Movies and Shows for Skeptics
by J. Spurlin | created - 28 Sep 2010 | updated - 01 May 2011 | PublicIn your typical screen fare, omens prove true, ghosts are real, monsters do exist, psychics are genuine, superstition is accurate, extraterrestrials are here, conspiracy theorists have the truth, God works in mysterious but irrefutable ways while skeptics are forced to change theirs or fall victim to divine retribution, blood-soaked fangs, malicious poltergeists, path-crossing black cats, sinister government forces and the like. But sometimes we get a different point of view.
NOTE: This list will be updated periodically.
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1. Mark of the Vampire (1935)
Passed | 60 min | Horror, Mystery
When a nobleman is murdered, a professor of the occult blames vampires, but not all is what it seems.
Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill
Votes: 5,581
It turns out the vampires don't really exist—although the explanations for the seemingly supernatural occurrences are not very convincing.
2. The Good Earth (1937)
Passed | 138 min | Drama, Romance
Although married Chinese farmers Wang and O-Lan initially experience success, their lives are complicated by declining fortunes and lean times, as well as the arrival of the beautiful young Lotus.
Directors: Sidney Franklin, Victor Fleming, Gustav Machatý, Sam Wood | Stars: Paul Muni, Luise Rainer, Walter Connolly, Tilly Losch
Votes: 5,412
The lazy uncle (Walter Connolly) believes the locust plague is brought by the gods, but the book-learned older son (Keye Luke) insists that the locusts are a natural occurrence and can be fought.
3. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)
Passed | 80 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson investigate the legend of a supernatural hound, a beast that may be stalking a young heir on the fog-shrouded moorland that makes up his estate.
Director: Sidney Lanfield | Stars: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Richard Greene, Wendy Barrie
Votes: 11,687
Sherlock Holmes investigates the case of a seemingly supernatural hound with a perfectly natural explanation in the best-known adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's story.
4. The Undying Monster (1942)
Not Rated | 63 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
Surviving members of an aristocratic English family are threatened by a legendary monster when they venture out on chilly, foggy nights.
Director: John Brahm | Stars: James Ellison, Heather Angel, John Howard, Bramwell Fletcher
Votes: 1,536
In contrast to The Wolf Man (1941) (1941), this horror flick finds a medical—though admittedly not very plausible—explanation for werewolves.
5. Fallen Angel (1945)
Approved | 98 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
A slick con man arrives in a small town looking to make some money, but soon gets more than he bargained for.
Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: Alice Faye, Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, Charles Bickford
Votes: 6,514
John Carradine plays Professor Madley, a spiritualist who delivers messages to the dead, while making no pretense to his cronies that his 'spook shows' are anything but a con.
6. A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
PG | 104 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
A British wartime aviator who cheats death must argue for his life before a celestial court, hoping to prolong his fledgling romance with an American girl.
Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger | Stars: David Niven, Kim Hunter, Robert Coote, Kathleen Byron
Votes: 24,901
Does David Niven really visit heaven or is it all just a hallucination? We're left to decide.
7.
Adventures of Superman (1952–1958)
Episode:
The Lucky Cat
(1955)
TV-G | 30 min | Action, Adventure, Crime
The members of a club devoted to spurning superstition begin to suffer a series of near-calamities.
Director: Harry Gerstad | Stars: George Reeves, Jack Larson, Noel Neill, John Hamilton
Votes: 157
Clark Kent and Jimmy Olsen, on duty as reporters, visit a club that is devoted to thumbing its collective nose at any and all superstitions. Members must walk under a ladder after entering the rented meeting house. Pins are left all over the floor, and members are forbidden to pick any up. The chairman calls the meetings to order by breaking a mirror. Their mascot, of course, is a black cat. When bad things begin to befall them, they prove to have a perfectly natural explanation. (Not that Superman is scientifically plausible, but you can't have everything.)
8.
Hawkins Falls: A Television Novel (1950–1955)
Episode:
Episode dated 4 April 1955
(1955)
Drama
Mitch Fredericks is frantic, but Dr. Corey is unconcerned, on the day Andy is to jump from the roof with only an umbrella.
Director: Alan Beaumont | Stars: Bernardine Flynn, Maurice Copeland, Jim Bannon, Ros Twohey
Andy (Arthur Peterson) continues to believe in his own ability to predict the future even after Mitch (Jim Bannon) explains that he had tricked him into thinking he had such powers.
