Eternal life has been mortals' quest since, well, for eternity really. The concept of living to see every advancement of human society has splintered into literature and folklore in many different ways. Perhaps the most beloved lore that’s been spun out of eternal life has been the vampire. The vampire is probably most appealing because the vampire isn’t hugely enviable, so it’s not a wish-fulfillment fantasy. To maintain eternal life they must pierce the neck and suck the blood of a living human. They can’t go out during the daytime. They can’t even go into someone’s home without being invited. It’s a lonely existence that also keeps the thrill of the hunt and the thrill of keeping a secret.

Because vampires exist in the folklore of almost every society on Earth, it’s only natural that it’d be a story expressed in nearly every language and thus, films around the world. There have been some absolutely great vampire movies. There have also been a lot of duds. Each century of filmmaking has experienced more than one peak vampire moment, where the lore needed to be recycled into something fresh and new, before totally sucking. It’s appropriate. Just like many of the vampires on this list have to adapt to the times, so do the films themselves.

Here are the 28 best vampire movies that are not a Dracula story. Yes, Bram Stoker's classic novel and the many adaptations it has spawned are nothing short of iconic. But they have been discussed and praised at length. So, we wanted to take this list as an opportunity to shout out some movies that may have been bumped off had we included all of the Dracula adaptations. This comes at the perfect time as the TV adaptations of Vampire Academy and Interview WIth the Vampire are just around the corner.

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Carmilla (2019)

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Image Via Republic Film Distribution

Despite being one of the most influential vampire stories ever written, and directly inspiring dozens of movies over the decades, it took until 2019 for Carmilla to get an adaptation that acknowledged its roots. This movie takes the classical vampire setting of 19th-century English mansions and forests and puts a more modernly-oriented spin on the narrative of Sheridan Le Fanu’s book. A sheltered young woman’s life is changed forever when the mysterious Carmilla is brought to her house to recover from an accident. Although nowhere near as grizzly or as sexy as the many lesbian vampire movies of the ‘60s and ‘70s that Le Fanu’s work inspired, it is an interesting take on the material with dialed-up focus on personal growth and development. - Luna Guthrie

The Lost Boys (1987)

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Image Via Warner Bros.

This absolute classic courtesy of Joel Schumacher and his trademark pizzazz is a must for any vampire fan. Brothers Sam (Corey Haim) and Michael (Jason Patric) move to a beach town with unusually high murder rates, where Michael gets absorbed into a gang of youths who Sam comes to realize are vampires. He recruits the help of some local kids to bring the nightmare to an end in outrageous, gore-splattered fashion. The crème de la crème of the ‘80s acting world are accounted for, including Kiefer Sutherland, the Two Coreys, and the always delightful Dianne Wiest, and combined with a brilliant soundtrack, fabulous costumes, and a really fun script, The Lost Boys is always a rip-roaring watch.

Fright Night (1985)

Chris Sarandon as a vampire in Fright Night
Image via Columbia Pictures

Fright Night is a gleeful connector between the cinema of voyeurism that Brian De Palma had perfected at the beginning of the 80s—with films like Body Double, Blow Out and Dressed to Killand the teen comedy that consistently pitted the less popular boys and girls against their accomplished counterparts. Oh and it features a delightfully hammy performance from Roddy McDowall as an actor who kills vampires on TV and is sought by our teens (William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse, Stephen Geoffreys) to vanquish the suave vampire (Chris Sarandon) who lives next door, taunting them by having a new female (victim) over every night. Tom Holland’s film was better as a 2011 remake, but the original is a nice time capsule that used horror as the connection to adolescence and peeping. — Brian Formo

Vampires (1998)

Thomas Ian Griffith as Valek hovering on the ceiling above Sheryl Lee as Katrina in John Carpenter's Vampires (1998)
Image via Sony Pictures Releasing

