Black Sunday, 1960

It's witchcraft, Italian-style, in this visually elegant thriller. Director Mario Bava's first feature, known originally as La Maschera del demonio (The Mask of the Demon), unleashed a flood of Italian Gothics and, a decade later, the slasher films, known as "gialli," that built the cult reputations of directors Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci. But for sepulchral atmosphere they never topped the early, black-and-white Bava. And no Italo-horror heroine could match the ethereal beauty of Black Sunday's English import, Barbara Steele.