Saltburn has been a lightning rod for moviegoers, with some praising its caustic comedy and others calling out its empty provocations. But despite captivating performances from Barry Keoghan, Rosamund Pike, and Jacob Elordi, there’s one undeniable star of Emerald Fennell’s sophomore feature: that big-ass house. Encompassing more than 120 rooms and first built more than 700 years ago, the Northamptonshire mansion and its surrounding pools, gardens, and cryptic hedge maze are the setting for all of Saltburn’s most incendiary and polarizing scenes.
Fennell’s movie is also a reminder that when it comes to building tension on screen, there’s no better setting than a stately, secluded estate (preferably in the U.K., though that part is negotiable). Dating back to the fiction of the Brontë sisters, Edgar Allen Poe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, these settings have fueled tension both grounded in interpersonal dynamics and buoyed by supernatural goings on. Fast forward, and locales like these have been used for excellent recent novels (Helen Oyeyemi’s White is for Witching is a masterful modern gothic novel), and a whole host of pulse-pounding films.
Many of these films explore similar themes to Saltburn, focusing on wealth and class conflict, though others use their lush settings to ruminate on historical trauma, gender conflicts, and good old fashioned ghosts. From Gosford Park to Bodies Bodies Bodies, GQ has assembled a list of 10 terrific estate movies you should watch after Saltburn.
All My Friends Hate Me
Andrew Gaynord’s biting feature about a group of college friends reuniting at a posh country home was one of the best films of last year. It’s a comedy of manners presented with the tension and trappings of a horror movie, as Tom Stourton (also one of the movie’s co-writers), begins to suspect ulterior motives for his lavish birthday party. As with Saltburn, the house is a character unto itself, from a staggeringly tense scene with a hunting rifle to several stilted dining room meals that recall some of Saltburn’s best moments. The luxeness of the home also proves a critical plot point, as the inclusion of an abrasive local outsider (played with jovial menace by Dustin Demri-Burns), forces Stourton’s character to reckon with his privileged background and the growing chasm he feels between himself and his schoolmates.
Men
Jessie Buckley carries Alex Garland’s uneven gender-centric horror movie, playing a woman on a solo vacation in the English countryside looking to get some distance from a recent tragedy. Though there are some well-shot, tense moments at the local pub and in the woods, the most unnerving scenes take place during one hellish night at Buckley’s cottage, where the movie morphs into a twisted body horror in the vein of David Cronenberg. Working with regular cinematographer Rob Hardy, Garland makes this seemingly quaint house consistently alien and foreboding. The plotting of the movie feels simultaneously muddled and simplistic, Garland isn’t quite sure what he wants to say about the physical and emotional violence men inflict on women, but a committed performance from the ever-excellent Buckley and a truly unnerving setting make Men an effective entry in the canon of socially conscious horror flicks.
Ready or Not/You’re Next
Two of the better horror movies of the 2010s, Ready or Not and You’re Next play as an excellent double feature and as companion pieces to Saltburn. Both deal with an outsider finding themselves in a family corroded by wealth and unaddressed internal strife (Samara Weaving gave an iconic final girl performance in the former, while Sharni Vinson embodied a stoic resilience in the latter). The house in Ready or Not plays a more central role–it’s a mansion founded on the back of a satanic game company, and makes a perfect setting for the hide-and-seek game that makes up much of the movie’s plot. You’re Next’s vacation estate isn’t quite as remarkable, but it does lend itself to a truly staggering setpiece involving Ti West’s skull, a crossbow bolt, and a big window.
The Haunting
When it comes to The Haunting, ignore Jan de Bont’s 1999 remake and focus on Robert Wise’s ‘60s horror masterpiece, which none other than Martin Scorsese has hailed as one of the scariest films ever made. Few films make better use of a stately home than The Haunting, which obviously has good bones coming from a Shirley Jackson novel, but makes use of a unique aspect ratio, meticulous set design by Elliot Scott, and frenetic camerawork to keep its core of paranormal investigators constantly off-kilter. Particularly chilling are the scenes in the house’s ornate library, and the tremendous attention to detail and rich interpersonal drama make Wise’s film a masterpiece of 20th century horror.
A Tale of Two Sisters
Mesmerizing performances by young actors Im Soo-jung and Moon Geun-young are as crucial to Kim Jee-woon’s A Tale of Two Sisters as the palatial estate where the film takes place. Clearly inspired by gothic fiction, Jee-woon’s movie is a chilling exploration of unaddressed family trauma that manages both artful restraint and genuine frights, including an unnerving family dinner in a luxurious olivine dining room and a third act reveal that isn’t tremendously original, but works because of eerie, understated foreshadowing. The way Jee-woon balances between moments of dream-like reverie in the gorgeous manor and scares of both the jump and slow-burn variety makes A Tale of Two Sisters a masterpiece of big-ol’-house cinema.
Demon
Another international horror entry, the late director Marcin Wrona’s 2015 film Demon, set at a decaying Polish manor, is gripping and gritty. Demon isn’t as focused on wealth as films like Saltburn and Ready or Not, but the way it repurposes the Hebrew legend of the dybbuk is inspired, and the film also explores the impact of the Holocaust on the Polish community. Plus, it’s actually about the house and the land on which it was built, featuring scenes of protagonist Itay Tiran renovating the creepy estate, a pulse-pounding sinkhole scene, and a sprawling celebration that does recall Oliver’s birthday bacchanal in Saltburn.
Winchester
Helen Mirren carries this uneven film by The Spierig Brothers to a degree that recalls LeBron James on the mid-2000s Cleveland Cavaliers. The core concept is good–inspired by the story of Sarah Winchester, the widow of Winchester rifle magnate William Winchester, it adds a supernatural element to the origins of the Winchester Mystery House, the California residence that Sarah perpetually renovated and complicated until it became the literal tourist attraction it is today. The themes of Winchester never really coalesce, but there are few movies where the home itself is a bigger character than this one.
Gosford Park
We shouldn’t need to say much about Robert Altman’s Oscar-nominated upstairs-downstairs masterpiece, but it obviously warrants inclusion here. The titular home is the setting for this acerbically humorous period murder mystery, which explores the relations between the aristocrats and those who serve them with withering wit. Gosford Park makes impressive use of every corner of the estate, from the frenzied kitchen to the ornate drawing rooms. Whatever you thought of Saltburn, Gosford Park makes for a perfect viewing companion.
The Beguiled
An underrated entry in Sofia Coppola’s CV (based on a 1971 classic in the shared filmography of director Don Siegel and star Clint Eastwood), The Beguiled takes place at a girls boarding school in Civil War-era Virginia, exploring gender and age dynamics with an urgent moral question at its center. The Coppola version does feel more spiritually linked to Fennell’s film, sharing a dreamy visual palette with a creeping sinisterness around the edges, and boasting a cast of dynamic 21st century stars. Kirsten Dunst, Nicole Kidman, and Colin Farrell headline, but young actors like Angourie Rice, Oona Laurence, and Addison Riecke bring the film to life.
Bodies Bodies Bodies
Halina Reijn’s 2022 English language feature is one of the best satires of Gen Z culture we’ve gotten yet, with razor sharp performances from Rachel Sennott, Myha’la Herrold, and Amandla Stenberg. Reijn and cinematographer Jasper Wolf make phenomenal use of the Westchester estate where the film is set, particularly once the power goes out and the hokey murder mystery game at its core becomes a genuine life-or-death affair. Another project that pairs well with Saltburn, by doing for Gen Z what Emerald Fenell's film did for a previous generation of privileged young adults.