The second best of John Carpenter’s interesting but largely dramatically lacking 1990s output, Vampires expresses a kind of hard-nosed brand of bad-assery that other directors have attempted to pull off but few have ever even brushed up against. James Woods is Jack Crow, the leader of a gang of vampire slayers who are all but wiped out completely when they come up against Jan Valek (The Karate Kid Part 3’s Thomas Ian Griffith), a powerful bloodsucker looking for a talisman that will allow him to walk freely in sunlight. There’s no attempt to make Crow into a role model. There’s not even a minute trace of sentimentality in the production on the whole really, and it’s that simplistic, skeptical perspective that gives Vampires its undeniable edge. The film is shot well, strewn with good use of gore and impactful action sequences, and sports a solid cast that also includes Mark Boone Jr., Sheryl Lee, and Maximilian Schell. All that’s great, but it’s near-textural feeling of Carpenter’s mind at work in every frame that makes Vampires unique in a sub-genre that so often feels plain. – Chris Cabin

Byzantium (2012)

Saoirse Ronan in Byzantium

Neil Jordan has double-dipped in the vampire genre, and although his Interview With the Vampire (more on that later) is his most well-known work, we want to give his other vampire movie, Byzantium, some well-deserved recognition. Handsome as Interview is, and important for showing the eternal sadness of vampirism, Byzantium bares more of its soul. It’s one of the few films that show vampires not as upper-class blood drainers, but as members of a scrappy lower class.

Told from the viewpoint of a forever young vampire (Saoirse Ronan)—who only preys on those already at death's door—she writes about her vampire mother (Gemma Arterton) as half tragic, half inspiring because she's a woman who's never been able to evolve beyond the world's oldest profession (selling her body), but who also chose to become a vampiric being when that was reserved solely for men. Jordan's film is eerie, feminist, and a bit meandering. What Jordan excels at with Byzantium is elaborately displaying blood—from decapitations, waterfalls, and bandages—with a can't-look-away voyeurism POV. Blood has never looked so enticing—nor has the vampire's desire to feast and bathe in it—than in this film. — Brian Formo

Thirst (2009)

Thirst 2009

Fans of Park Chan-wook may have been blindsided by Thirst. I certainly was. After creating two of the best South Korean movies ever made in the aughts with Oldboy and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Chan-wook unleashed Lady Vengeance, in which the violence continued to be pummeling yet critical and the turns of the plot remained unpredictable. What changed was the humor, which was far more buoyant, bordering on animated, in Lady Vengeance.

This new tactic has become part of his stylistic habits as a writer and director, and Thirst was the first time where it felt like he was pushing his style into an entirely new realm of thought and perspective. This tale of a sinful priest who turns bloodsucker and begins a rapturous, intensely physical relationship with the woman he feasts on is tonally audacious as well as formally rigorous. Chan-wook’s unpredictable editing has rarely been so subversive in its discombobulating effect on the linear narrative but he’s more patient than one might realize. When the woman becomes more confident in her state than the man, Thirst becomes genuinely unsettling and frightening in its mapping of their sexual relationship. The result of all of this is at once a cracking satire of gender roles and sexism as well as a ravishing, blood-soaked vampire story for the ages. – Chris Cabin

What We Do in the Shadows (2014)

What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
Image Via Unison/Paladin

Finally, someone breathes new life into the vampire genre! What We Do in the Shadows is a mockumentary about four vampire flatmates and it takes an absolutely delightful approach to explorrng creature clichés in a deadpan, reality show-like manner. Viago (Taika Waititi), Vlad (Jemaine Clement), Deacon (Jonathan Brugh) and Petyr (Ben Fransham) all turned during different time periods, which leads to some brilliant spins on familiar issues like doing the dishes, getting into nightclubs, adapting to new technology and so much more. The only unfortunate thing about What We Do in the Shadows is that it clocks in at a mere 86 minutes. Between the winning jokes and the wildly charming friendships between the characters, it's no wonder that it spawned a TV adaptation. — Perri Nemiroff

Fright Night (2011)

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Image via DreamWorks

It’s (really not all that) Controversial Opinion Time! Though there’s plenty of charm and humor to the original Fright Night, the movie, on the whole, is not the most enthralling vampire flick. It looks like a sitcom, the acting is strictly competent, and if there are scary scenes, I’ve missed them three times now, after a variety of people insisted I give it a second shot. You can’t win them all. It’s all the more reason to sing the praises of Craig Gillespie’s remake of the film, starring the late Anton Yelchin (it’s still not easy to type that) as the young man who begins suspecting that his neighbor is a vampire.

