The Exorcist

When a young girl starts showing violent, unexplained behavior and disturbing physical symptoms, her desperate mother tries every conventional route for help. Medical tests and psychiatric evaluations fail to account for the escalation, and she turns to clergy as a last resort. The film follows the tense, increasingly extreme efforts of two priests, one seasoned and one struggling with personal doubt, as they confront a force that resists rational explanation. Daily life turns frighteningly private and public at once, as the household and the wider community react to events that blur the line between illness and the supernatural, keeping the outcome and the film's final choices guarded until the end.

Released in 1973, the movie was directed by William Friedkin and adapted from William Peter Blatty's novel, with Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Jason Miller, Max von Sydow and Lee J. Cobb in principal roles.

Upon release it became a major commercial hit, drawing massive audiences with its shocking imagery and intense storytelling, and it helped push horror into mainstream conversation for the remainder of the decade.

Its shocking practical effects and unsettling atmosphere sparked fierce public reaction, including sensational press coverage, theater walkouts and debates over censorship. Images from the film quickly lodged in public memory, inspiring countless homages, parodies and references across film, television and advertising, and influencing how later filmmakers approached religious horror and the use of realism to amplify terror.

Critical response was powerful and often divided at first, though the film has largely retained high regard among genre fans and many critics, reflected in a vote average of 7.74/10 from 8,397 votes. The story centers on questions of faith and skepticism, the limits of scientific explanation, the strain of parental responsibility and the moral and psychological cost of confronting extreme evil, themes that keep viewers debating the film decades after its release.