Best Books and Films About Witches

by Catalina Bonati

Sometimes, all I want to do is a read a good historical novel about witches in Puritan villages or in Tudor England. I’ve compiled a list of some good witch films and books that I’ve enjoyed (set in varied eras) and that I think add discussion to the realm of witchcraft and magic.

Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian (2021)

Mary Deerfield is married to a violent man, and when she motions for a divorce her husband begins to instill rumors throughout the community that she is a witch, and Mary must soon go through a humiliating trial in which she must prove her innocence. It’s a dark, atmospheric story in which misogyny prevails and Mary must turn to women allies, who must in turn confront their own internalized misogyny. This book has great characters and an intriguing plot, yet the dark Puritan ambience seeps into all facets of this book and turns it to a fascinating if frustrating read. Technically this book is not about a witch (or is it?) but about a young woman accused of witchcraft, yet her life is at peril at nearly every turn of the book.

The Familiars by Stacey Halls (2019)

This book is about the legend of the Pendle Witch in the Lancashire area. It was an exciting book to read as it takes place near Preston and Lancaster, where I used to be a postgraduate student. The story is about Fleetwood Shuttleworth, a rich noblewoman who must try to carry her child to term despite her multiple miscarriages. She hires a village woman named Alice Grey as midwife, yet Alice is soon accused of witchcraft and must stand the Pendle Witch Trials. Alice is knowledgeable in herbology and seems to have animal familiars and Fleetwood spends the rest of her pregnancy trying to prove Alice’s innocence, yet Alice’s witchcraft is always a subject of doubt. What is clear, however, is that Alice and Fleetwood must deal with a persecution that is based on the mistrust and fear of women, which is also the case with Fleetwood’s doctor and her husband. Though not atmospheric like Hour of the Witch, The Familiars is a good depiction of rural 1600s England and is based on a historic event. It reads like a PG folk horror mystery.

Circe by Madeleine Miller (2018)

This is an imagining of the life of the Greek mythological witch Circe. Circe is a nymph born with unexplained gifts that go beyond the powers of the gods and demigods that surround her. An event leading to the conversion of a human fisherman into the sea god Glaucos and the turning of the nymph Scylla into a sea monster leads to her banishment to the island of Aeaea (or Aiaia) where she fully develops her powers and ruled over the plants and animals of the isle. She is called by her sister Pasiphae as midwife to her birth to the baby Minotaur, where Circe meets Daedalus and his daughter Ariadne. Back home in Aeaea Medea and Jason come to ask her to release them from Aeëtes’ curse. Circe is also later visited by Ulysses, who spends several years with her as her lover. Following the death of Ulysses she is visited by Telemachus and Penelope, with whom she must make peace. The book details Circe’s strengthening of her powers through the harvesting of plants the harnessing of elements. Unlike the Puritan and Protestant witches of Hour of the Witch and The Familiars, Circe is a white witch rooted in the forces of nature and tries to use her powers for the benefit of herself and others. The historical Greek setting and the mythological foundation of the story bring to life a witchcraft and godly powers that seem familiar and terrible at the same time. The cast of gods and nymphs that appear keeps the mythology-lover on their toes.

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman (1995)

Although converted into a movie with Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock, I’m referring to the novel here as I haven’t seen the movie. This is the story of modern witch sisters who have been orphaned and move in with their eccentric witch aunts. Here is where they learn that they possess magic and learn to harness their powers. When they grow older, one of the sisters decides to leave Massachusetts and one remains behind, marries, and has children. Soon the sister comes back with a body in the trunk of her car and the other sister must use all her powers to cover up the crime. Although the characters are adults for most of the book, it’s still very much a coming-of-age novel and a journey of discovering oneself and the meaning of family tradition. Magic is used for minor things such as keeping a garden healthy, but also for the benefit of living a peaceful life. The sisters are discriminated against in the town for being strange and coming from a long line of mysterious women, in this case witches, and magic for them is often an element that disrupts their life rather than facilitate it. A modern story of New England witches, this novel incorporates more romance and insecurity surrounding witchcraft than the other stories in this list.

