24. Doomsday (2008)

Set in the near future decades after a zombie virus has decimated the U.K., a one-eyed military official (Rhona Mitra) leads a team of operatives into “the Hot Zone” (a.k.a. London) to find a cure for the virus. If you’re wondering what, exactly, is medieval about that premise — hoo boy, just wait and see. It’s one of the greatest surprises in a movie filled with jaw-droppers.

21. Masque of the Red Death (1964)

Vincent Price stars in this Roger Corman riff on Edgar Allen Poe’s proto-slasher melodrama about a Satan-worshiping prince (Price) who engages in various perversions high atop his eerie castle whilst the Red Death fells his kingdom.

11. Throne of Blood (1957)

Akira Kurosawa’s riveting take on Macbeth set in feudal Japan stars Toshirô Mifune as a samurai who is cajoled by his wife (Isuzu Yamada) to usurp the throne through murder and deceit.

10. Sleeping Beauty (1959)

Disney’s seminal feature finds Princess Aurora (Mary Costa) cursed by the evil witch Maleficent (Eleanor Audley) to die on her 16th birthday. When the plan fails and Aurora only falls into a deep slumber, it’s up to the dashing Prince Phillip (Bill Shirley) and a trio of fairies to wake her and break the spell.

6. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

Carl Theodor Dreyer’s seminal silent film chronicles the persecution of the eponymous 15-year-old warrior (Renée Jeanne Falconetti) who claimed to have spoken to God and ultimately died at the hands of overzealous religious leaders (here embodied by André Berley and Eugène Silvain) for her beliefs.

4. Rashomon (1950)

Kurosawa’s seminal work birthed an entire genre of imitators. Locals (Takashi Shimura, Minoru Chiaki, Kichijiro Ueda) investigate a ghastly crime in their village, leaving a samurai (Masayuki Mori) dead and his wife (Machiko Kyō) assaulted. In speaking to the men involved, the villagers find that each has a drastically different version of events.

1. The Seventh Seal (1957)

Ingmar Bergman’s landmark feature stars Max von Sydow as a soldier who, upon returning home from the battlefields of the Crusades to find his village in the throes of the bubonic plague, sets out on a journey to evade death personified and, in one of cinema’s most famous sequences, try beating the entity in a chess match.