10 Movies Where The Vampires Are The Good Guys (Ranked, According To Rotten Tomatoes)

Vampires, vicious creatures of the night, longing for the blood in our necks, or maybe not. While many depictions of vampires have them as mindless monsters or hyper-intelligent creatures that use those big brains for evil, sometimes, vampires in media have clear free will.

Okay, so even when they have free will they still choose to kill humans most of the time, but they are a handful of exceptions. While it might take far more than these select few to change the predisposition the world has towards vampires, they are a start towards creature equality. Here are ten films that feature arguably good vampires, ranked by their Rotten Tomatoes score.

10 Vampirella (1996) – 18% Audience Score

This film doesn’t have a Tomato Score, but with a nice 18% audience score, maybe that’s for the best. Still, it’d be remiss to not mention the vampire superhero, as she is one of the most famous comic book vampires of all-time, helped to break the stereotypes that surrounding vampires in media, and still appears regularly in comics.

However, this is the film version we’re talking about. Directed by cult filmmaker Jym Wynorski (Chopping Mall), it is the only film the director has said he regrets making, which is harsh considering the final product, but downright baffling considering his immense schlock filmography.

9 Dracula Untold (2014) – 24%

Remember that extremely embarrassing moment in cinematic history when 2016’s The Mummy was set to kick-start a full dark universe of crossover films? Well, two years before that disaster, Universal Pictures and Legendary tried to do the same thing with Dracula Untold. 

An action film that features Dracula making the choice to become the lord of vampires solely in an effort to combat evil armies that threaten all that he loves. The movie basically boils down to being a superhero movie set in an interesting time period. The real kicker comes from the film’s ending, where Dracula, now in modern times, sets out to create a superteam.

8 Underworld (2003) – 31%

Don’t let the 31% of this action blockbuster scare you off. The massively popular film about an underground war between vampires and werewolves made a killing at the box office and has spawned four sequels. It follows a deadly vampire that turns on her own kind after falling for a human.

What ensues is a series of gun and bite fights done with stylish direction and lots of black leather. Man, if these vampires stopped falling in love with humans, this list would get a lot shorter in a hurry.

7 Innocent Blood (1992) – 39%

A decade after he made one of the most iconic werewolf movies of all-time with An American Werewolf in London, John Landis tried to recreate the magic by tackling vampires. His film follows a femme fatale vampire that only feeds on men she decides are evil, becoming a supernatural vigilante of sorts.

However, when her target, the head of a vicious mob family, learns of her abilities, he attempts to create a mob of vampires. The film has humor, but not to the extent of his werewolf horror/comedy, and unfortunately despite a lot of interesting ideas being present, the film has not been near as well-received.

6 Twilight (2008) – 49%

Despite the controversy surrounding the fandom, it is inarguable that the Twilight book series, and then the film adaptations, brought vampires back into the mainstream in a big way. One of the key aspects of the movie is the idea that vampires can choose to be morally good, living in the woods and feeding off of animals instead of humans.

The story, of course, revolves around a one-hundred-year-old vampire that falls in love with an underage human girl, forcing him to fight back his vampiric urges. The whole saga is anchored by the premise of good vampires proving time and time again that they can, in fact, stay good.

5 The Little Vampire (2000) – 55%

This campy children’s comedy features Stuart Little star Jonathan Lipnicki as a nine-year-old that befriends a kind young vampire. What ensues is a simple kid’s film plot that just so happens to critique the assumptions that come with vampirism more than any other film on the list. No, seriously.

The film’s villain is a vampire hunter devoted to killing a kind family for no reason other than their vampiric state. It’s an excellent exploration of judging people on things they can’t control and hate that is fueled by nothing more than personal opinion.

4 Blade (1998) – 55%

Based on the popular Marvel Comics series, the movie follows Wesley Snipe’s Blade, a half-human half-vampire, that has devoted himself to using his supernatural abilities to kill evil vampires. The first of a trilogy of popular films, Blade did far better than its modest score would imply.

While he isn’t a full vampire, the main character does have many of a vampire’s tropes and iconography. Plus, he uses blood capsules to dissuade his hunger, so the choice of being morally good as a vampire is ever-present.

3 My Best Friend Is A Vampire (1988) – 59% Audience Score

Another film that didn’t get a Tomato Score, but deserves mention. Also titled I Was a Teenage Vampire, this eighties teen romp is one of many coming of age comedies that used transforming into a literal monster to show the turmoils of growing up.

The film follows a high school student who, after being turned into a vampire, tries to live what he considers a good life, and not give in to the brutal expectations that come with vampirism. He has mixed results, but the journey is funny, sweet, and surprisingly poignant with its depiction of teen roles.

2 Interview With The Vampire (1994) – 62%

Anne Rice’s famous 1976 book, then series of books, did a lot for bringing vampires back to the forefront of media and was one of the first to begin romanticizing them. The film adaptation, directed by Neil Jordan, would follow pretty closely, casting Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt as the central vampires, navigating the world of the supernatural.

Pitt’s character Louis, having just been turned, resists murdering humans in the film, instead of drinking the blood of animals. An idea that another aforementioned vampire romance would use to create morally okay vampires. Louis battles the inherent evils of vampires throughout the whole film, fighting to stay “good.”

1 Near Dark (1987) – 88%

Kathryn Bigelow’s neo-Western is regarded as one of the best vampire films of all-time. It follows a freshly turned young man as he is thrust into the world of vampires. Through the whole film, he fights against the murder and debauchery of his new supernatural family, trying to keep as much of his humanity as possible.

The film is less about good versus evil, and more so an exploration of humanity, posing the question of whether vampires and humans can coexist, and whether or not becoming a vampire means sacrificing the life you had and becoming a completely new creature.