Suspiria
1977 film by Dario Argento
Suspiria is a 1977 Italian supernatural horror film directed by Dario Argento, who co-wrote the screenplay with Daria Nicolodi, partially based on Thomas De Quincey's 1845 essay Suspiria de Profundis. The film stars Jessica Harper as an American ballet student who transfers to a prestigious European dance academy but realizes, after a series of murders, that the school is a front for something sinister. It also features Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci, Miguel Bosé, Alida Valli, Udo Kier, and Joan Bennett, in her final film role.
The film is the first of the trilogy Argento refers to as The Three Mothers, which also comprises Inferno (1980) and The Mother of Tears (2007). Suspiria has received a positive response from critics for its visual and stylistic flair, use of vibrant colors and its score by Argento and the progressive rock band Goblin.
Suspiria was nominated for two Saturn Awards: Best Supporting Actress for Bennett in 1978, and Best DVD Classic Film Release in 2002. It is recognized as one of the most influential films in the horror genre and has received acclaim from critics in retrospective reviews. It served as the inspiration for a 2018 film of the same title, directed by Luca Guadagnino.
Plot
Suzy Bannion, a young American ballet student, arrives in Freiburg, West Germany, to study at the co-ed Tanz Akademie, a prestigious dance school. She sees another student, Pat Hingle, flee the school in terror.
“Suspiria” enters the record as 1977 film by Dario Argento. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Suspiria, film and Dario can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Suspiria” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Suspiria, film and Dario provides the most credible route into that argument.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q546900. VIAF identifies the subject as 223081774. The Library of Congress control number is no2006098967. 10 of 11 selected statements include explicit references; 9 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1977, 1845, 1980 and 2007.
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This entry incorporates text from “Suspiria” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.