With Halloween around the corner, I wanted to share with you some of the best movies about witches. Witches are generally associated with Halloween, but unlike pumpkins and trick-or-treating they just don’t go away until the next year; oh no! Witches are about so much more than that.

Witches have been around for centuries, and there have been thousands of books written about them. They have a lengthy history of popularity among movies and TV shows and have been the center of many legends. The word “Witch” alone caused towns into mass hysteria where many innocent people were tortured and killed if anyone thought they were a witch.

When you think about witches, usually the stereotypical version enters your mind. You think of the pointed hat, the black cloak, warts, and how they get around on brooms. You think of their magical powers and abilities to cast spells, those two things alone cause some to fear them more than anything.

Moreover, witches today are viewed a lot differently than how they once were. Pop culture has transformed them from their stereotypical version and has given them a more modern and chic image. So, in honor of witches everywhere, here is my list of some of the best movies about witches. My list is in no particular order…

            🎃 The Witches                          

The Witches is a movie that hit the screens in 1990. I remember reading the book by Roald Dahl when I was in school and then the teacher showed us the movie. Watching this movie as a child, I can honestly say I was terrified by the part where the Grand High witch and the other witches reveal their real witch forms. The Witches follows Luke Eveshim who has recently become an orphan. He and his grandmother Helega, who he now lives with decide to go on a holiday. Luke’s grandma is a quirky and eccentric lady who has taught him a lot about witches. While the two of them are staying at a hotel, Luke meets another boy his age named Bruno Jenkins. Fighting boredom, the two start to lurk around the hotel and find a Royal Society for the prevention of cruelty to children convention taking place. The two discover that it’s actually a cover for a witches convention, where the international Grand High Witch Eva Ernst played by Angel Huston is instructing the witches of England on how to dispose of all children with a potion that once ingested turns them into mice. The boys are discovered and are transformed into mice themselves but manage to escape from the coven. It is then is up to them with the help of Grandma Helega to stop the witches’ evil plan at all costs.

         🍬 The Craft

The Craft came out in 1996 and has been one of my favorite movies ever since. The movie is about a girl named Sarah who moves to a new town to start a new life. She becomes friends with three girls, Nancy, Bonnie, and Rochelle. The girls are treated like outcasts at school and all have many problems in their lives that they wish they could fix. The three are also very interested in the occult and it’s not long before they discover that Sarah has the powers of a natural witch. Realizing Sarah might be what the girls are missing they ask her to join their coven. Once Sarah joins, they can now cast spells they couldn’t before, and begin to fix all the things wrong in their lives – but like everything else in life – things come with a price, and having everything you could possibly want isn’t as great as it may seem when it’s obtained with magic.

     🕸The Witches of Eastwick

The Witches of Eastwick is a book written by John Updike and was made into a movie in 1987. The movie follows three small-town friends, Alexandra (Cher), Jane (Susan Sarandon), and Sukie (Michelle Pfeiffer), who all have recently lost the man in their lives. Now, finding their lives boring and unfulfilled they are intrigued when a new man moves to town. His name is Daryl Van Horne (Jack Nicholson) and not long after he arrives he begins seeing each of the women in turn. Each woman has never thought of themselves as a witch before but once they started seeing Daryl, they notice strange things beginning to happen. After Daryl invites the three over to his mansion at the same time, a jealous rivalry begins between the women which in turn reveals powers that each never knew they possessed. Bonding over their discovery they decide instead of competing for Daryl they will share him. Soon people in the town begin to gossip about them, give them dirty looks and say rude things to the women. Eventually, the three become outcasts and it is when they begin to have second thoughts about if they should see each other or not anymore. It is when Daryl causes the death of one of the townsfolk that the women realize he is not who he appears to be. Now seeing the danger and harm Daryl is capable of, the three women agree to not see him or each other again for a very long time. However, Daryl is not willing to let that happen and the three must find a way to get rid of him for good.    

       ☠The Covenant

I remember how excited I was to see this movie when it came out. I loved the idea of seeing male witches for once and I personally really liked the movie. The Covenant came out in 2006 and the story of this movie is about four friends, the Sons of Ipswich. The four are students at the Spencer Academy and they all share a 300-year-old-secret, they’re witches! They are teenage descendants of a 17th- century coven of witches, the coven was made up of five families until one family bent on using their powers for personal gain was banned. Everything in the four of their lives is perfect, they can have whatever they want but using their magic comes with a price. Once they turn 18 they fully ascend and become much more powerful but the more they use of their power, the more their body will weaken and age. So when the son of the fifth family banned from the Coven appears and wants something from one of them, he threatens to kill their loved ones if he doesn’t get it. The four realize they must face their enemy in order to prevent him from stealing their powers and destroying the Covenant forever.

       👻  The Blair witch project

I remember back in 1999 when The Blair Witch Project came out, no one really knew what to expect. Was what you were watching really found footage? Was it a true story? Was there ever really a Blair witch? The movie did a good job of keeping you intrigued and it also did a good job causing some people to get sick due to the shaky footage. In case you have not seen the Blair Witch project yet, here’s a brief run-down on the story.  In October of 1994, three student filmmakers hike out into the woods of Blair, hoping to find any indication of “The Blair Witch” who has become a local legend. At the beginning of their search, they find nothing substantial but a pile of stones arranged by hand. As the sun begins to go down, the three set up camp. It is during the middle of the night that they start seeing and hearing things, things that are not normal. In the morning the three wake up to discover wooden dolls in cross-like formations that were not there that night. As they set out on their search again, one student Josh gets separated from the group. The other two begin to see that this has become a very serious situation and now something is stalking them. It’s not long before they realize that something stalking them may be the very thing they are looking for.

        🎃 The Witch

Roger Eggers’s movie The Witch was released in 2015. I really like this movie and I strongly recommend it. The story centers around a family in mid-17th century New England who have recently been banned from their very moral pilgrim community. The family of seven makes a homestead on the edge of a dark and thick forest. Struggling to settle in, it is not long before disaster strikes, first with their newborn son vanishing. Shortly after more unforeseen and dire misfortunes continue happening. The crops all fail and one of the children falls violently ill and dies. With all that is happening the family begins turning on one another and slowly begins falling apart. However, they will soon learn the cause of all this misfortune. Are they being punished for their sins or is there a more dark and malevolent force behind it all?

It is hard to narrow the best movies down to a small list when there are so many movies about witches. So in consideration of not making this a list that goes on forever, I left out a few more of the one’s I think are the best. I can also guarantee that I have left out one’s you think are the best. I do apologize but I hope you will find them in the honorable mentions. The honorable mention is a list of movies that are either about witches or have witches in them.

    ⚰  Honorable mentions 👻

☆ Hocus Pocus ☆ Stardust ☆ The Wizard of Oz ☆ Suspiria ☆ The Chronicles of Narnia – The lion, witch, and wardrobe ☆ Into the woods ☆ Practical Magic ☆ Beautiful Creatures ☆ Oz, the great and powerful ☆ Rosemary’s baby ☆ The little mermaid ☆ Harry Potter ☆ Teen Witch ☆ Four Rooms ☆ The Skeleton Key ☆ Beastly ☆ Drag me to hell ☆ Hansel and Gretel ☆ Bedknobs and Broomsticks ☆ The black cauldron ☆ Black Sunday ☆ Cinderella ☆ The Good Witch ☆ The Sword in the Stone ☆ Sleeping Beauty ☆ The Love Witch ☆ Snowhite and the Seven dwarfs ☆ The Worst Witch ☆

                🎃 Happy  Halloween 🎃