13 Best Dracula Films

Almost equally divided between Universal and Hammer Films, the best Dracula movies present indelible representations of the vampire while making dramatic statements on human lust, faith and guilt.

Horror of Dracula and Dracula (1931) are barely true to Bram Stoker’s classic novel, but their changes to narrative and characterizations are so effective that they supplant Stoker’s original conceptions in the public mind. Their best sequels further dramatize meaningful struggles between human reality and our fears and hopes for a parallel spiritual realm. The most faithful version of the novel, the British television movie called Count Dracula starring Louis Jourdan, manages to be powerful and suspenseful while remaining mostly true to its sprawling literary source. Francis Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula is far more Coppola than Stoker, but is so knowingly and beautifully cinematic that it becomes an unforgettable movie experience like no other. The BBC’s three part Dracula mini-series does not pretend to follow the novel but uses it and its many movie interpretations to create clever and knowing complications that comment on the entire history of Dracula as a literary and cinematic experience.

Dr. Steve Haberman is a screenwriter, author and film historian. He received his PhD in Film Studies from De Montfort University in Leicester, England, and earned his BA in Cinema from the University of Southern California.

See other ‘best of’ lists by Dr. Steve Haberman: Best Frankenstein Films, Best Poe Films, Best Hitchcock Films