Anya Taylor-Joy has firmly established herself as one of her generation’s leading and most versatile actors. At 30 years old, she has built an impressive and varied career across both film and television, seamlessly transitioning between major global franchises and critically acclaimed prestige projects. Over the past decade, she has appeared in blockbusters like The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Mad Max: Fury Road, while also earning critical acclaim and a Golden Globe Award for her mesmerizing performance as chess prodigy Beth Harmon in Netflix’s massively popular limited series The Queen’s Gambit.
Her momentum shows no signs of slowing down. This year, she starred in the Apple TV series Lucky and is set to appear in Denis Villeneuve’s highly anticipated sci-fi epic Dune: Part Three. Today, Taylor-Joy stands out as one of the rare modern performers who effortlessly commands the traditional "movie-star" label, drawing audiences to theaters simply on the strength of her presence. Yet, like many legendary careers, hers began with a single, defining breakout role that fundamentally challenged and inverted traditional cinematic tropes—specifically turning the classic "final girl" narrative on its head by presenting a heroine who survives not by fighting back against evil, but by ultimately giving into it.
That project was The Witch, which premiered in 2015 and served as an explosive calling card not only for Taylor-Joy as a rising star, but also for filmmaker Robert Eggers as a distinct new directorial voice to watch. The film also accomplished the rare feat of turning Black Phillip, an ordinary-looking goat, into an iconic contemporary horror figure almost overnight. More than a decade later, the film remains just as invigorating, tense, and culturally relevant as it was upon its initial release. For fans looking to revisit the atmospheric masterpiece, it is currently streaming on Netflix, though its availability is limited—it leaves the platform on Oct. 1, giving viewers only a matter of days to watch or rewatch it before it departs.
What is The Witch about?
Set in 1630s New England, The Witch follows a devout, deeply isolated Puritan family during an era when witches, supernatural myths, and strict religious folklore quietly anchored the everyday fears of colonial society. Following a formal exile from their local religious community due to a theological dispute with the church leadership, a family of seven is forced to relocate to the unforgiving outskirts of civilization. Their new homestead sits mere feet away from dark, unmapped, and claustrophobic woods that seem to breathe with malevolent potential.
The film is deeply steeped in its historical setting, immersing the audience in an environment where characters speak a dense, authentic form of archaic English. Religion functions as the absolute center of their daily existence, governing their labor, their morality, and their fears. While this linguistic and historical dedication can occasionally present a challenging watch for modern audiences, The Witch ultimately strips away the complex period context to tell a raw, universal story about a fragile family unit finally hitting its ultimate breaking point.
With their livestock depleted, no animals left to successfully hunt in the surrounding wilderness, and their critical crops rotting in the soil, the patriarch William, played by Ralph Ineson, and his wife Katherine, played by Kate Dickie, grow increasingly desperate. They spend their grueling days bitterly arguing in their cramped, dimly lit cabin, projecting their failures onto one another and assigning blame for every single misfortune that befalls their household. Their younger children absorb this toxic tension—perhaps also tuning in to the devilish whispers of Black Phillip—and begin acting out in unsettling ways that compound the family’s mounting misery.
The underlying dread finally boils over into catastrophic horror when the family’s newborn infant, Samuel, mysteriously vanishes without a trace while under the direct watch of their eldest daughter, Thomasin, played by Anya Taylor-Joy. What follows is a haunting, psychological, and violently tragic unraveling that tests the limits of faith, sanity, and familial loyalty.
Living deliciously
As the tragedy deepens, Thomasin quickly becomes the primary scapegoat for the entire family. Blamed directly by her grieving mother for the sudden and inexplicable loss of baby Samuel, Thomasin finds herself unfairly targeted by the psychological projections of every member of her household. Katherine, entirely consumed by grief and religious paranoia, begins to view her daughter’s natural, developing body as evidence of the devil’s work and corruption.
Meanwhile, her younger brother Caleb, played by Harvey Scrimshaw, is drawn to Thomasin out of a mixture of profound adolescent loneliness and a newly awakened, forbidden sexuality. The family’s mischievous younger twins let their overactive imaginations run wild, publicly accusing their older sister of practicing witchcraft to deflect from their own bizarre behavior. Even her father, William—who outwardly presents himself as a fiercely devout man utterly devoted to his family’s spiritual well-being—ultimately fails her. In a moment of weakness, he manipulates the situation, setting Thomasin up to take the blame for a valuable silver cup that he secretly traded away without informing his wife.
When the imposing, ominous goat Black Phillip finally reveals his true demonic nature directly to Thomasin, she is left with nothing left to lose in a world that has already condemned, rejected, and abused her. The realization of her fate comes almost as a profound sense of relief from her endless suffering.
The line, "Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?" delivered by voice actor Daniel Malik, remains iconic and deeply chilling, not merely because of the eerie tone and pitch of the delivery, but because it represents Thomasin’s singular opportunity to finally let go of the oppressive guilt and cruelty forced upon her by a puritanical society. She signs the dark book, sheds her heavy clothing, and walks freely into the very same dark woods that have haunted and tormented her family since the very beginning of the narrative.
The film’s haunting conclusion remains open to multiple interpretations. Some view it as a dark tragedy in which Thomasin ultimately succumbs to the exact evil forces that destroyed her family, while others interpret it as a darkly empowering tale of liberation. In this reading, Thomasin escapes her abusers to find a liberated community of like-minded women who were similarly cast out and demonized by a rigid, patriarchal society that routinely pitted them against one another. While traditional horror narratives usually feature a "final girl" who manages to survive by fighting off and ultimately defeating the evil entity, Thomasin’s survival comes from an entirely different place: she chooses to embrace it.
While The Witch served as a major breakout platform for Anya Taylor-Joy, it simultaneously introduced the broader cinematic world to Robert Eggers, a filmmaker defined by a uniquely distinctive and uncompromising artistic voice. Renowned for his atmospheric, meticulously researched productions and an obsessive, almost fanatical attention to historical and period detail, every subsequent project by Eggers expands his distinct cinematic vision.
From exploring the gritty, brutal myths of the Vikings in The Northman—which also marked a successful professional reunion with Taylor-Joy—to his recent, highly anticipated adaptation of Nosferatu, Eggers continues to reshape modern horror. His distinct approach to classic cinematic monsters reminds audiences that these ancient creatures are far more terrifying than the romanticized anti-heroes popular in contemporary pop culture.
Eggers is set to return to theaters on December 25 with Werwulf, a period project starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson as a cursed man navigating the perils of 13th-century England. Whatever narrative directions he chooses to take with classic folklore next, it remains worthwhile to look back at where his legendary cinematic journey truly began: in the mud and shadows of New England, with a young girl, a sinister goat, and a fateful choice.
The Witch is currently streaming on Netflix until Oct. 1.
