#5 – Jadis (The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe)

Let’s start with the obvious: Narnia’s titular witch, the icy, astonishing, Turkish-delighting White Witch Jadis. Despite the films being fundamentally balls (don’t argue), no witchlist would be complete without a mention of her frosty charms. She turns her enemies to stone! She keeps an entire world in winter forever! She’s literally Tilda Swinton! Jadis!

 

#4 -Sabrina Spellman (Sabrina the Teenage Witch)

Sabrina, Sabrina, Sabrina. Melissa Joan Hart. We at Best For Film have long been concerned for MJH’s MH – not being used to seeing our delightfully sparky Teen Witches turn into super sad, super rightwing druggies – but that doesn’t mean we love Sabrina any less. How many other witches love Britney Spears? How many other witches turn their enemies into pineapples by accident? None, is the answer. Sabrina is a witch among witches, but also a witch among bitches: Blair Witch meets Mean Girls, if you will. As Sabrina struggles to control her magic/hormones, and fails at both, we can’t help but adore her. And her cat.

 

#3 – Alexandra (The Witches of Eastwick)

THE WITCH IN THIS FILM IS CHER THE WITCH IN THIS FILM IS CHER THE WITCH IN THIS FILM IS CHER. I’m literally going to keep repeating this until it sinks in. It. Is. Cher. Cher! Cher! I don’t actually have anything else to say because I’m so happy to be writing about Cher. Let’s all look at Cher’s Twitter feed and sink back into a delightful sea of quasi-magical phenomenonsense. Oh, Cher. I love Cher. THE WITCH IN THIS FILM IS CHER.

(And Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer, but forget them. THE WITCH IN THIS FILM IS CHER.)

 

#2 – The Sanderson Sisters (Hocus Pocus)

There are three (always) children-eating witches in Hocus Pocus, and they come back to life because a virgin lights a candle, and they have a book made out of human skin, and this is a Disney film, and you know what? At some point children need to learn that the world is brutal and full of weird sex things and weird death things and also cannibal witches who want to kill you and eat you because trespassing is bad, kids, don’t do it. Oh, and the witches have a ghost cat. Who doesn’t love a ghost cat?

 

#1 – All the witches (The Witches)

The witches in the witches are the witchiest witches on this witchlist. Maybe even the world. That’s a fact. They are bald. They spit blue. And they hate you. They hate you, you personally; yes, you, right there, you, biting your nails. They hate you. They want you dead. And they are going to win. Let’s clarify this: the film ending is not the real ending. You’d better accept this right now. In the book? In the real world? The kid becomes a mouse, and then he dies, and that’s what happens. Because witches are powerful, and witches are frightening, and the witches will win, tonight, tonight of all nights.

 

It’s Halloween: the witches are almost certainly going to win. And if you can’t beat them…well. Let’s just say that Best For Film is strongly considering going over to the dark side.