Also released as
- The Exorcist (Director's Cut)
- Екзорцист
- De Duivel-uitbanner
- Exorsisten
- หมอผีเอ็กซอร์ซิสต์
- エクソシストディレクターズカット版
- エクソシスト：1973
- L'exorciste: Montage prolongé du réalisateur
- Vymýtac dábla
- Manaaja - Ennennäkemätön versio
- L'Exorciste : Version intégrale
- Der Exorzist - Die längere Fassung
- Der Exorzist - Die neue Fassung
- Der Exorzist - Director's Cut
- Shoitan Raat
- Shaitaanee Raat
- शैतानी रात
- Jengir
- L'esorcista - Versione integrale
- Exorcist
- Egzorcistas. Versija, kurios dar nematete
- L'exorcista
- The Exorcist: The Version You Haven't Seen Yet
- The Exorcist: The Version You've Never Seen
- William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist
- Isterivač djavola
- O Exorcista
- Exorcisten
Filed under
The Exorcist
The Exorcist is a 1973 American possession film directed by William Friedkin.
Ten Academy Award nominations and ambulances outside cinemas. Still the commercial ceiling for horror.
goreledger editorial rating: 9/10 · Read the review
Sign in to track what you have survived.
Friedkin got what he wanted on set by firing rifles without warning, slapping actors before takes, and jerking Ellen Burstyn on a harness hard enough to permanently injure her back. Whether that was necessary is a conversation the industry has had ever since; the take where she screams in pain is in the film.
What holds up is not the head-turning. It is the first hour, which is about a mother taking her daughter through the American medical system: the tests, the specialists, the arteriogram filmed in clinical detail. By the time anybody mentions a priest the film has already established that every rational option has been exhausted.
Max von Sydow was 44 and playing 70. The dubbing of Regan's demon voice is Mercedes McCambridge, who fought Warner for a credit and won.
Goreledger editorial rating
9 / 10
The first hour, a mother taking her daughter through the medical system, is what holds it up; the head-turning is not. By the time a priest is mentioned every rational option is gone. Still the commercial ceiling for the genre, and still upsetting.
Our opinion, not an average. How we rate
Goreledger editorial profile
Describes the film, not its quality: high gore means very gory.
Banned, seized, prosecuted
Elsewhere
- UK banned · 1988 to 1999. Not a DPP title. Released on UK video in 1981, then withdrawn in 1988 after BBFC director James Ferman blocked a video certificate that a majority of the Board's examiners had voted to grant. Passed 18 uncut on 25 February 1999.
Rate this film
No ratings yet. Score it on the five axes and yours will be the first.
Sign in to rate this and add it to your shelf.
Trailer
The sleeves
The same film, sold as a different film in each territory. Click any of them.
Where to watch
Australia
Canada
Germany
Finland
UK
USA
Legal sources only. Availability data from JustWatch via TMDB.
Checked 9 Aug 2026
Written about
- Banned horror movies and the certificate that was refused
Banned horror movies in Britain were refused a certificate by the BBFC: what was refused, why a video refusal bites, and how each title came back.
- The meaning of elevated horror as a label
The meaning of elevated horror, where the label came from, what it predicts about a film’s pace and release, and why the genre keeps resisting it.
Discuss with AI
Open a chatbot with a question about this already typed out. Useful for a second opinion, a plot detail, or working out which cut you are holding.
Adjacent
knownThe Devils
Ken Russell's best film, cut in every territory it has ever played, and still not properly released.
WATCHcanonThe Omen
A film about a man realising his son is not his. Jerry Goldsmith won the Oscar and earned it.
WATCHcultAlucarda
Mexican nunsploitation with an actual argument, and everybody in it screams for eighty minutes.
WATCHknownThe Sentinel
A model moves into a Brooklyn brownstone that turns out to be the gateway to Hell, guarded by a blind priest.
WATCHcanonSmile
A curse that passes by witnessing. Cheap scares, but the mechanism is sound and the ending commits.
WATCHcanonHereditary
A film about grief that turns out to be a film about a cult. Toni Collette should have won everything.
- Next in Possession / Demonic: The Omen (1976) →