Few villains in cinema history are as chilling and fascinating as the devil himself. From slow-burn horror to sharp psychological thrillers, movies about Satan have kept audiences on the edge of their seats for decades.
Whether it is a classic tale of demonic possession or a slick modern courtroom drama, these films tap into our deepest fears about evil. Get ready to count down the 20 greatest devil movies that still feel wickedly iconic today.
1. The Exorcist (1973)
When it was released in 1973, The Exorcist made people faint in theaters – and that is not an exaggeration. William Friedkin’s masterpiece follows a young girl named Regan who becomes possessed by a demonic force, forcing her mother and two priests to fight for her soul.
The film set the gold standard for all devil movies that came after it. Raw, terrifying, and deeply human, it remains the benchmark of supernatural horror.
2. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Roman Polanski crafted a film so unsettling that it still creeps under your skin more than 50 years later. Rosemary’s Baby follows a young woman who slowly realizes that her neighbors and husband may have sinister plans for her unborn child.
The devil never fully shows his face here, which makes everything scarier. Mia Farrow’s haunted performance anchors the film’s slow-burning dread, proving that what you cannot see is often more terrifying than what you can.
3. The Omen (1976)
A child with the number 666 hidden beneath his hair is enough to make any parent shudder. The Omen follows diplomat Robert Thorn as he slowly uncovers the terrifying truth that his adopted son Damien may be the Antichrist.
Gregory Peck brings gravitas to a role soaked in dread and grief. Jerry Goldsmith’s Oscar-winning score adds layers of menace to every scene.
Few devil movies have managed to blend family drama with apocalyptic horror this effectively.
4. The Devil’s Advocate (1997)
Al Pacino chewing scenery as Satan himself is one of cinema’s great guilty pleasures. The Devil’s Advocate pairs him with Keanu Reeves as a hotshot lawyer who joins a powerful New York law firm, only to discover his boss has a very supernatural agenda.
The film blends legal thriller energy with demonic horror in a way that feels slick and stylish. Pacino’s final monologue is pure cinematic electricity, a devil speech for the ages.
5. Angel Heart (1987)
Angel Heart is a sweaty, suffocating mystery that builds to one of cinema’s most shocking endings. Mickey Rourke plays a private detective hired by the mysterious Louis Cyphre – a name that sounds oddly familiar when you say it out loud – to track down a missing man.
Robert De Niro plays Cyphre with cold, serpentine elegance. The film weaves voodoo, jazz-era New Orleans, and Faustian horror into something genuinely unforgettable and deeply disturbing.
6. Bedazzled (2000)
Not every devil movie needs to be terrifying. Bedazzled takes a lighter path, casting Elizabeth Hurley as a wickedly funny, fashionably evil Satan who grants a lovestruck Brendan Fraser seven wishes – each one hilariously twisted.
The comedy lands because Hurley plays the devil with genuine charm and mischief. Every wish goes sideways in the most creative ways possible.
It is a reminder that the devil is often most dangerous when wearing a big smile.
7. End of Days (1999)
Arnold Schwarzenegger versus Satan sounds like the ultimate action movie pitch, and End of Days delivers exactly that kind of wild energy. Set on New Year’s Eve 1999, the film follows a burned-out security guard who must stop the devil from fathering a child and triggering the apocalypse.
Gabriel Byrne plays Satan with cold menace, while Schwarzenegger brings his trademark grit. It is big, loud, and absolutely committed to its ridiculous premise, which makes it endlessly entertaining.
8. The Witch (2015)
Robert Eggers’ debut feature announced a bold new voice in horror. Set in 1630s New England, The Witch follows a devout Puritan family unraveling after their infant son mysteriously disappears near a dark forest suspected of harboring evil forces.
Black Phillip, the family’s goat, becomes one of cinema’s most quietly menacing devil figures. The film earns its scares through atmosphere and dread rather than jump scares, making the devil feel ancient and terrifyingly real.
9. Constantine (2005)
Keanu Reeves plays John Constantine, a chain-smoking exorcist who can see angels and demons walking among humans. When a woman’s twin sister dies under mysterious circumstances, he gets pulled into a battle between heaven and hell playing out on the streets of Los Angeles.
Peter Stormare’s cameo as a slithering, barefoot Satan is genuinely iconic. Constantine has grown a massive cult following since its release, and fans still want a proper sequel to this day.
10. The Ninth Gate (1999)
Roman Polanski returned to devilish territory with The Ninth Gate, a slow-burn occult thriller starring Johnny Depp as a rare book dealer hired to authenticate a mysterious tome allegedly co-authored by Satan himself.
