It remains genuinely unnerving to this day -- ridiculous in places, faintly despicable in others, but gorgeous to look at and possessed with a sense of absolute, ruthless gravity.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 12, 2024

The macabre, obscene demonstrations of manifest evil still retain their power to startle and nauseate, particularly Linda Blair's "head-turning" antics as the possessed child.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 9, 2024

The mindless and hysterical banality of the evil presented in The Exorcist is the most terrifying thing about the film. The Americans should cer­tainly know more about evil than that; if they pre­tend otherwise, they are lying.

| May 1, 2024

The Exorcist more conspicuously pushed into the mainstream a hitherto disreputable genre.

| Jan 2, 2024

Seminal and important for good reasons.

| Oct 12, 2023

Perhaps the most influential American horror movie ever made, The Exorcist was a Rorschach test when it came out. Fifty years later, it still sticks with us.

| Oct 6, 2023

The scariest movie ever made...

| Sep 30, 2023

This film's ponderings about the nature of good and evil still merit consideration today. It also features some wonderful performances from Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, Max von Sydow and, especially, a then pre-adolescent Linda Blair.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 29, 2023

The movie moves at a pace that is unheard of today; a good hour and a quarter pass before the word "exorcism" is even mentioned. Yet it weaves a frightening spell right from the get-go.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 29, 2023

The Exorcist remains an exceptionally well-made, thoughtful film, enacted by a first-rate cast and displaying an almost masterful interplay between the humdrum and the horrific.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 29, 2023

Friedkin performed a similar alchemy to that of Francis Ford Coppola [with The Godfather]: He took a good, pulpy novel and turned it into a great, enduring movie.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 29, 2023

Some parts are bound to be greeted by unintentional laughter today, the result of countless parodies over the years. Still, The Exorcist has lost none of its ability to invade your nightmares.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 29, 2023

The Exorcist accomplishes what so few horrormeisters save Stephen King have managed: It sets sin and salvation not in the realm of graveyards and goblins, but in day-to-day life.

| Sep 29, 2023

By the end, after the priests had finished their battle for Regan MacNeil's body and soul, I expected to see my frigid breath hanging in the air.

| Sep 29, 2023

The Exorcist has dated little, and its essential premise makes it still one of the most modern of horror films. The monster isn't lurking out there. It resides in us, even in the most banal vessel imaginable, a sweet schoolgirl.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 29, 2023

The tension is created by brilliant direction, tight editing, hydraulics, Linda Blair's makeup and the voice of the Prince of Darkness that chills the spine and showers the body with goosebumps. The acting in this dark movie is flawless, too.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 29, 2023

It is carefully constructed, filled with nuance, designed to build fear one minute at a time. There can be no escape, no break, just the horror unfolding before your eyes.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 29, 2023

A horror film for grown-ups, paced out carefully, graced by much emotional subtlety and a spirit of intelligent questioning that never lets the viewer of any or no religious persuasion slip into complacency.

| Sep 29, 2023

Spewing from Blair's 12-year-old mouth via McCambridge's distressed larynx, the script's sexual obscenities are shocking enough to accomplish the virtually impossible and restore the potency of the four-letter word.

| Sep 29, 2023

The Exorcist is a masterful movie three decades later because it was made by filmmakers who had something to say and who knew when to use restraint and when to entertain and when to burrow under your skin.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 29, 2023