Chris Sarandon’s vampire was the best part of the original film and Colin Farrell’s aggressive, playful performance as the vampire who wants a taste of Yelchin’s character’s mom (Toni Collette) nearly steals this entire movie away as well, but Gillespie is too restless an artist to let that happen. He evinces a dark sheen that never tips over to grimness, working with a lot of magic-hour lighting and night scenes, in which aesthetic beauty mixes with elusive acts of horror. The filmmaker is also smart to give the movie some comedic relief via David Tennant’s magic man, and Farrell rightly makes his vampire’s seduction skills the most prominent power in his arsenal. In this version of Fright Night, he’s the rupturing vision of what the planned community where the film is set tries to cover up, namely a good, healthy thrill that could take your life under the right circumstances or, more accurately, if he skips a feeding one day. – Chris Cabin

Ganja & Hess (1973)

Ganja & Hess (1973)
Image Via Kelly-Jordan Enterprises

Nothing on this list is even half as formally audacious and politically furious as Bill Gunn’s racially woke vampire tale, set in the world of affluent black Americans in the 1970s. The movie, which takes place largely in the palace-like abode of Ganja (Marlene Clark), a wealthy widow, has the feeling of falling under a spell, and that’s how the film conveys the allure and feeling of transformation that vampires go through. Her relationship with Hess (Night of the Living Dead's Duane Jones), a vampiric anthropologist who has a remarkable hold on his powers, is short-lived but mesmerizing in its distinct view of race and history. Here, Hess is turned by a Myrthian dagger, by Ganja’s husband (Gunn himself), which came from an ancient tribe of African bloodsuckers. The suggestion is that, for all his intellectual knowledge of the history of his people, he hasn’t fully felt the anger of what’s happened to Africans over the years, until the dagger hits him.

Gunn explores the transformation and way of being in ways that touch on painful, complex history and societal issues that are hard to move off the table. It might take a while for the full effect of the film’s thoughtful thematic underbelly and attentiveness to behavior to register, but they inarguably add to the seductive, unyielding pull of the film. Decades later, there’s no movie that looks even remotely like this and the number of oddities at its artistic caliber is minuscule. – Chris Cabin

Bonus Mention: Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, Spike Lee's remake of Ganja & Hess is also definitely worth a watch; Lee's remake reflects his feelings as a wealthy older Black American but also goes as far as to tie his own obsession with style and his own artistry with his monstrous emotional side. The movie is dry to be sure, but it’s a fascinatingly skeletal melodrama, powered by an anxious fury, a rueful genius, and palpable self-excoriation.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014)

Vampire girl showing her teeth

A glowing example of indie filmmaking with passion, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night started out as a crowdfunded project and quickly gained a reputation as one of the best independent horrors of recent years. This gorgeous Persian-language flick is a compelling blend of Western and horror, about a desolate ghost town in Iran that is stalked by a young female vampire. She forms a bond with a troubled young man and tries to right a few of the wrongs in his life. Writer/director Ana Lily Amirpour makes a truly stunning début with this stylish black-and-white crime thriller and continues her collaboration with actress Sheila Vand in the role of the titular Girl. - Luna Guthrie

Vampire's Kiss (1988)

