Frankenstein - Watch Order: Release Order

1931 - 201524 Films35h 53m3.4 Average

The Frankenstein film series spans nearly a century of cinematic adaptations, from Universal's genre-defining 1931 classic to modern reimaginings. This watch order includes the connected Universal monster films of the 1930s-40s, Hammer's gothic horror series of the 1950s-70s, and standalone modern adaptations. Early silent films featuring the monster are not included.

The series encompasses multiple timelines and approaches: Universal's films follow the Monster's continuing story through sequels and crossovers, while Hammer focuses on Baron Frankenstein himself across different experiments. Modern films like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Victor Frankenstein offer fresh takes on the source material, alongside comedic interpretations like Young Frankenstein.

1
Frankenstein poster

Frankenstein

19311h 10m4.4
Director: James Whale
Cast: Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles, Boris Karloff, Edward Van Sloan

Tampering with life and death, Henry Frankenstein pieces together salvaged body parts to bring a human monster to life; the mad scientist's dreams are shattered by his creation's violent rage as the monster awakens to a world in which he is unwelcome.

DramaHorrorScience Fiction
2
Bride of Frankenstein poster

Bride of Frankenstein

19351h 15m4.4
Director: James Whale
Cast: Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Valerie Hobson, Ernest Thesiger, Elsa Lanchester

Dr. Frankenstein and his monster both turn out to be alive, not killed as previously believed. Dr. Frankenstein wants to get out of the evil experiment business, but when a mad scientist, Dr. Pretorius, kidnaps his wife, Dr. Frankenstein agrees to help him create a new creature.

HorrorScience Fiction
3
Son of Frankenstein poster

Son of Frankenstein

19391h 39m3.8
Director: Rowland V. Lee
Cast: Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, Josephine Hutchinson

One of the sons of late Dr. Henry Frankenstein finds his father's ghoulish creation in a coma and revives him, only to find out the monster is controlled by Ygor who is bent on revenge.

HorrorScience Fiction
4
The Ghost of Frankenstein poster

The Ghost of Frankenstein

19421h 8m3.1
Director: Erle C. Kenton
Cast: Cedric Hardwicke, Ralph Bellamy, Lionel Atwill, Bela Lugosi, Evelyn Ankers

Frankenstein's unscrupulous colleague, Dr. Bohmer, plans to transplant Ygor's brain so he can rule the world using the monster's body, but the plan goes sour when he turns malevolent and goes on a rampage.

HorrorScience Fiction
5
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man poster

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man

19431h 14m3.4
Director: Roy William Neill
Cast: Lon Chaney Jr., Bela Lugosi, Patric Knowles, Ilona Massey, Maria Ouspenskaya

Grave robbers open the grave of the wolf man and awaken him. He doesn't like the idea of being immortal and killing people when the moon is full so tries to find Dr. Frankenstein, in the hopes that the doctor can cure him. Dr. Frankenstein has died; however, his monster is found.

HorrorScience Fiction
6
House of Frankenstein poster

House of Frankenstein

19441h 11m3.2
Director: Erle C. Kenton
Cast: Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr., J. Carrol Naish, John Carradine, Anne Gwynne

Deranged scientist, Gustav Niemann, escapes from prison and overtakes the director of a traveling chamber of horrors, soon reviving the infamous Count Dracula, the frozen Frankenstein Monster, and the Wolf Man.

HorrorScience Fiction
7
House of Dracula poster

House of Dracula

19451h 4m2.8
Director: Erle C. Kenton
Cast: John Carradine, Onslow Stevens, Lon Chaney Jr., Martha O'Driscoll, Jane Adams

A scientist working on cures for rare afflictions, such as a bone softening agent made from molds to allow him to correct the spinal deformity of his nurse, finds the physical causes of lycanthropy in wolf-man Larry Talbot and of vampirism in Count Dracula, but himself becomes afflicted with homicidal madness while exchanging blood with Dracula.

HorrorScience Fiction
8
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein poster

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein

19481h 23m4.1
Director: Charles Barton
Cast: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Lon Chaney Jr., Bela Lugosi, Glenn Strange

Baggage handlers Bud and Lou accidentally stumble upon Frankenstein's Monster, Dracula and the Wolf Man.

HorrorComedy
9
The Curse of Frankenstein poster

The Curse of Frankenstein

19571h 23m3.9
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Hazel Court, Robert Urquhart, Christopher Lee, Melvyn Hayes

Baron Victor Frankenstein has discovered life's secret and unleashed a blood-curdling chain of events resulting from his creation: a cursed creature with a horrid face — and a tendency to kill.

HorrorScience Fiction
10
Frankenstein 1970 poster

Frankenstein 1970

19581h 23m2.7
Director: Howard W. Koch
Cast: Boris Karloff, Jana Lund, Don 'Red' Barry, Charlotte Austin, Rudolph Anders

The baron's grandson rents the family castle to a TV crew to fund his atomic revival of the family monster.

HorrorScience Fiction
11
The Revenge of Frankenstein poster

The Revenge of Frankenstein

19581h 30m3.7
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Francis Matthews, Eunice Gayson, Michael Gwynn, John Welsh

Rescued from the guillotine by his devoted dwarf Fritz, the Baron relocates to Carlsbruck, where he continues his gruesome experiments.

HorrorScience Fiction
12
The Evil of Frankenstein poster

The Evil of Frankenstein

19641h 27m3.3
Director: Freddie Francis
Cast: Peter Cushing, Peter Woodthorpe, Duncan Lamont, Sandor Elès, Katy Wild

Once hounded from his castle by outraged villagers for creating a monstrous living being, Baron Frankenstein returns to Karlstaad. High in the mountains they stumble on the body of the creature, perfectly preserved in the ice. He is brought back to life with the help of the hypnotist Zoltan who now controls the creature. Can Frankenstein break Zoltan's hypnotic spell that incites the monster to commit these horrific murders or will Zoltan induce the creature to destroy its creator?