9. Inherit the Wind (1960)
Passed | 128 min | Biography, Drama, History
Based on a real-life case in 1925; two great lawyers argue the case for, and against, a Tennessee science teacher accused of the crime of teaching Darwin's theory of evolution.
Director: Stanley Kramer | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gene Kelly, Dick York
Votes: 32,780
It's science vs. religion, evolution vs. creation in this famous movie of the famous play about the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial.
10. Psycho (1960)
R | 109 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin
Votes: 718,384 | Gross: $32.00M
It seems a motel caretaker's homicidal mother has risen from the grave—until the horrifying truth is revealed.
11.
The Twilight Zone (1959–1964)
Episode:
Nick of Time
(1960)
TV-PG | 25 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A pair of newlyweds stopping in a small town are trapped by their own superstition when playing a fortune-telling machine in a local diner.
Director: Richard L. Bare | Stars: William Shatner, Patricia Breslin, Guy Wilkerson, Stafford Repp
Votes: 4,089
Probably the only Twilight Zone episode to argue against the supernatural. William Shatner becomes a slave to his superstitious belief in the tacky little fortune-telling machine in a small-town diner.
12. The Innocents (1961)
Not Rated | 100 min | Horror
A young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted.
Director: Jack Clayton | Stars: Deborah Kerr, Peter Wyngarde, Megs Jenkins, Michael Redgrave
Votes: 33,069 | Gross: $2.62M
Like Henry James's The Turn of the Screw on which it is based, this thriller can viewed as a straight ghost story or the story of a mad young woman who draws others into her hysteria.
13. Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Approved | 137 min | Drama, Horror
A young couple trying for a baby moves into an aging, ornate apartment building on Central Park West, where they find themselves surrounded by peculiar neighbors.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer
Votes: 235,223
Most viewers don't notice it, but this horror movie about witchcraft does not make natural explanations, such as coincidences, impossible. Satan's visitation could be nothing more than Rosemary's nightmare and the worshipers' wishful thinking. We don't even see the baby. Rosemary screams something about its eyes. Hysteria? Deformities brought on by the tannis root? One of the funniest things about this jet-black comedy is imagining the shattering anti-climax of the baby's development as the would-be witches cling ever more desperately to their beliefs. (Skeptics will have to ignore the TV movie sequel, however.)
14. Macbeth (1979 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 145 min | Drama
Macbeth (Ian McKellen) is a daring member of the Scottish military, who receives a revelation from three menacing sorceresses that he will someday become the King of Scotland. This ... See full summary »
Directors: Philip Casson, Trevor Nunn | Stars: Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, John Bown, Susan Dury
Votes: 915
The usual supernaturalism is not present in this adaptation of Shakespeare, even though the text (aside from the usual time-saving edits) is not altered. Here the witches have no obvious supernatural powers. In the play, Macbeth is probably hallucinating in act III, scene IV, although it specifies that the ghost appears; but this production makes the unusual choice of not having John Woodvine, who plays Banquo, appear as the ghost. Instead, Macbeth (Ian McKellen) reacts to 'the incorporeal air' when he sees the apparition.
15. Scooby Doo, Where Are You! (1969–1978)
TV-G | 22 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy
A group of teenage friends and their Great Dane (Scooby-Doo) travel in a bright green van solving strange and hilarious mysteries, while returning from or going to a regular teenage function.
Stars: Don Messick, Casey Kasem, Nicole Jaffe, Vic Perrin
Votes: 41,533
This cartoon series about a talking dog is not exactly a fount of scientific rigor, but all the ghosts prove to be human tricksters in disguise, while many of show's spin-offs prefer them to be real.
16. Cosmos (1980)
TV-PG | 60 min | Documentary
Astronomer Carl Sagan leads us on an engaging guided tour of the various elements and cosmological theories of the universe.
Stars: Carl Sagan, Jaromír Hanzlík, Jonathan Fahn, Jean Charney
Votes: 44,143
In Carl Sagan's glorious story of the cosmos he takes the time to examine myths, religion, creationism and extraterrestrials.
17. The Secret Identity of Jack the Ripper (1988 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 80 min | Documentary, Drama
A panel of experts examines the five main suspects in the Jack the Ripper murders and determines which of them is the most likely to have committed the crimes.
