#certainly lost boys belongs on this list but somehow I still haven't seen it

[chthonic-cassandra]

Corollary to the important Dracula movies post, here's a more general recommended and/or representative vampire movie curriculum; there's some overlap between the two lists, of course.

This list does include my personal favorite vampire movies and sometimes it's skewed a little to my taste rather than to what's most important in the genre, but I also think it's 25 movies that would make a pretty interesting education in vampire film.

1922-1964 (fundamental, genre-defining)

Nosferatu (dir. F.W. Murnau, 1922)

Dracula (dir. Tod Browning, 1931)

Vampyr (dir. Carl Th. Dreyer, 1932)

Dracula's Daughter (dir. Lambert Hillyer, 1936)

Dracula/Horror of Dracula (dir. Terrence Fisher, 1958)

The Last Man on Earth (dir. Sidney Salkow, 1964)

1970-1982 (experimentation in multiple directions)

The Nude Vampire (dir. Jean Rollin, 1970)

The Vampire Lovers (dir. Roy Ward Baker, 1970)

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (dir. Jaromil Jires, 1970)

Daughters of Darkness (dir. Harry Kumel, 1971)

The Velvet Vampire (dir. Stephanie Rothman, 1971)

Dracula A.D. 1972 (dir. Alan Gibson, 1972)

Ganja & Hess (dir. Bill Gunn, 1973)

Blood for Dracula (dir. Paul Morissey, 1974)

Dracula (dir. John Badham, 1979)

Nosferatu (dir. Werner Herzog, 1979)

Fascination (dir. Jean Rollin, 1979)

The Living Dead Girl (dir. Jean Rollin, 1982)

1983-present (the contemporary vampire film, of various types)

The Hunger (dir. Tony Scott, 1983)

Near Dark (dir. Kathryn Bigelow, 1987)

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1992)

Interview with the Vampire (dir. Neil Jordan, 1994)

Shadow of the Vampire (dir. E. Elias Merhige, 2000)

Let the Right One In (dir. Thomas Alfredson, 2008)

Thirst (dir. Park Chan-Wook, 2009)

Byzantium (dir. Neil Jordan, 2012)