The films

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Death Walks at Midnight

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

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The Fifth Cord

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

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The Perfume of the Lady in Black

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

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Death Walks on High Heels

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

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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.

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Pieces

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

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Short Night of Glass Dolls

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

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The Case of the Scorpion's Tail

Martino at his most efficient. Nobody wastes a frame.

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The College Girl Murders

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

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Hatchet for the Honeymoon

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

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The Black Belly of the Tarantula

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

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The Red Queen Kills Seven Times

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

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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.

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The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh

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

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All the Colors of the Dark

Satanic paranoia in Swinging London. Edwige Fenech is excellent.

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StageFright

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

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The Case of the Bloody Iris

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

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The House with Laughing Windows

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

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The Psychic

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

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Who Saw Her Die?

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

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Alice, Sweet Alice

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

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A Lizard in a Woman's Skin

Fulci does psychedelia. The dog scene got him prosecuted.

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The New York Ripper

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

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Torso

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

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The Girl Who Knew Too Much

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

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Don't Torture a Duckling

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

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What Have You Done to Solange?

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

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Opera

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

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Four Flies on Grey Velvet

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

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The Cat o' Nine Tails

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

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Blood and Black Lace

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

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Inferno

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

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A Bay of Blood

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

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Phenomena

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

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Tenebrae

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

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The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

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