Director: Louis J. Horvitz | Stars: Peter Ustinov, William Eckert, Ann Mallalieu, Roy Hazelwood
Votes: 113
In front of a live audience, Peter Ustinov hosts an examination of who Jack the Ripper really was. Pre-recorded segments do their best to tantalize the viewer with possibility of mad conspiracies that go all the way up to the queen, but the producers made the mistake of inviting genuine criminal experts to examine the case and decide who is the most likely suspect. Their unanimous choice is also the most boring: the paranoid schizophrenic. The next time a Ripperologist tells you the murders could only have been committed by a skilled surgeon, refer him to this TV special.
18. Awakenings (1990)
PG-13 | 121 min | Biography, Drama
The victims of an encephalitis epidemic many years ago have been catatonic ever since, but now a new drug offers the prospect of reviving them.
Director: Penny Marshall | Stars: Robert De Niro, Robin Williams, Julie Kavner, Ruth Nelson
Votes: 158,782 | Gross: $52.10M
Dr. Sayer (Robin Williams) believes his patients, catatonic for thirty years, may be conscious at some level. Dr. Ingham (Max von Sydow) believes they are unconscious simply because "the alternative would be unthinkable." Luckily for the patients, Sayer has a more scientific way of determining the truth. Also: Awakenings is probably the only movie to use a Ouija board for actual communication.
19. James Randi: Psychic Investigator (1991)
Talk-Show
The noted conjurer and skeptic, James Randi, investigates paranormal claims on stage in front of an audience.
Stars: James Randi, Gordon Higginson, Roger Crosthwaite, Coral Polge
Votes: 72
In front of a live audience, the famous conjurer, James Randi, debunks various paranormal claims.
20.
Nova (1974– )
Episode:
Secrets of the Psychics
(1993)
TV-PG | 56 min | Documentary
Stage magician and scientific skeptic James Randi recounts his cases debunking claims of the supernatural around the world.
Director: Carl Charlson | Stars: James Randi, Johnny Carson, Mike Douglas, Uri Geller
Votes: 78
After this series aired an overly credulous episode on the subject, James Randi set out to apply a more rigorous logic to psychics and psychic phenomena.
21. Hamlet (1996)
PG-13 | 242 min | Drama
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, returns home to find his father murdered and his mother remarrying the murderer, his uncle. Meanwhile, war is brewing.
Director: Kenneth Branagh | Stars: Kenneth Branagh, Julie Christie, Derek Jacobi, Kate Winslet
Votes: 40,057 | Gross: $4.41M
When Horatio and the watchers see the ghost, it is subtly but unmistakably suggested that they are victims of an optical illusion and the power of suggestion prompted by the darkness, the lightning and a statue. This would mean that the hypersensitive Hamlet is the victim of an even stronger hallucination and would explain why he is the only one to hear the ghost (except when it utters the word "Swear!") and why later the ghost is only visible to him, not Gertrude, when it visits her chamber.
22. Where Are All the UFO's? (1996 TV Movie)
100 min | Documentary
The modern myth of the UFO begins with a 1938 radio broadcast and continues through two major 1947 sightings, the "contactee" movement, abduction stories and crop circles.
Director: Scott Paddor | Stars: Michael Dorn, Orson Welles, Walter Haut, Jesse Marcel Jr.
Votes: 57
This excellent TV documentary retains all the spooky thrills of the more credulous UFO specials, while taking a more hard-nosed position on whether extraterrestrials are actually visiting us and whether we have any evidence for it.
23.
Midsomer Murders (1997– )
Episode:
The Electric Vendetta
(2001)
TV-14 | 99 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
The body of a criminal is found in a crop circle, and the locals blame extra-terrestrial activity for the death. But Barnaby is not convinced.
Director: Peter Smith | Stars: John Nettles, Daniel Casey, Jane Wymark, Patrick Baladi
Votes: 1,001
When a dead body turns up in a crop circle, a ufologist blames alien abduction, but DCI Barnaby suspects a human agency.
24. Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (2003–2010)
TV-MA | 30 min | Comedy, Documentary
The comedy illusionist duo explore various topics and debunk what they consider misconceptions about them.
Stars: Penn Jillette, Teller, Shera Pollins, Michael Goudeau
Votes: 11,916
The pair of conjuring comedians debunk the unscientific and irrational.
25.
