Rotten Tomatoes
Cancel Movies Tv shows FanStore News Showtimes

The Witch

Play trailer 2:31 Poster for The Witch R Released Feb 19, 2016 1h 32m Horror History Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
91% Tomatometer 337 Reviews 61% Popcornmeter 25,000+ Ratings
In 1630 New England, panic and despair envelops a farmer, his wife and their children when youngest son Samuel suddenly vanishes. The family blames Thomasin, the oldest daughter who was watching the boy at the time of his disappearance. With suspicion and paranoia mounting, twin siblings Mercy and Jonas suspect Thomasin of witchcraft, testing the clan's faith, loyalty and love to one another.
Watch on Fandango at Home Buy Now

Where to Watch

The Witch

The Witch

What to Know

Critics Consensus

As thought-provoking as it is visually compelling, The Witch delivers a deeply unsettling exercise in slow-building horror that suggests great things for debuting writer-director Robert Eggers.

Read Critics Reviews

Critics Reviews

View All (337) Critics Reviews
Britt Ashley Bitch Media Like any good horror film, The Witch is rife with opportunity for allegorical interpretation, and one of the most compelling narratives bubbling beneath surface is the origin story of America itself. Feb 10, 2021 Full Review Steven D. Greydanus Catholic Digest The stakes are real. The Devil is real. All roads do not lead up the mountain. Some lead to the heart of darkness, to the depths of a witch-haunted wood. Rated: A Apr 28, 2017 Full Review Nigel Andrews Financial Times The film starts with wordy wittering and ends by trying to woo our shrieks -- from Arthur Miller to Dennis Wheatley in the shortest time possible between two blunt points. Rated: 2/5 Dec 27, 2016 Full Review JD Duran InSession Film Elevated symbolically with Eggers’ commentary on how fanatical faith is impossible to live up to, and how that churns out something evil, despite its good intentions. All of that is delicately crystallized in the final moments of The Witch... Aug 8, 2024 Full Review Brendan Cassidy InSession Film The Witch has been aesthetically compared to that of The Shining and The Crucible, and it is easy to see why. But that fails to give enough credit where credit is due: Eggers has a unique direction style... Rated: A- Jun 17, 2024 Full Review Eddie Harrison film-authority.com …finishes on a few memorable flourishes, even if it ends roughly where one might have hoped that it would start. Nevertheless, the slow burn is effective, and Eggers deserves credit for ploughing a fresh furrow in the annals of witchcraft film-making… Rated: 3/5 Feb 10, 2024 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (1000+) audience reviews
Violet R Fabulous! Gripping, suspenseful, intelligent. Unforgettable! My favorite new director Rated 5 out of 5 stars 03/24/25 Full Review harry r It's one of the best modern horror movies but it's not your typical horror movie. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 03/16/25 Full Review W C S My eyes were glued to the screen for most of the movie. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 03/08/25 Full Review Jacob B I was afraid that Mr. Eggers would make this little gem and then we’d never hear from him again. I couldn’t be more thrilled that his filmmaking career took off after this, and deservedly so (“NOSFERATU” was outstanding) since he was able to craft, with such a small budget and cast, an incredibly effective chiller. Great horror movies, for me, are more metaphoric rather than literal, they are restrained rather than over the top, they are suggestive rather than in your face, and they are made with a sense of realism to them. Here, a family living on the edge of the unknown wilderness in 1600s New England, slowly begins to unravel. Isolation, religious zealotry, superstition and fear of the unknown are the sources of dread. Eggers seems to instinctively knows how to tap into our almost childhood-like fear of things that go bump in the night, quiet, open spaces, a dark forest…and family. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 03/25/25 Full Review Mary B Another one of this director’s films that ends up being a snoozefest, praised by pseudo-intellectuals who pretend to enjoy it. Once again, his direction and cinematography are undeniably impressive and stunning—like something out of a Rembrandt painting—but the characters and screenplay fall flat. Ultimately, it’s just another visually breathtaking yet painfully dull film, much like the rest of his work. Being visually beautiful doesn’t make it a great movie; it just means he excels at aesthetics. He should stick to visual art and leave filmmaking and screenwriting to someone with real storytelling talent. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 03/06/25 Full Review Leonardo B The Gentle Whispers of Evil. - The short story, the fable, the fantastic tale teach us that there is a huge distance between scare and horror. The former is nothing more than an instrument, often exaggerated, and the seventh art has used it to exhaustion, mostly in its cheapest form: the scare-jump. The latter is the product of an intelligent and elaborate use of narrative resources that, in its best examples, refers to the ancient and paradigmatic oral stories in which the imagination of the good speaker stimulated that of his audience in a skillful framework of words, gestures, and brief, accurate, enigmatic silences. Honoring good horror with overwhelming historical precision, hurtful subtleties and dignified graphic sobriety, Robert Eggers reminds us of the ancient, fearful and forgotten truths of witchcraft, relegating the owner of the Blair Woods to the role of a poor, unpleasant old woman. All the elements that the sub-genre can draw on at its roots flow with terrifying naturalness from the first minutes of a story that makes tension its sharpest tool. The dark forest, possession, human sacrifice, the temptation of the flesh, the pact with evil, the blood rite, the cursed animals, the forbidden book as an evil mirror of the other, which does not seem to help at all, parade in their best finery. But if the convincing acts of witchcraft presented with no modesty before our eyes were not enough to hurt sensibilities, the elegant narrator's pen gives us the horror of a ruthless lifestyle, feeding on a fanaticism that refers to the least lucid ways of facing the most fearsome misfortunes. When evil finds no obstacle, prayers are answered by silence and the righteous pay for sinners, the road to the coven is paved with friendly, gentle whispers. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 03/05/25 Full Review Read all reviews
The Witch

