Mike Flanagan's filmography - ranked

Mike Flanagan has been one of our most consistently brilliant horror directors. His character-orientated stories and explorations of trauma and grief have resulted in some of the best horror films of the 2010s. Despite being impressively prolific, he's never made a bad horror movie.

Thanks to a distinctive artistic voice and a close knit team of collaborators - screenwriting partner Jeff Howard; producer Trevor Macy; actors Kate Siegel and Henry Thomas among others who have starred in several of his films - we have a clear idea of what makes a Mike Flanagan movie essential viewing. But which is his best?

Starting with 2011's Absentia - not the director's first film but his first feature-length entry into the horror genre - his seven horror movies so far have been ranked below.

Note:- This article does not contain spoilers for any Mike Flanagan movies.

7/ Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)

What goes down: It's 1967, and the Zander family run a phoney seance outfit in a bid to alleviate their financial woes. But when mum Alice (Elizabeth Reaser) introduces a ouija board as a new prop, it unlocks an evil entity in their house.

The verdict: A prequel to 2014 Blumhouse hit Ouija, it's widely considered far superior to the original film - with Flanagan taking the story in a wholly unexpected direction. Saying that, several things have to happen by the end of Origin of Evil to set up Ouija, resulting in a messy ending.

Nevertheless, this film is gorgeous to look at - having been shot on antique lenses to give it a period feel. The characters are brilliantly drawn, with Flanagan taking his time and holding off most of the scares until the third act.

It introduces a bunch of Flanagan regulars who all turn in fantastic performances: Elizabeth Reaser (Shirley in The Haunting of Hill House), Henry Thomas (Gerald's Game, Hill House, Doctor Sleep) and Lulu Wilson (young Shirley in Hill House).  

Flanagan on Flanagan: The director has spoken about how Jason Blum convinced him to take on this prequel, and how he reconsidered his reservations about making a PG-13 horror flick. He told Den of Geek: "I think there was this misperception that PG-13 films need to be held to a different standard than their R-rated counterparts and that they’re lighter and easier and just less sophisticated and I was thinking about the movies that I saw when I was 12 and 13 that kind of introduced me to the genre and made me excited about horror movies, so we talked a lot about The Changeling and Poltergeist and Watcher in the Woods and things like that, which are not R-rated films but they were really good."

6/ Absentia (2011)

What goes down: Tricia (Courtney Bell) has just completed the painful process of declaring her husband dead in absentia after he disappeared seven years ago. Any sense of closure is shattered by mysterious events surrounding a nearby underpass.

The verdict: Coming early in Flanagan's ouvre, this movie is rough around the edges due to budget constraints (it was partially funded by Kickstarter donations) and lacks the visual sophistication he would later become known for. Yet it's still emotionally devastating due to the decision to ground the action in Tricia's trauma and loss. This is a calling card for a new kind of horror built around dread and psychological scars rather than jump scares. 

Flanagan on Flanagan: Absentia is actually riffing on one of Flanagan's earliest childhood fears, an episode of 80s kids show Fraggle Rock which featured something called the Terrible Tunnel 'where all the souls of the little fraggles who got lost are trapped forever'. He told Philly Mag: "Scared the shit out of me. It took years after Absentia was finished for me to connect the dots there. It’s like my Fraggle Rock riff."

Absentia is available to stream on Shudder.

5/ Before I Wake (2017)

What goes down: Jessie (Kate Bosworth) and Mark (Thomas Jane) are welcoming their first foster child after the death of their son. But Cody's (Jacob Tremblay) dreams and nightmares come to life, including the terrifying Canker Man.

The verdict: Best to have a box of tissues to hand for this one since it's perhaps Flanagan's saddest film. Jessie and Mark's all-consuming grief is captured beautifully, and the film's final reveal is bound to leave you with 'something in your eye'. Full disclosure: I cried several times.

This is Flanagan's lowest-rated film on Rotten Tomatoes, potentially because it's his least scary, but is a movie that deserves more love. It marked a shift in his style from impossibly bleak endings to a more sentimental, hopeful touch. Some have linked this to his relationship with Kate Siegel, whom he married in 2016, which you have to admit is pretty sweet.

