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Kwaidan poster

Movies that feel likeKwaidan (1965)

Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup.

If you loved Kwaidan, the closest films we have are Viy (1967), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) and Faust (1926). All three share Kwaidan's dread and unsettling feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Poison for the Fairies (1986).

🍅 91% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.9 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Masaki Kobayashidreadunsettlingdreamlikecontemplative
11 of 12 streaming nowHBO Max · Amazon Prime Video · Criterion Channel

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If Kwaidan hit the spot, these will too

Viy poster
Viy
1967 · dir. Georgi Kropachyov
🍅 88%★ 7.1drama · fantasy · horror

Both land dread and unease at once

A seminary student on monastery holiday kills an old witch in a remote village. The hag then transforms into a beautiful young woman whose dying wish is for him to watch over her wake for three nights. With terrors occurring and his faith waning, he reads prayers on the overnight watch and tries to survive the supernatural encounters.

The Picture of Dorian Gray poster
The Picture of Dorian Gray
1945 · dir. Albert Lewin
🍅 94%★ 7.5drama · horror · fantasy

Dreamlike where it counts, contemplative underneath

The difference: 20 years apart, and the 1940s show

A handsome young man trades his soul so that his portrait ages while he stays eternally young.

Faust poster
Faust
1926 · dir. F. W. Murnau
🍅 91%★ 8.1fantasy · drama · horror

Horror built on dread, twice over

Murnau’s epic adaptation of Goethe’s tragedy stands with Fritz Lang’s Metropolis among the supreme achievements of German silent cinema. Gösta Ekman plays the alchemist who, his faith shaken in a time of plague, is offered the gift of healing and eternal youth… in exchange for his soul.

The Phantom Carriage poster
The Phantom Carriage
1921 · dir. Victor Sjöström
🍅 100%★ 8drama · fantasy · horror

Fantasy with a pulse of unease, in both cases

An alcoholic, abusive ne'er-do-well is shown the error of his ways through a legend that dooms the last person to die on New Year's Eve before the clock strikes twelve to take the reins of Death's chariot and work tirelessly collecting fresh souls for the next year.

Kill, Baby... Kill! poster
Kill, Baby... Kill!
1966 · dir. Mario Bava
★ 6.8horrorPrime Video

One thread runs through both: ghost

The difference: Trades the dream logic of Kwaidan for an angle of its own

A 20th century European village is haunted by the ghost of a murderous little girl.

Poison for the Fairies poster
Poison for the Fairies
1986 · dir. Carlos Enrique Taboada
★ 7.2fantasy · horror

Both lean on dream logic more than on drama

In 1965 Mexico City, Flavia, a wealthy yet lonely schoolgirl, befriends Veronica, a young orphan girl who has a fascination with witchcraft. Veronica convinces Flavia that she is a real witch and forces her to be her assistant. The children's games gradually become more serious and Veronica demands more from Flavia.

November poster
November
2017 · dir. Rainer Sarnet
🍅 93%★ 7.1drama · fantasy · romance

Contemplative horror in both cases

The difference: Sits closer to romance than Kwaidan does

In a poor Estonian village, a group of peasants use magic and folk remedies to survive the winter, and a young woman tries to get a young man to love her.

Onibaba poster
Onibaba
1964 · dir. Kaneto Shindō
🍅 90%★ 7.8horrorMax

Both keep coming back to the same thing: samurai

While her son, Kichi, is away at war, a woman and her daughter-in-law survive by killing samurai who stray into their swamp, then selling whatever valuables they find. Both are devastated when they learn that Kichi has died, but his wife soon begins an affair with a neighbor who survived the war, Hachi. The mother disapproves and, when she can't steal Hachi for herself, tries to scare her daughter-in-law with a mysterious mask from a dead samurai.

Tigers Are Not Afraid poster
Tigers Are Not Afraid
2017 · dir. Issa López
🍅 97%★ 6.9fantasy · horrorRent or buy

Common ground: ghost

When her mother suddenly disappears with no one to care for her, young Estrella ends up on the street and joins a gang of children, triggering a dangerous and tragic chain of events.

Tumbbad poster
Tumbbad
2018 · dir. Rahi Anil Barve
🍅 87%★ 8.2fantasy · horrorPrime Video

Dread-soaked fantasy, and it commits to that

India, 1918. On the outskirts of Tumbbad, a cursed village where it always rains, Vinayak, along with his mother and his brother, care of a mysterious old woman who keeps the secret of an ancestral treasure that Vinayak gets obsessed with.

Hour of the Wolf poster
Hour of the Wolf
1968 · dir. Ingmar Bergman
🍅 92%★ 7.5drama · horror

Drama with a pulse of unease, in both cases

While vacationing on a remote German island with his younger pregnant wife, an artist has an emotional breakdown while confronting his repressed desires.

I Walked with a Zombie poster
I Walked with a Zombie
1943 · dir. Jacques Tourneur
🍅 85%★ 7mystery · horror · drama

Both lean on dream logic more than on horror

A nurse in the Caribbean turns to voodoo in hopes of curing her patient, a mindless woman whose husband she's fallen in love with.

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The best-reviewed films that share Kwaidan’s defining feeling.