Colangelo)

How do you make a sequel to "The Exorcist?" If you're John Boorman, you make the hardest of left turns. Too hard for many; "Exorcist" director William Friedkin and writer William Peter Blatty treated the film like it was made by Pazuzu himself, and there was one alleged screening where an angry preview audience chased Warner Bros. execs down the street. Like Boorman's similarly metaphysics-soaked parable, "Zardoz," "The Heretic" is a lot to take in: locusts! A tap-dancing Regan! A kooky hypnosis device called a "synchronizer"! Unintentionally camp dialogue! Ennio Morricone's hip, haunting score!

Thing is, "The Heretic" never once attempts to beat "The Exorcist" at its own game. Instead, it uses the first film as a jumping off point to explore completely new concepts and ideas, some of which stem from the theories of Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who was Blatty's inspiration for the character of Father Merrin. It seeks to go beyond the first film's old-world religious concepts, becoming a very New Age '70s attempt to reconcile technology and the supernatural. Boorman, who was soon to mount a great adaptation of the Arthurian legend in "Excalibur," makes "The Heretic" more fantasy than horror, revealing that Regan's possession was due to a sort of prophecy, as she is one of a number of people who hold the key to humanity's evolution.

In just about every way possible, from tone to aesthetics to theme, "The Heretic" is not a sequel but is a movie all its own. If that thrills you more than annoys you, you may be a visionary heretic yourself. (Bill Bria)

One of the best things a horror movie can do is give you as little story or context as possible for its scares. Defamiliarize the audience before you dunk them in an ice bath of fear. "The Exorcist III" does the exact opposite, yet still manages to feel singular, unfathomable, and unforgettable.

Directed by William Peter Blatty 17 years after the release of William Friedkin's original film and nearly 20 after Blatty himself wrote the novel, "The Exorcist III" picks up where the first leaves off, gracefully skirting the bizarro events of the "Exorcist II: The Heretic." I won't waste words describing what happens in this film — Gemini killer, decapitated children, Father Karras (kind of) back from the dead, possessed Brad Dourif — because what Blatty shows isn't what matters, but how he shows it.

"The Exorcist III" tolls like a massive, solemn bell, throbbing with inarticulable symbolic power. Blatty drenches George C. Scott's Lt. Kinderman in crimson and indigo-hued shadows, his eyes flared in horror as he catches infinitesimally fleeting glimpses of the true face of evil. From the discordant, crescendoing music by Barry de Vorzon, to cinematographer Gerry Fisher's sweeping, glacial pans and vertiginous crash zooms, to Blatty's brilliant decision to cast tons of studio-era stars in supporting roles (Teresa Wright, Viveca Lindfors, Harry Carey Jr., etc), "The Exorcist III" wields a similar disturbing, totemic energy against its audience to what the monolith in "2001: A Space Odyssey" and the carnival in "Carnival of Souls" wield against their characters.

"The Exorcist III" allowed Blatty to restore the centrality of faith that Friedkin unceremoniously (or economically, depending how you look at it) cut from the franchise. But the root of its power to terrify lies beyond faith, and beyond good and evil too. (Ryan Coleman)

What is there left to be said about "The Exorcist"? William Friedkin's 1973 film is horror royalty; a classic in every sense of the word. It's so ingrained into our pop culture that it can be easy to overlook how pitch-perfect, how seismic, how important it really is. There's an almost unbearable realism to the film; a sense that this is all really happening in the real world, somehow. At this point, anyone making an exorcism or possession movie is just apeing what Friedkin did here, and the results are never anywhere near as good. Part of that is because the shock factor is gone — we've seen it done already, and done well. 

But another reason no one has ever been able to replicate what "The Exorcist" does is that the film treats its subject matter seriously, never winking. The human drama is just as important as the horror — the characters, every last one of them, from poor possessed Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) to Jason Miller's weary priest Damien Karras, feel genuine, authentic, lived-in. They're real people thrust into an unreal situation, unable to fully grasp the horror they're experiencing. It's as much about people dealing with their own problems — work, family, faith — as it is about demonic possession. And the film feels just as vital and fresh now as it did when it first arrived — decades of parody and imitation have not dulled its sharp edges. (Chris Evangelista)