The film rewards patient viewers with a creeping sense of dread that builds scene by scene. It is a puzzle box of a movie, layered with occult imagery and European atmosphere.
Few films make book collecting feel this genuinely dangerous and darkly seductive.
11. Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Sam Raimi returned to horror with a vengeance in Drag Me to Hell, a film that is equal parts terrifying and darkly comedic. A young loan officer denies an old woman a mortgage extension and pays a horrifying supernatural price when a demon is unleashed upon her.
Raimi packs the film with gross-out gags and genuinely shocking scares. The ending hits like a freight train.
It is a wild, relentless ride that never lets up for even a single minute.
12. Devil (2010)
Five strangers get trapped in an elevator, and one of them might be the devil. M.
Night Shyamalan produced this tight, claustrophobic thriller that squeezes maximum tension out of a brilliantly simple premise.
As the lights flicker and people start dying, paranoia spreads fast. The film moves quickly and keeps you guessing until the final reveal.
Sometimes the scariest settings are not haunted mansions but ordinary places like a perfectly normal office building elevator.
13. Needful Things (1993)
Based on Stephen King’s novel, Needful Things follows a charming stranger named Leland Gaunt who opens a mysterious shop in Castle Rock, Maine. He sells people their deepest desires at a price that always involves a little harmless prank – harmless until it is not.
Max Von Sydow plays Gaunt with aristocratic menace, hinting at something far older and darker beneath his polished exterior. The film is a sharp parable about greed, desire, and how easily the devil exploits human weakness.
14. The Prophecy (1995)
Christopher Walken playing a rogue archangel named Gabriel who recruits souls to fight in a heavenly civil war is exactly as brilliant as it sounds. The Prophecy is a criminally underrated supernatural thriller that treats its angels as cold, alien beings rather than soft-lit guardians.
Viggo Mortensen also appears as a chilling Satan, stealing every scene he occupies. The film builds its own mythology with real confidence and style, making heaven feel just as dangerous as hell.
15. Devil’s Due (2014)
Found-footage horror got a devilish twist with Devil’s Due, which follows a newlywed couple whose honeymoon takes a dark turn after a mysterious night out. The wife’s pregnancy quickly becomes something terrifying and unexplainable.
The film borrows heavily from Rosemary’s Baby but adds modern found-footage energy and some genuinely creepy sequences. It taps into real anxieties about pregnancy and loss of control in ways that feel surprisingly effective for its modest budget and straightforward execution.
16. The Sentinel (1977)
Long before Netflix discovered the haunted apartment building genre, The Sentinel was doing it in 1977. A fashion model moves into a gorgeous Brooklyn brownstone and quickly discovers her eccentric neighbors are not quite human – and that her building sits at the very gate of hell.
The film features an early cast packed with future stars and pulls no punches in its climax. Genuinely disturbing and often overlooked, it deserves a spot among the great devil movies of its era.
17. Tenebrae (1982)
Dario Argento’s Tenebrae is not a devil movie in the traditional sense, but evil wears many faces here. An American crime novelist visiting Rome finds himself linked to a series of murders that mirror the killings in his latest book.
Argento’s camera work is hypnotic, turning violence into something grotesquely beautiful. The film explores how darkness lurks inside the human mind as much as any supernatural force.
Few directors have made evil look this visually stunning and philosophically unsettling.
18. Fallen (1998)
Fallen is a genuinely underrated gem that puts a creative spin on the devil mythology. Denzel Washington plays a homicide detective who realizes that a demonic entity can jump from person to person through physical touch, making it nearly impossible to fight or even identify.
The film plays out like a detective noir with supernatural stakes. Its concept is brilliantly unsettling because the devil could be anyone around you at any moment.
The haunting final scene lingers long after the credits roll.
19. Hereditary (2018)
Ari Aster’s debut feature is one of the most emotionally devastating horror films ever made. Hereditary follows a grieving family that begins to unravel after the death of their secretive grandmother, slowly revealing that something sinister has been woven into their bloodline for generations.
The devil here arrives through cult ritual and inherited trauma. Toni Collette delivers a performance that should have won every award possible.
Few horror films have managed to make family grief feel this genuinely demonic and soul-crushing at once.
20. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Martin Scorsese’s controversial masterpiece imagines the devil’s most ambitious temptation: offering Jesus Christ a normal human life. Willem Dafoe brings raw vulnerability to Jesus, while Harvey Keitel plays Judas with unexpected warmth and complexity.
The film caused massive protests on its release, which only proves how powerfully it engaged with its subject. Scorsese treats both faith and doubt with equal respect.
Few films have explored the battle between good and evil on such a deeply personal and spiritual level.