At a remote Victorian country estate, inexperienced governess Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr) takes charge of two seemingly angelic orphaned children, Flora and Miles. But Miles’s mysterious expulsion from boarding school and a series of increasingly unsettling incidents lead her to suspect that something sinister has taken hold of the children.

When Miss Giddens begins glimpsing the spectral figures of the estate’s former governess and her lover, she becomes convinced that the dead have returned to possess the children. Yet as her fear intensifies, the line between supernatural evil and psychological obsession becomes increasingly uncertain. Jack Clayton’s adaptation of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw is a haunting, beautifully photographed ghost story built around one disturbing question: are the children possessed—or is the horror coming from the governess herself?

“Beautifully crafted and acted, immaculately shot… and very scary.” — Martin Scorsese, quoted by Time Out

“A masterclass in creepy-kid acting.” — Cath Clarke, Time Out

“One of the finest cinematic ghost stories as well as one of the scariest.” — Geoff Andrew, BFI