My Rating

Read More Read Less POST RATING WRITE A REVIEW EDIT REVIEW

The Witch

The Witch: Official Clip - I Will Guide Thy Hand The Witch: Official Clip - I Will Guide Thy Hand 2:49 The Witch: Official Clip - Witch's Lair The Witch: Official Clip - Witch's Lair 2:31 The Witch: Official Clip - Witch of the Wood The Witch: Official Clip - Witch of the Wood 3:15 The Witch: Official Clip - Take Me To Thy Lap The Witch: Official Clip - Take Me To Thy Lap 2:57 The Witch: Official Clip - Black Phillip The Witch: Official Clip - Black Phillip 1:51 The Witch: Official Clip - Peek-A-Boo The Witch: Official Clip - Peek-A-Boo 1:55 The Witch: Official Clip - The Apple The Witch: Official Clip - The Apple 2:31 The Witch: Official Clip - Black Magic Madness The Witch: Official Clip - Black Magic Madness 3:39 The Witch: Official Clip - Black Magic Madness The Witch: Official Clip - Black Magic Madness 3:39 The Witch: Official Clip - Take Me to Thy Lap The Witch: Official Clip - Take Me to Thy Lap 2:55 View more videos
Mudbound 97% 85% Mudbound Watchlist TRAILER for Mudbound The Dead Lands 69% 57% The Dead Lands Watchlist Freedom 0% 52% Freedom Watchlist In Dubious Battle 26% 39% In Dubious Battle Watchlist TRAILER for In Dubious Battle The Eyes of My Mother 78% 57% The Eyes of My Mother Watchlist TRAILER for The Eyes of My Mother Discover more movies and TV shows. View More

Movie Info

Synopsis In 1630 New England, panic and despair envelops a farmer, his wife and their children when youngest son Samuel suddenly vanishes. The family blames Thomasin, the oldest daughter who was watching the boy at the time of his disappearance. With suspicion and paranoia mounting, twin siblings Mercy and Jonas suspect Thomasin of witchcraft, testing the clan's faith, loyalty and love to one another.
Director
Robert Eggers
Producer
Jay Van Hoy, Lars Knudsen, Jodi Redmond, Daniel Bekerman, Rodrigo Teixeira
Screenwriter
Robert Eggers
Distributor
A24
Production Co
Parts and Labor
Rating
R (Graphic Nudity|Disturbing Violent Content)
Genre
Horror, History, Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Feb 19, 2016, Wide
Rerelease Date (Theaters)
Apr 1, 2016
Release Date (Streaming)
May 17, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA)
$25.1M
Runtime
1h 32m
Most Popular at Home Now