The other day I was bored, looking for a movie, and my sister and I ran into a list of 20th Century Essentials put together by TCM on HBO Max. On that list was Black Narcissus, a film I never thought of watching until I read the synopsis: A group of nuns struggle to establish a convent in the Himalayas, while isolation, extreme weather, altitude, and culture clashes all conspire to drive the well-intentioned missionaries mad.

Yes, there were some seriously racist tones in this movie (but duh, it was made in 1947) but besides that, I was riveted. This movie about a bunch of nuns trying to create this convent in what used to be essentially a brothal was fascinating and the darker material shocked me. They just didn’t make these types of movies back then and not only was it more mature than I expected but it was actually quite scary toward the end. I’m talking watch-through-the-slits-in-your-fingers scary (at least for me anyway considering that I’m an ultra scaredy-cat.)

I got to say, this movie really was an essential and now I’m going to have to revisit that list because there were plenty of other movies that I hadn’t seen before.

I’m giving this movie 100 out of 100 and 5 out of 5 stars (besides the fact that it was super racist at times though, of course.)

I thank you for reading and I hope you have a fantastic day.