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The cult that sprung up around Nicolas Cage in the wake of him going more the way of B-movies isn’t surprising and shouldn’t be laughed away. Cage’s energy, when summoned in the right direction, is a thing to behold and anyone who has seen David Lynch’s Wild at Heart will attest to that fact. There are plenty of other performances that showcase that magnetic allure in intensity, and one of the top ones would have to be this late 1980s whatsit. After a strange encounter, Cage’s financial pinhead begins believing he’s turning into a vampire and his belief in the tenants of vampire lore takes him into dark corners of his psyche. Cage, bless him, goes all in on the deranged character and his intensity powers this wicked and wickedly funny satire of 1980s financial mentality. Any other actor arrives in this role, and it’s a clever but innocuous curiosity that gets whispered about at conventions. With Cage flailing around and fully conveying the unhinged side of belief, Vampire’s Kiss deserves a reputation as much a great cult movie as it is simply a great movie. – Chris Cabin

Interview With the Vampire (1994)

Tom Cruise as Lestat with Kristen Stewart as Claudia in Interview with the Vampire
Image via Warner Bros.

Neil Jordan’s take on Anne Rice’s bestselling novel is a more gothic and mournful entry in the vampire subgenre. Brad Pitt plays a vampire in modern-day San Francisco who tells the story of his life, death, and afterlife to a young journalist. It is a philosophical look at the fate of a vampire and explores the emotions of those condemned to eternity. Tom Cruise packs a punch as fellow vampire Lestat, Kirsten Dunst makes her breakout role as their adopted child, and a supporting cast including Antonio Banderas, Stephen Rea, and Christian Slater make it a rich, engaging story that is well-acted, wonderfully scored, and full of all the dark, twisted fantasy Jordan is best known for. The TV adaptation arrives on AMC on October 2nd - Luna Guthrie

Daughters of Darkness (1971)

With nudity and sexual proclivity loosened across the first world’s film boards, the vampire film finally got to embrace the eroticism of the genre in the 70s. For the past few decades, there have been many sex films involving the vampire; Belgium’s Daughters of Darkness is the most artful and moody of the spicy lot. There’s a flower-eating "mother," a mysterious man on a bicycle, and an ornate Transylvanian hotel. In the hotel, a Countess (Delphine Seyrig) and her assistant (Andrea Rau) lament that their world hardly has any remaining virgins, and thus, the Countess’ ritual of bathing in the blood of 800 virgins for her healthy sheen, is beginning to wane.

Enter a newlywed couple who’ve already fallen out of love with each other (she is Swedish, and thus not of “good blood”, hardly a concern of a vampire) and are thirsty to explore other lovers, and you’ve got a hotel fit for psycho-sexual exploration and feastings. Harry Kümel’s film is grindhouse fare for those who prefer a touch of class. And Seyrig, a veteran of international arthouse films for Alain Resnais and Chantal Ackerman, provides one of the classiest femme vampires, while Rau is one of the most alluring—particularly when her silky seduction movements perfectly compliment the serenely surprising trap-door score. — Brian Formo

Nadja (1994)

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Michael Almereyda’s transfixing early work is often lost in the tide of 1990s American independent phenoms. Nadja spins the myth of both Dracula and Van Helsing, the latter being represented by a befuddled Martin Donovan and a rambling Peter Fonda. Almereyda’s use of black-and-white is sumptuous, and it lends the royal familial power plays of Dracula’s family, played by Elina Lowensohn as Nadja and Jared Harris as her complicated, long-estranged brother, a severe gravity. Almereyda likes playing with the historical knowledge and experience accumulated by such creatures, as well as the psychological traumas they can adopt from their bestial ways, but that doesn’t make Nadja any less menacing. Almereyda’s movie haunts in ways that so many other movies on such subjects merely thrill, and rarely in memorable ways, mind you. — Chris Cabin

Nosferatu (1922)

Nosferatu 1922

In one of the earliest vampire films and still, to this day, the absolute best, F.W. Murnau does not attempt to romanticize his vampire but instead presents him as a diseased and weasely shell. Count Orlok (Max Schreck) is the physical representation of death. With pointy ears and nose, structurally, he has the face of a scavenger, and the long pale claws of a devil. Murnau does not attempt to film Schreck in a manner that would imply that he used to be human; with his claws and hunched posture, his every movement appears as though he’s dragging hell within his shadow. Yeah, not romantic.

