Released several years after Rosemary's Baby and a little before The Omen, this 1973 film completes a trio of 'demonic child' movies that made strong arguments for birth control. Ellen Burstyn plays a suburban mother in Washington D.C. whose daughter Regan (Linda Blair) starts acting more than peculiar. After realising the young girl is possessed by a demon that threatens to kill her, they enlist priests to perform an exorcism – one Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller) who is himself in a crisis of faith after the passing of his mother, and Father Lankester Merrin (Max von Sydow) who has performed the ritual before. As the room gets cold and the lights grow dim, the priests engage in a terrifying battle against ultimate evil.

Often regarded as the scariest movie ever made and thought to be a haunted picture , The Exorcist is moody, masterfully crafted and still genuinely shocking to this day. From potty-mouthed demons to projectile vomit, The Exorcist throws every last image of horror at the wall yet maintains the potency of its venom with an uncanny realist treatment with considered pacing. Nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture,The Exorcist has remained a sensation since its first release, spawning a deluge of sequels and imitators even to this day.