Where does your favorite John Carpenter movie rank?

Updated 3 minutes ago, August 1, 2025

Every movie genre has a few creative masterminds behind it. For the Western, it was innovative filmmakers like John Ford and Howard Hawks.

For science fiction, it was mainstream pioneers like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. For horror, said name can be found in the looming shadow of John Carpenter – the larger-than-life director behind such renowned films as The Thing, Halloween, and Escape from New York.

A prolific writer, director, and musical composer, Carpenter quickly gained a cult reputation for his kitschier B-movies by the late 1970s. In the decades that followed, Carpenter routinely proved his deft handling of various cinematic genres, from stylized ‘80s action movies to claustrophobic sci-fi horror films. Regardless of the genre he worked within, though, Carpenter always managed to weave in a sense of organic originality into each of his movies, contributing to their iconic status as beloved fan-favorite films today.

Carpenter’s earliest full-length effort also shows off the director’s hands-on approach to every aspect of his feature-length films. With a soundtrack and screenplay personally provided by the young Carpenter, Dark Star brilliantly illustrates Carpenter’s technical versatility as a multi-faceted filmmaker. At the same time, the film also displays Carpenter’s unrelenting creativity as a narrative storyteller, eloquently combining comedy with high-concept space opera tropes and stereotypes.