Mia Goth is the English actress behind Maxine Minx and Pearl in Ti West’s X trilogy, and her horror filmography now runs eight features, from A Cure for Wellness in 2017 to Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein in 2025. Below I rank every one by how scary it actually is, say who each suits, and flag the few you should skip if gore bothers you. No endings get spoiled until the clearly marked section near the bottom.
Who Mia Goth is, in short
Mia Gypsy Mello da Silva Goth was born in London in October 1993 to a Brazilian mother and a Canadian father. Her grandmother is the Brazilian actress Maria Gladys, so performing runs in the family. She spent early childhood in Brazil, lived in Canada for a stretch, then landed back in London around age twelve.
A fashion photographer spotted her as a teenager at a music festival, and modelling came first. Her film debut was the role of P in Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac Vol. II (2013), which is where she met Shia LaBeouf, later her husband. Her first real genre role came with Gore Verbinski, and from there she built the most consistent horror run of any actor of her generation. By MaXXXine she was also a producer, and she co-wrote Pearl with Ti West.
Mia Goth horror filmography at a glance
| Film | Year | Director | Subgenre | Scare level | Where to watch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A Cure for Wellness | 2017 | Gore Verbinski | Gothic mystery | 3/5 | Digital rental |
| Marrowbone | 2017 | Sergio G. Sánchez | Gothic haunted house | 3/5 | Digital rental |
| Suspiria | 2018 | Luca Guadagnino | Witchcraft | 4/5 | Prime Video |
| X | 2022 | Ti West | Slasher | 4/5 | Digital rental |
| Pearl | 2022 | Ti West | Psychological | 3/5 | Digital rental |
| Infinity Pool | 2023 | Brandon Cronenberg | Body horror | 3/5 | Digital rental |
| MaXXXine | 2024 | Ti West | Slasher, neo-noir | 2/5 | Digital rental |
| Frankenstein | 2025 | Guillermo del Toro | Gothic | 2/5 | Netflix |
Streaming deals rotate, so treat the last column as a starting point. The three A24 films move between services often.
1. X (2022)
This is the one to start with. Goth plays Maxine Minx, an adult-film hopeful shooting in a Texas farmhouse in 1979, and also plays the elderly farmer’s wife Pearl under hours of prosthetics. The dual casting is the whole thriller, and I’d rather you discover why on your own.
Ti West shot it for A24 in New Zealand during the pandemic, with Jenna Ortega and Brittany Snow rounding out the crew. It is a proper slasher with a Tobe Hooper streak, so expect graphic kills. If you like your slasher final girls in the “jamie lee curtis” tradition, Maxine is the modern heir.
2. Pearl (2022)
Filmed in secret alongside X and released six months after it, in September 2022, Pearl is a Technicolor prequel set in 1918 and co-written by Goth herself. It is less a slasher than a character study of a farm girl who wants to be a star and will not take no for an answer.
The film lives on two scenes: a monologue that runs several unbroken minutes, and a closing shot held on Goth’s face through the end credits. Both are why people started saying the word “Oscar” about a horror performance. Gore is lighter than X, but the pitchfork moment still lands.
3. Suspiria (2018)
Luca Guadagnino’s remake of the 1977 Dario Argento film is slow, grey and 152 minutes long, and it earns every one of them. Goth plays Sara, the dancer who befriends Dakota Johnson’s Susie at the Berlin academy run by Tilda Swinton’s Madame Blanc.
Sara is the audience’s eyes, the one who goes looking in the walls. One mirrored rehearsal-room sequence is among the most upsetting body horror of the decade, and the finale is a bloodbath. Not for first-time horror viewers, and nothing like the neon original, so don’t expect a straight retread.
4. Infinity Pool (2023)
Brandon Cronenberg’s resort nightmare casts Goth as Gabi, a holidaymaker who draws Alexander Skarsgård’s failing novelist into a game with no exit. She is terrifying here in a way none of her other roles are: a grinning, taunting, utterly in-control villain.
Neon released it in January 2023 after a Sundance premiere, with the theatrical cut rated R and a more explicit unrated cut available for good reason. The scares are psychological and the violence is nasty. If you want her best performance outside the West trilogy, this is it.
5. A Cure for Wellness (2017)
Verbinski’s Swiss sanatorium mystery gave Goth her first lead-adjacent horror part as Hannah, the strange young patient who has never left the grounds. Dane DeHaan plays the executive sent to fetch his boss, and Jason Isaacs runs the “cure” with eels.
It bombed in cinemas and runs long, but the production design is gorgeous and the dental scene still makes me wince. Good for fans of slow gothic puzzles who can handle a few squirm-inducing set pieces.
6. Marrowbone (2017)
Written and directed by Sergio G. Sánchez, who wrote The Orphanage, this Spanish-produced period chiller follows four siblings hiding in a Maine farmhouse. Goth plays Jane, the eldest sister, alongside George MacKay, Anya Taylor-Joy and Charlie Heaton.
It is a classic creaky-house story with a twist I won’t touch. Ideal for a gore-averse viewer who still wants real dread, and a nice entry point to “horror movies supernatural” fans who like their ghosts sad rather than loud.
7. MaXXXine (2024)
The trilogy closer moves Maxine to 1985 Los Angeles, where she lands a horror sequel while the Night Stalker headlines loom. Kevin Bacon, Elizabeth Debicki and Giancarlo Esposito fill out a stacked cast. It plays more like a sleazy neo-noir with slasher interludes than a straight scare machine, so I rank it low for frights but high for fun.
8. Frankenstein (2025)
Del Toro’s Netflix adaptation casts Goth opposite Oscar Isaac’s Victor and Jacob Elordi’s Creature. It is gothic romance and tragedy rather than horror in the jump sense, closer to the 1931 Universal spirit than to any slasher. Worth it for the costumes alone.
The non-horror Mia Goth films worth your time
Nymphomaniac Vol. II (2013) is where it started. The Survivalist (2015) is a lean post-collapse thriller. High Life (2018) is Claire Denis’ bleak space drama with Robert Pattinson. Emma. (2020) shows her comic range as Harriet Smith. None are scary, all are good.
If you liked this
Pearl Chapter Zero? No, start with Psycho (1960), the farmhouse blueprint X quotes directly.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) for the same Texas heat and porch dread.
Possessor (2020) for more Brandon Cronenberg nastiness before Infinity Pool.
For where these sit among the “greatest horror” films, X and Pearl are the two I’d argue belong on any list of the 2020s.
How the X trilogy fits together
Spoiler warning
This section spoils the identity twist in X and the ending of Pearl.
The trilogy runs Pearl (1918), X (1979), MaXXXine (1985), but release order is X, Pearl, MaXXXine, and that is how to watch. The reveal that Maxine and Pearl are the same actress is the engine of X, and Pearl’s ending, with her waiting on the porch for a husband who sees exactly what she has become, pays off decades later when Maxine finds her.
FAQ
What was Mia Goth’s first movie?
Nymphomaniac Vol. II (2013), directed by Lars von Trier. She played P, and the role came after a modelling career that began when a photographer discovered her at a festival as a teenager.
Is Mia Goth in every X movie?
Yes. She plays Maxine in X and MaXXXine, and Pearl in both X and Pearl, which makes her the only actor in all three.
Did Mia Goth write Pearl?
She co-wrote it with Ti West during the New Zealand shoot for X, and she is credited as a producer on MaXXXine.
What is Mia Goth’s scariest movie?
For pure fright, Suspiria and X tie. For disturbing content, Infinity Pool wins easily.