House M.D. (2004–2012)
Episode:
Damned If You Do
(2004)
TV-14 | 44 min | Drama, Mystery
A nun suffering from acute dermatitis and asthma treated by House with possibly the wrong medication comes dangerously close to death.
Director: Greg Yaitanes | Stars: Hugh Laurie, Lisa Edelstein, Omar Epps, Robert Sean Leonard
Votes: 4,019
Nuns believe one of their sisters has stigmata. Dr. House has a more down-to-earth explanation. That is a minor plot point in an episode that nevertheless is filled with excellent discussions about faith vs. reason.
26. The Atheism Tapes (2004)
Documentary
Jonathan Miller interviews five atheists and one theologian on the subject of atheism.
Stars: Jonathan Miller, Arthur Miller, Richard Dawkins, Steven Weinberg
Votes: 435
Jonathan Miller interviews five atheists and one theologian on the subject of atheism.
27. The Real Da Vinci Code (2005 TV Movie)
90 min | Documentary
Tony Robinson examines the claims made in Dan Brown's best-selling novel, "The Da Vinci Code."
Director: Kashaf Chaudhry | Stars: Tony Robinson, Dan Brown, Oliver Davies, Graham Phillips
Votes: 417
Tony Robinson takes a skeptical look at the conspiracy theories promoted by Dan Brown's best-selling thriller, The Da Vinci Code.
28. Derren Brown: Messiah (2005 TV Special)
65 min | Documentary
Derren Brown takes on a number of fake identities as he travels across the USA trying to convince people of his abilities in the area of psychic powers and the supernatural world.
Director: Tim Knight | Stars: Derren Brown, Lorraine DiFelice, Ann Druffel, Abby Haydon
Votes: 455
Derren Brown pretends to possess paranormal powers among those who claim to possess the same in order to find out if they can spot him as a phony. He also demonstrates how easy it is to get a skeptic to believe in God.
29. Bug (2006)
R | 102 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
An unhinged war veteran holes up with a lonely woman in a spooky Oklahoma motel room. The line between reality and delusion is blurred as they discover a bug infestation.
Director: William Friedkin | Stars: Ashley Judd, Michael Shannon, Harry Connick Jr., Lynn Collins
Votes: 37,815 | Gross: $7.01M
In an Oklahoma motel room, a lonely woman and a delusional war veteran protect themselves against an imaginary bug infestation. William Friedkin's film version of Tracy Letts's play not only demonstrates how powerful the power of suggestion is, but it also features one of the few conspiracy theorists in the movies who is actually a crackpot.
30. Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
R | 118 min | Drama, Fantasy, War
In the Falangist Spain of 1944, the bookish young stepdaughter of a sadistic army officer escapes into an eerie but captivating fantasy world.
Director: Guillermo del Toro | Stars: Ivana Baquero, Ariadna Gil, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú
Votes: 703,096 | Gross: $37.63M
The successful combination of real-life horror and mystical horror is just one of many triumphs of this strange, touching, violent fantasy, which (like A Matter of Life and Death (1946)) allows us to decide whether or not the fantasy elements were real or all a dream.
31. Root of All Evil? (2006 TV Movie)
90 min | Documentary
Richard Dawkins' highly critical documentary attacks the pulsing heart of all mainstream religion- faith; with special focus on Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Contains repeated ... See full summary »
Director: Russell Barnes | Stars: Yousef Al-Khattab, Richard Dawkins, Ted Haggard, Richard Harries
Votes: 3,867
Richard Dawkins examines the battle between faith and science. Among the astonishing things are a rehearsal for a play about hell, a secular Jew-turned-Muslim who is rabidly antisemitic and an apologist for the murderer of an abortion doctor.
32. Dexter (2006–2013)
TV-MA | 60 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
He's smart. He's lovable. He's Dexter Morgan, America's favorite serial killer, who spends his days solving crimes and nights committing them.
Stars: Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, David Zayas, James Remar
Votes: 766,491
From the religious hypocrisy of the Trinity Killer to Angel Batista's belief in the Law of Attraction, Dexter consistently turns a jaundiced eye toward anything supernatural.
33. Religulous (2008)
R | 101 min | Documentary, Comedy, War
Bill Maher's take on the current state of world religion.
Director: Larry Charles | Stars: Bill Maher, Tal Bachman, Jonathan Boulden, Steven Burg
Votes: 60,246 | Gross: $13.00M
Bill Maher ridicules religion and its believers.
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