The movie found itself in limbo after distributor Relativity went bankrupt, delaying its release by two years and sending it straight to streaming on Netflix. It's a shame no one saw the movie in cinemas, but it began a fruitful partnership with the streaming giant which saw Hush, Gerald's Game and The Haunting of Hill House all find huge audiences.

Flanagan on Flanagan: Speaking to Esquire about the film's genre, Flanagan said: "It's such a strange movie - it's really hard to classify, and it's a very personal project for me, and one that I knew was a creative risk. Our financiers and Relativity both took a big risk on it, because it's just not a movie that you can point to and say, 'This is clearly just a horror movie for this audience.'"

Before I Wake is available to stream on Netflix.

4/ Oculus (2013)

What goes down: When Tim (Brenton Thwaites) is released from a mental institution, his sister Kaylie (Karen Gillan) whisks him off for an experiment to prove a haunted mirror was to blame for their parents' deaths, which Tim took the rap for. The siblings' attempt to gather evidence of the mirror's supernatural powers and put an end to its 40 plus body count does not go well.

The verdict: This was the first Flanagan film I saw and an unbelievably intense experience in a cinema. It's a masterclass in escalating tension and perhaps his scariest film, with the dual timelines foreshadowing the structure of Hill House. The ending is perhaps the bleakest of any Flanagan movie.

Based on a 2006 short, the film shares several of Absentia's preoccupations (this time it's a mirror that captures souls rather than a tunnel). It's also Flanagan's first (and darkest) family horror, with Ouija: Origin of Evil and Before I Wake to follow in the coming years.

Flanagan on Flanagan: Speaking about the reality-shifting powers of the mirror with Den of Geek, Flanagan said: "We all stare into [a mirror] for a good amount of time and we base our entire image of ourselves off of what we see back, which is wrong. It’s backwards to start and then each mirror is slightly distorted. The imperfections of the glass presents us with what we assume is reality, but it isn’t. So we took that idea that we take for granted that this is an objective reality but it’s not."

3/  Hush (2016)

What goes down: Deaf-mute author Maddie (Kate Siegel) is minding her own business in her house in the woods when a masked assailant (John Gallagher Jr) decides to kill her for the lols.

The verdict: Flanagan is primarily known for supernatural horror, so this slasher thriller was a shift in genre for him. Nevertheless, it's easily one of the best home invasion films out there - notable for its protagonist's resourcefulness. In her desperate bid to survive, Maddie has as many bad ideas as good ones, making her more relatable than a character like Erin, the unstoppable killing machine from You're Next. It's unusual for the killer and their would-be victim to be this evenly matched.

The realistic portrayal of injury also makes the film a cut above most slasher flicks. Flanagan has spoken about how most slashers see characters unrealistically succumb to their wounds in seconds, or on the flipside are barely slowed down by injuries which should be fatal. Hush does neither.

It's Flanagan's most stripped back film - taking place in real time, with a single location and the bare minimum of dialogue. Paring back the story gives us more space to appreciate the director's masterful handling of tension and Siegel's fantastic performance.

It definitely makes you wish Flanagan would return to the slasher subgenre. He announced in 2019 that he has a pitch for a new Nightmare on Elm Street movie - who doesn't want to see that happen?

Flanagan on Flanagan: The story of how Flanagan and Siegel wrote this movie is fantastic. Flanagan explained to Screen Daily: "We started by moving through our house and really learning about its strengths and weaknesses, and then began to walk through various scenarios of someone trying to break in. I’d look for ways into the house, and she’d think of ways to defend herself. Once we had a scenario that we both liked, we’d sit together and type it out."

To finish the film, the couple headed to the Stanley Hotel (the inspiration for The Shining) and stayed in Room 217 (where the bath lady hangs out in the book) to redraft the film in a new environment.

Hush is available to stream on Netflix.

