The Love Witch

Anna Biller conceived and executed every element of this film herself and the result is one of the most formally distinctive and fully realized horror films of the decade. The Love Witch uses its period aesthetic not as nostalgia but as argument, locating the horror in the specific ways women are taught to perform femininity and what it costs them. Samantha Robinson gives a performance that operates on multiple frequencies simultaneously — sincere, tragic, satirical, and deeply unsettling without ever tipping into camp. It's the kind of film that only exists because one person had complete control and complete conviction, and that conviction is on screen in every frame. An essential feminist horror film and one of the best of its era.