Despite all warnings from the town, an agent and his bride travel to visit Nosferatu, who hopes to purchase a new estate. There is a big payday if the agent completes the sale, but his bride is also at stake. And while future films will go to great and exciting lengths to romanticize and sexualize the creature that beckons a potential eternal bride, Nosferatu works as a stunning metaphor for the blindness people have when financial rewards are dangled. Even when it's dangling from claws.

Nosferatu isn't just the best vampire movie ever made. It's one of the best films ever made. Period. — Brian Formo

Blade (1998)

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Image Via New Line Cinema

Blade certainly isn’t the best vampire movie to come out of the 90s, but it is one of the most kick-ass. An action-packed comic book adaptation ahead of its time, Blade recruits genre icon Wesley Snipes as the titular hybrid mercenary on a mission to rid the world of an evil vampire scourge. From a screenplay by David S. Goyer, who would later help establish “gritty and grounded” as the order of business for the DC universe with The Dark Knight Trilogy and Man of Steel, Blade integrates vampire culture believably into the underworld of contemporary society with a goth raver bent that makes them seem like a bunch of blood-thirsty tools. Basically, you really just can’t wait for Blade to kick the shit out of them all.

And Snipes does so with aplomb in a tremendously athletic performance, as he slices, shoots, and stakes his way through his immortal foes with impeccable physical command. He’s backed by the weaponry of his vampire-slaying ally Whistler, played by a delightfully gruff and grumbly Kris Kristofferson, and the two have a no-nonsense, taking-care-of-business friendship that helps keeps the movie entertaining even when no fists are flying and the dialogue becomes laughable. Cheesy lines and all, Snipes carries the movie on his very muscular back with a self-seriousness that works for the character. – Haleigh Foutch

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

Quentin Tarantino and George Clooney in From Dusk till Dawn
Image Via Miramax

From Dusk Till Dawn is the two-films-in-one low-fi experience that Grindhouse was supposed to be. The first half follows some natural-born killers (George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino) as they rob banks and convenience stores in a crime spree that’s headed south of the border. They kidnap a man of faith (Harvey Keitel) and his daughter (Juliette Lewis) and force a stop at the Titty Twister to celebrate their cross into Mexico. A fight breaks out for the club’s siren (Salma Hayek) and then the second genre flick kicks in because the Twister is a coven for vampires and anyone who lives is going to have to fight until dawn. Robert Rodriguez’s film is equally fascinated by the depravity of the night demons as he is with the sadistic brothers. The Christ-Loving Keitel is there to provide some guilt for enjoying this so much. — Brian Formo

Martin (1977)

Martin (1977) movie
Image Via Libra Films

It’s always the off-brand George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead) movies that get ignored when talk of the master’s legacy comes up. Martin is a far more inventive and unnerving treatment, and loving upending, of horror mythos. Here, it’s the psychological belief in the titular teenager’s vampirism that is central to the action. He uses syringes to get his blood and he’s a master seducer like I’m the King of Peru. And Romero’s fascination with the tale of the bloodsuckers seems to come from a near-clinical place until you get toward the end of this twisted, menacing whatsit. The feeling is not so much fear here as it is psychological discomfort and decades after this unique masterwork saw release, there’s still nothing quite like it, even amongst clear imitators and pretenders to the throne. Martin remains a distinct work in a genre that prizes imagination over almost everything else. – Chris Cabin

Twilight (2008)

Bella and Edward playing "vampire" baseball with Edward's family in Twilight.

Perhaps the most divisive title on this list, Twilight undeniably impacted popular culture and the vampire genre with its focus on the teenage market. Withdrawn high-schooler Bella (Kristen Stewart) is brought out of her shell when she meets a mysterious young man (Robert Pattinson) and a complex web of attachment develops between them, changing not only their lives but those of the wider undead community. A huge success that made stars of its cast and spawned several sequels, it admittedly lacks the sophistication usually attributed to the vampire genre, but really captures the emotional core of teenage experience that director Catherine Hardwicke is so good at portraying on the screen. - Luna Guthrie