2/ Doctor Sleep (2019)

What goes down: An adult Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor) has finally found some peace, keeping his alcoholism and traumatic memories of the Overlook Hotel at bay. Things take a turn when Abra (Kyliegh Curran), a young girl with the shining, asks for his help in stopping the murderous activities of Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) and her gang of immortal, soul-eating pals.

The verdict: Famously underperforming in cinemas, Doctor Sleep is nevertheless Flanagan's most ambitious film and his greatest feat of storytelling. Ferguson's Rose is one of horror's most entertaining villains, while McGregor plays Danny's journey from rock bottom to redemption perfectly. Meanwhile, Curran endows Abra with shades of arrogance and vengefulness, making her a fascinating mirror image of Rose.

Doctor Sleep is a worthy sequel to Kubrick's The Shining, a taut thriller which pays homage to its predecessor while also being a confident expression of Flanagan's cinematic vision. The movie left little doubt that Flanagan is a particularly sensitive interpretor of Stephen King's work, with the two sharing a laser focus on character in their nightmarish tales. It's good news then that Flanagan is signed up for an adaptation of King's 2014 novel Revival - he'll write the screenplay with an option to direct.

Flanagan on Flanagan: There's an interesting story as to why Flanagan cast Ewan McGregor, who has spoken in the past about his own struggles with alcohol. He told GQ: "We had a couple of actors come in as candidates to play Dan. Every time, we would always talk a lot about The Shining, we would talk a lot about Jack Nicholson and we would talk a lot about Kubrick. Ewan came in, we talked about that for a minute when he first got in the room, but very quickly he was like, 'Yeah, yeah, Kubrick's really interesting. Anyway, I want to talk about recovery.' That painstaking climb up the cliff face the character has to do for the first half of the film to find his way to purpose, that's what resonated with Ewan."

1/ Gerald's Game (2017)

What goes down: Jessie (Carla Gugino) joins shitbag husband Gerald (Bruce Greenwood) for a dirty weekend in his house in the woods. When the pair experiment with a bit of bondage, Gerald inconveniently dies of a heart attack. Jessie is left cuffed to the bed, the key agonisingly out of reach.

The verdict: Gerald's Game is often a gruelling watch, with scenes of emotional trauma and intense gore making it hard not to turn away from the screen at times. Of all of Flanagan's films it goes to the darkest places, and it masterfully explores themes of childhood trauma, toxic masculinity and despair in the face of almost certain death.

Like Hush it satisfies all the expectations of a survival horror and then some, but goes further and creates Flanagan's most profoundly satisfying character arc, along with a remarkably sensitive treatment of feminist themes. Pretty much all of the director's films - with the possible exceptions of Origin of Evil and Hush - are about overcoming trauma, and this is his most profound and cathartic treatment of that theme.

Gugino (Olivia Crain from The Haunting of Hill House) is stellar. Henry Thomas turns in a chilling performance as her father. The scares - though not really the point of the film - are genuinely unsettling thanks to Carel Struycken's Moonlight Man (Grampa Flick in Doctor Sleep).

This was the first movie to demonstrate Flanagan's prowess as an adaptor of literary works. He made major changes to King's source text, yet all to the film's benefit, leaving some to praise the movie as the best King adaptation since The Shawshank Redemption. This film was immediately followed by his free-wheeling reimagining of Shirley Jackson's Hill House - which completely overhauled the plot, characters and setting while still providing plenty to keep fans of the original book happy.

Flanagan on Flanagan: The reason Gerald's Game is so good might be partly due to the fact that Flanagan had been hoping to adapt it for nearly 20 years. He told NME: "It’s been my total dream project for years. I used to carry a hard copy to writer’s meetings in LA. Just in case anyone asked me what my ideal job would be. I first read it in college 19 years ago. I put the book down and had two thoughts. One was that it was brilliant, and the other was that it was unfilmable. It’s taken me 19 years just to come up with a mechanism to make it cinematic."

Gerald's Game is available to stream on Netflix.

Fill your Twitter feed with witty horror banter. Follow us:

Follow @GoreConnoisseur