The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare (1623)

In this play, Scottish soldier Macbeth is foretold by a coven of witches that he would soon be the King of Scotland. His wife, Lady Macbeth, feeds a need for violence and encourages Macbeth to carry out the murder of the king. Now frenzied by death, Macbeth orders the assassinations of army generals and their families for fear that they will usurp his throne. Eventually, he is murdered by Macduff, a general whose families’ deaths Macbeth had ordered.

It is believed that the three witches who foresee Macbeth’s future may be the three fates. Their ominous presence and unsympathetic prediction of Macbeth’s death sets the dark, violent tone of the play as well as the tempestuous political scene of Scotland. These witches are traditional witches in the sense that they are associated with evil and doom and lend no help to stop the incoming events, but rather bring them on. They are old ladies that stir a cauldron are probably one of the biggest cultural influences on the Western witch; they can be seen in Hocus Pocus (1993) and The Witches by Roal Dahl (1983) as well as in Snow White (1937) and “The Little Mermaid” by Hans Christian Anderson (1837).

The Witch directed by Robert Eggers (2015)

In this film, a Puritan family in 1600s New England lose their youngest child, which they blame on their eldest daughter Thomasin. Thomasin is accused of witchcraft by her siblings, yet she in turn accuses her siblings of witchcraft themselves because they claim that their black goat named Black Phillip speaks to them. Their bickering angers their parents and they are locked in the goathouse for the night, where a witch appears to them and proceeds to kill the younger siblings. The next morning, the goat house has been destroyed, the goats and the younger siblings killed, and Thomasin bloodied. As the father enters the scene, he is rammed to death by Black Philip. The mother accuses Thomasin of the murders of everyone and tries to strangle her, leading Thomasin to kill her. Black Phillip then turns into a human and leads Thomasin to sign her name in a book. Thomasin then is lead into the forest and into a coven of witches who are holding a Sabbath. Thomasin gleefully accepts her membership of the coven.

This film is an old fashion black witch story in which, like Macbeth, witches represent violence and desire for chaos and destruction. A witch leads the family to self-destruction and to direct partnership with the devil once Thomasin’s connection to family has been eviscerated. This story of witches and black magic is violent and dark, in which witches possess powers such as shape-shifting and flying. The portrayal of witchcraft as connected to black magic conveys much darker stories of magic, and this film adds to the New England folklore of being a land inhabited by magic.

The Love Witch directed by Anna Biller (2016)

In this film, Elaine moves to California and casts love spells to get men to fall in love with her. They always do, yet they become emotional and clingy and Elaine inevitably feels repulsed by them. Two of her lovers die; one the morning after being drugged by her, and one commits suicide after Elaine won’t return his feelings towards her. Elaine falls in love with one of the officers investigating the disappearances of these men, but he is indifferent towards her. She tries to give him one of her love potions but he refuses to give in to her whims, after which she is overcome by feelings of despair and kills him.

The Love Witch is a somewhat humorous look at the despair which drives people to satisfy their needs. Magic here is a vessel through which Elaine the witch tries to achieve her dreams of love but they fail miserably, and her narrow-mindedness leads to what we understand to be her downfall. Her magic is ambiguous, it seems to be white yet it usurps the will of the victim into single-minded love for Elaine which lead to their deaths, which seems more like black magic. Like in Practical Magic, Elaine is a modern witch whose magic is a vessel for self-fulfillment, yet unlike Practical Magic her magic is stagnating her self-discovery. This film is an interesting and aesthetic take on the idea of modern witchcraft rather than the practice of it.

Suspiria directed by Dario Argento (1977)

This film was remade in 2018 by Luca Guadagnino, but I’m referring to the original one here. The story follows American Suzy Bannon who has been accepted at a dance academy in Freiburg. She attends the school where strange events happen. A student named Sara tells Suzy that another student was murdered and that the student’s notes are still in her room. When Sara goes to check, she is attacked by an unseen entity. Sara is chased into the school’s attic where she escapes through a tiny window; yet her attacker is able to reach her and cut her throat. Suzy is told that Sara has left the school, so Suzy contacts a friend of Sara’s and is told that the school was founded by a Greek witch named Markos who is the source of power for the school. Back at the school, Suzy discovers a hidden door in  the office of the headmistress where she finds some of the instructors plotting Suzy’s sacrifice. Suzy is detected and she begins to run, finding her way into the bedroom of the head witch Markos, who awakens and tries to murder her. Suzy kills the witch, fleeing the school as the coven begins to die.   

This witch story is violent and merciless, and the witches are ferocious yet subtle in their powers. This is more of a Shakespearean take on witches, yet the story takes place in a modern setting pre-German reunification that through its access to telephones and direct contact with other people highlights Suzy’s resounding isolation. This film is a great representation of the passing of witches from Puritan or medieval folklore into contemporary settings—post-war Freiburg is a haunted space, yet also a new place, which lends itself to the development of the unknown, of the borrowing of historical perspectives of witches and the speculation of its insertion into a new modern setting.

Pyewacket directed by Adam MacDonald (2017)

This film is not technically about a witch, but about a female entity. Leah is a young girl bereaved by the death of her father, and her mother moves them both into a new house on the edge of the woods for a new start. Angry with her mother, Leah summons Pyewacket, the familiar of a convicted witch in 1600s England, and she asks the entity to kill her mother. Upon moving to the new home, Leah begins to encounter strange events and is one night dragged into the forest in her sleep. She decides to reverse the summoning of Pyewacket by performing the ritual again, during which Pyewacket takes the form of her mother and then of a monster. Leah decides to kill the apparition of Pyewacket, which leads to dire consequences for her and her mother.

This film is dark and focuses on portraying the mistrust of the dark, of the woods, and of mother figures. In typical folk horror trope, and much like in The Witch, the lack of affection between mother and daughter lends itself to the exploration of outward forces as sources of tenderness and validation, which for a while can be found in the occult. The witchcraft here is not such a direct force, but creeps along the fringes of Leah’s life until it completely takes over.

The Craft directed by Andrew Fleming (1996)

About a group of three girls in high school who worship an entity called Manon, they recruit a new girl at school in the belief that she can complete their coven. Together, they cast spells to torment their bullies at school. They begin to engage in more powerful spells that begin to have increasingly negative outcomes on its victims. Sarah is caught performing a binding spell on the most powerful witch of the group but is caught, and the group turns on her and begins to haunt her dreams and fill her day with powerful illusions and hallucinations and eventually try to drive Sarah to suicide and stage the cuts on her wrists. Sarah fights back and finally uses the binding spell, preventing the coven from being able to access their powers.

This film explores the lengths of bullying and the violent form it can take within a clique. The villain here is an antipathic power-hungry young girl who does not think beyond their own actions, while the heroine is sympathetic yet naïve who does not trust her powers. The film portrays the typical struggle of good vs. evil and pits black magic vs. white magic. Although white magic is the eventual victor, black magic here is portrayed as a means to power at the expense of everyone else and its exploration is the main focus of the film. Strongly based on witch tropes (such as virgin and whore, light versus evil, communion with the devil) it nevertheless is a strong coming-of-age film.

Kiki’s Delivery Service directed by Hayao Miyazaki (1989)

This animated film is a classic Studio Ghibli release and impossible not to include in a list of witchy stories. To end this list on a lighter note, Kiki’s Delivery Service is based on a novel of the same name by Eiko Kadono (1985) and explores Kiki’s life as she comes of age at thirteen, the official age at which a witch must make her own means. She moves to a coastal city with her cat Jiji, finds a room above a bakery, and begins a delivery service for said bakery among other things. On her broom, she explores the new city and makes friends with everyone she meets. She takes on too much and she eventually becomes depressed and finds that she can no longer understand her talking cat and that she can no longer fly on her broomstick. Her friend Ursula tells her that she has become blocked. There is an accident in the city with an airship and her friend Tombo tries to help but is blown away by a gust of wind. Kiki asks to borrow a broom and fly and manages to save Tombo. Her confidence is restored alongside her powers.

This is a classic coming-of-age tale told in a very cute and wildly inventive way. Witchcraft is portrayed as a projection of the witch’s mental health and being a witch is only one of Kiki’s characteristics. Kiki wishes to find a power that is particular to her and her inability to find it depresses her, in the same way that teenagers seek an identity. There is no battle between good and evil, or portrayal of witches as heralds of malice. Witchcraft is portrayed as an old practice, and Kiki’s introduction to the city means that she must balance modernity with her traditional way of life. This film views life through the lens of a pre-teen and witchcraft is merely a means to pursue dreams and life goals.