Here’s every horror movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola ranked, from worst to best. Coppola isn’t a director one instantly associates with the horror genre. When thinking of his body of work, it’s usually movies like Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now or The Godfather trilogy that spring to mind but the Oscar-winning director has dipped his toes into horror several times over the course of his lengthy career.
In fact, the horror genre was where Coppola cut his teeth. While the director was studying film at UCLA, he made a short horror tale titled The Two Christophers which focused on a boy plotting to kill another boy with the same name and drew comparisons with Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “William Wilson.” Following this psychological horror movie he later apprenticed under B-movie legend Roger Corman and worked on several of his horror movies during the early 1960s, including Tower Of London as a dialogue director and on The Terror as an associate producer and uncredited second unit director.
Coppola’s second-ever feature was a horror too and he’s directed two more horror projects since. Here’s a ranking of all three of Coppola’s horror movies, from the worst through to the best.
Twixt
Coppola’s most recent horror is unfortunately also his worst. Released in 2011, Twixt is a strange little movie that stars Val Kilmer as a has-been horror writer whose book tour takes him to a small, sleepy town where he finds himself embroiled in a local murder mystery and a parallel dream world inhabited by a vampiric ghost (Elle Fanning). This Francis Ford Coppola effort might boast a great cast and beautiful visuals but Twixt is a meandering movie that lacks suspense and is oddly amateurish for a director of his caliber.
Dementia 13
Coppola’s sophomore film was intended as a cheap Psycho rip-off, but it’s actually a movie that stands on its own merit. Made on a shoestring budget with money left over from a Corman film Coppola worked on, Dementia 13 is a 1963 horror that follows a gold-digging woman who travels to her husband’s family estate in Ireland in hopes of conniving her way into her mother-in-law’s will but instead finds herself at the mercy of an ax-wielding maniac. It’s a product of its time, but Dementia 13 has become a cult film among horror fans thanks to its effective scares and sinister ambiance.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Francis Ford Coppola’s take on the seminal horror novel might be partly remembered for Keanu Reeves’ infamously bad British accent, but Bram Stoker’s Dracula is still the director’s best horror movie to date. Coppola breathes new life into the well-worn tale with a take on the titular vampire that paints him as a tragic romantic than a campy, blood-sucking fiend. It helps that it’s a beautiful-looking film – from its cinematography and set design to its costumes – and it boasts a powerhouse performance from Gary Oldman as Dracula. In fact, it might not be too far a stretch to say Bram Stoker’s Dracula isn’t just Francis Ford Coppola’s best horror film but one of the best vampire movies ever made.