HorrorScience Fiction
13
Frankenstein Created Woman poster

Frankenstein Created Woman

19671h 32m3.6
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Susan Denberg, Thorley Walters, Robert Morris, Duncan Lamont

A deformed tormented girl drowns herself after her lover is framed for murder and guillotined. Baron Frankenstein, experimenting with the transfer of souls, places the boy's soul into her body, bringing Christina back to life. Driven by revenge, she carries out a violent retribution on those responsible for both deaths.

HorrorScience Fiction
14
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed poster

Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed

19691h 41m3.5
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Veronica Carlson, Freddie Jones, Simon Ward, Thorley Walters

Blackmailing a young couple to assist with his horrific experiments the Baron, desperate for vital medical data, abducts a man from an insane asylum. On route the abductee dies and the Baron and his assistant transplant his brain into a corpse. The creature is tormented by a trapped soul in an alien shell and, after a visit to his wife who violently rejects his monstrous form, the creature wreaks his revenge on the perpetrator of his misery: Baron Frankenstein.

HorrorScience Fiction
15
The Horror of Frankenstein poster

The Horror of Frankenstein

19701h 35m3.1
Director: Jimmy Sangster
Cast: Ralph Bates, Kate O'Mara, Veronica Carlson, Jon Finch, Dennis Price

Young Victor Frankenstein returns from medical school with a depraved taste for beautiful women and fiendish experiments.

HorrorScience Fiction
16
Lady Frankenstein poster

Lady Frankenstein

19711h 39m2.8
Director: Mel Welles
Cast: Joseph Cotten, Rosalba Neri, Paul Müller, Herbert Fux, Renate Kasché

When Dr. Frankenstein is killed by a monster he created, his daughter and his lab assistant continue his experiments.

HorrorScience Fiction
17
Flesh for Frankenstein poster

Flesh for Frankenstein

19731h 35m3.1
Director: Paul Morrissey
Cast: Joe Dallesandro, Udo Kier, Monique van Vooren, Dalila Di Lazzaro, Arno Jürging

Within the decadent walls of the Frankenstein mansion, the Baron and his depraved assistant Otto have discovered the means of creating new life. As the Baron's laboratory begins to fill up with stitched body parts, the Baroness dallies with the randy new manservant and soon the decadent, permissive household is consumed by an outrageous, bizarre and hilarious combination of death and dismemberment.

Horror
18
Young Frankenstein poster

Young Frankenstein

19741h 46m4.7
Director: Mel Brooks
Cast: Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman

A young neurosurgeon inherits the castle of his grandfather, the famous Dr. Victor von Frankenstein. In the castle he finds a funny hunchback, a pretty lab assistant and the elderly housekeeper. Young Frankenstein believes that the work of his grandfather was delusional, but when he discovers the book where the mad doctor described his reanimation experiment, he suddenly changes his mind.

Comedy
19
Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell poster

Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell

19741h 35m3.4
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Shane Briant, Madeline Smith, David Prowse, John Stratton

Dr Simon Helder, sentenced to an insane asylum for crimes against humanity, recognises its director as the brilliant Baron Frankenstein, the man whose work he had been trying to emulate before his imprisonment. Frankenstein utilises Helder's medical knowledge for a project he has been working on for some time. He is assembling a man from vital organs extracted from various inmates in the asylum. And the Baron will resort to murder to acquire the perfect specimens for his most ambitious project ever.

HorrorScience Fiction
20
The Bride poster

The Bride

19851h 54m2.6
Director: Franc Roddam
Cast: Sting, Jennifer Beals, Anthony Higgins, Clancy Brown, David Rappaport

Doctor Frankenstein creates a mate for his monster, a woman called Eva, who promptly rejects the male creature. In turn, the doctor becomes obsessed with Eva, and tries to make her a perfect victorian woman.

DramaHorrorRomanceScience Fiction
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Frankenstein Unbound poster

Frankenstein Unbound

19901h 25m3
Director: Roger Corman
Cast: John Hurt, Raúl Juliá, Nick Brimble, Bridget Fonda, Jason Patric

The ultimate weapon, claimed to be safe for mankind, produces global side-effects including time slides and disappearances. The scientist behind the project and his car are zapped from the year 2031 to 1817 in Switzerland where he meets Dr. Victor Frankenstein, Mary Shelley and others.

HorrorScience Fiction
22
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein poster

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

19942h 3m3.6
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Cast: Robert De Niro, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hulce, Helena Bonham Carter, Aidan Quinn

Victor Frankenstein is a promising young doctor who, devastated by the death of his mother during childbirth, becomes obsessed with bringing the dead back to life. His experiments lead to the creation of a monster, which Frankenstein has put together with the remains of corpses. It's not long before Frankenstein regrets his actions.

DramaHorrorScience FictionRomance
23
I, Frankenstein poster

I, Frankenstein

20141h 32m2.7
Director: Stuart Beattie
Cast: Aaron Eckhart, Yvonne Strahovski, Bill Nighy, Jai Courtney, Miranda Otto

200 years after his shocking creation, Dr. Frankenstein's creature, Adam, still walks the earth. But when he finds himself in the middle of a war over the fate of humanity, Adam discovers he holds the key that could destroy humankind.

HorrorThriller
24
Victor Frankenstein poster

Victor Frankenstein

20151h 49m3.2
Director: Paul McGuigan
Cast: James McAvoy, Daniel Radcliffe, Jessica Brown Findlay, Andrew Scott, Freddie Fox

Eccentric scientist Victor Von Frankenstein creates a grotesque creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment.

DramaScience FictionThriller