10 Best Ghost Story Movies

10. The Innocents

While we tend to think of 1960s horror as being dominated by the wonderfully lurid, Technicolor melodramas of Hammer and Roger Corman, the decade also gave us a number of the most genuinely chilling and sophisticated films ever produced in the genre.

The first of these is this 1961 adaptation of Henry James' classic novella The Turn of the Screw, which stars Deborah Kerr as an inexperienced governess hired to take care of an orphaned brother and sister in a remote country estate - but is disturbed both by the behaviour of the children, and an uncanny presence on the property.

Key to the success of The Innocents is its sense of ambiguity. Whilst it can be interpreted purely as a ghost story, the film is rich with Freudian overtones which are unnerving to this day, given that they largely centre on the repressed sexual urges of Kerr's governess, and overtones of sexual desire from the boy in her charge - who may, or may not, be possessed.

The Innocents is also a marvel of Gothic aesthetic, beautifully shot in black and white by Freddie Francis, with a chilling score by Georges Auric.

It's probably the finest film from director Jack Clayton, who later returned to Gothic territory with the flawed but compelling 1983 adaptation of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes.