Exploitation films

Death Walks at Midnight

Ercoli's brighter, faster Death Walks. Nieves Navarro sees a murder and nobody buys it.

The Fifth Cord

The best-looking giallo nobody names, shot by Storaro between two Bertoluccis.

The Perfume of the Lady in Black

Barely a murder mystery. A slow psychological collapse, and superb.

Death Walks on High Heels

Ercoli's best. Structurally cleverer than most of the cycle.

The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave

A widower lures redheads to his castle to get over his dead wife. Nonsense plot, glorious mood.

Pieces

Spanish, incoherent, and gleefully stupid. 'Bastard! Bastard!'

Short Night of Glass Dolls

Narrated by a paralysed man presumed dead. Unusual and very good.

The Case of the Scorpion's Tail

Martino at his most efficient. Nobody wastes a frame.

The College Girl Murders

The point where the black-and-white krimi tips over into full-colour giallo delirium.

Hatchet for the Honeymoon

A bridal-couture killer who narrates his own psychosis, and the best ghost gag Bava ever staged.

The Black Belly of the Tarantula

The killer paralyses you first so you feel it. A first-rank giallo nobody name-checks.

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times

A family curse, a killer in a red cloak, and a legend that kills every hundred years.

Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key

Best title in the genre. Poe adaptation with Edwige Fenech and a black cat.

The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh

The Martino/Fenech formula, arriving fully formed. Cut and retitled Blade of the Ripper in the US.

All the Colors of the Dark

Satanic paranoia in Swinging London. Edwige Fenech is excellent.

StageFright

A killer in a giant owl mask, a locked theatre, and Soavi announcing himself.

The Case of the Bloody Iris

The Fenech giallo distilled to its purest form: models, murders, and no reason to solve any of it.

The House with Laughing Windows

A rural giallo with no gloss and a deep, patient dread. Often voted the best one going.

The Psychic

Fulci does a clockwork giallo. A woman's vision of a murder turns out to be her own future.

Who Saw Her Die?

A child is murdered in Venice. A grieving father hunts the killer through the fog.

A Lizard in a Woman's Skin

Fulci does psychedelia. The dog scene got him prosecuted.

The New York Ripper

Genuinely nasty and hard to defend. The killer quacks. It doesn't help.

Torso

Sleazy for an hour, then a brilliant silent final act.

Alice, Sweet Alice

American giallo in Catholic New Jersey. Genuinely disturbing and well acted.

The Girl Who Knew Too Much

The one usually called the first giallo. Still half a krimi.

Don't Torture a Duckling

Fulci's best film and his angriest. A giallo about mob justice in a village.

What Have You Done to Solange?

Unusually sad for a giallo, and much better for it.

Opera

Needles taped under the eyes so she cannot look away. Argento's last truly great film.

Four Flies on Grey Velvet

Argento's third. Unavailable for decades, and worth the wait for the last shot.

The Cat o' Nine Tails

Argento's least favourite of his own films. He is roughly right.

Blood and Black Lace

The template, and still the best-looking film on this list.

Inferno

Argento's sequel to Suspiria. Even less plot, even more colour. A building that is alive.

A Bay of Blood

Bava invents the slasher a decade early. Friday the 13th copied two kills outright.

Phenomena

Insect telepathy, a Swiss boarding school, and a straight-razor chimpanzee. Argento off the leash.

Tenebrae

Argento's coldest and cleverest. That crane shot earns its reputation.

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

Argento's debut, and the film that made the giallo an export.