Drop Dead Gorgeous: 9 Iconic Gothic Beauty Looks from the Screen
The cinematic hair and makeup moments still haunting our beauty routines
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Smudge it. Sharpen it. Tease it sky-high. Some of cinema’s most memorable beauty looks reached far beyond the screen, awakening something in generations of spooky girls who finally saw a version of beautiful that felt like home.
For those of us who grew up surrounded by Baywatch bombshell perfection, trying on those versions of femininity could feel a little like playing dress-up in somebody else’s closet. Then we met Morticia Addams. Nancy Downs rimmed her eyes in black. Akasha appeared dripping in gold. Suddenly, beauty could be strange. It could be severe or even a little frightening, and still leave us completely mesmerized.
These characters gave us something to recognize ourselves in and, perhaps more importantly, something to experiment with. Their influence stepped out of the screen and landed directly in our vanity cases, where we smudged the liner darker and discovered just how good it felt when the reflection finally looked a little more like us.
These nine iconic looks helped set our spooky souls—and beauty routines—ablaze.
The Bride — The Bride! (2026)
Photo Credit: IMDb
Maggie Gyllenhaal reimagines the Bride of Frankenstein mythology with Jessie Buckley as the Bride, resurrected in 1930s Chicago opposite Christian Bale's Frankenstein. The punk-inflected take transforms the familiar monster story into one concerned with identity and liberation.
Buckley’s Bride takes one of cinema’s oldest female monsters and drags her out of the laboratory and into something much more rebellious. Her beauty is integral to that reinvention, pairing avant-garde execution with a clever nod to the woman behind the original story. The black ink-like splatter across her mouth calls back to the ink in Mary Shelley’s pen, bringing the author herself into the visual language of the Bride.
Look: Electrified platinum hair sculpted into a punk interpretation of 1930s waves, bleached brows and bruised smoky eyes give the Bride her beautifully undone glamour. Across the mouth and face, black ink-like splatter provides the unforgettable finishing touch.
Product Recommendation:
Brows: Jolen Crème Bleach
Inky Lips: Gloomie Chérie Black Velvet Liquid Lipstick
Priscilla Presley — Priscilla (2023)
Photo Credit: IMDb
Sofia Coppola tells Priscilla Presley's side of her relationship with Elvis, with Cailee Spaeny charting her transformation from teenage schoolgirl to the carefully styled woman beside one of the world's biggest stars. Spaeny won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for her performance.
Beauty is practically law in Priscilla. Hair and makeup chart her coming of age as she is gradually introduced to—and shaped by—Elvis's aesthetic preferences, making the eventual reclamation of her own appearance particularly meaningful.
Look:Towering jet-black bouffant, signature winged black liner, sculpted brows, flawless complexion and soft nude-pink lip. Few recent films have made retro beauty look quite this covetable.
Product Recommendation:
Wednesday Addams — Wednesday (2022)
Photo Credit: IMDb
Jenna Ortega assumes the Addams mantle in Tim Burton's supernatural mystery series, following Wednesday to Nevermore Academy as she investigates a string of murders. Ortega earned Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for the role, while the series became a major beauty and fashion influence in its own right.
Wednesday has been goth beauty shorthand for generations, but Ortega's incarnation gave her a contemporary update that people are eager to borrow. The viral response to her wardrobe, hair styling and makeup helped push soft goth beauty firmly into the mainstream.
Look: Wispy curtain bangs, signature braids, softly smoked eyes and a diffused black-plum lip—equal parts menace and malaise.
Product Recommendation:
Harley Quinn — Suicide Squad (2016)
Photo Credit: USA Today
Margot Robbie made her debut as Harley Quinn in David Ayer's supervillain ensemble, emerging as the film's breakout character and subsequently leading Birds of Prey and returning in The Suicide Squad. The film won the Academy Award for Makeup and Hairstyling—a particularly relevant accolade for this story.
Whatever one thinks of the film, Robbie's Harley became a genuine beauty phenomenon. Halloween costumes, tutorials and copycats followed, while her deliberately trashed glamour helped usher brightly coloured hair, smeared makeup and punk-inflected beauty into the mainstream.
Look: Defiant platinum pigtails dip-dyed pink and blue, colourful graphic eye makeup, a tiny black heart and a red lip deliberately smeared.
Product Recommendation:
Nina Sayers — Black Swan (2010)
Photo Credit: IMDb
Darren Aronofsky's psychological horror follows Natalie Portman's Nina, a technically brilliant ballerina whose pursuit of perfection in Swan Lake begins consuming her identity. The film received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Director, with Portman winning Best Actress.
Nina's transformation from virginal White Swan to dangerous Black Swan is one of modern cinema's great beauty metamorphoses. Makeup doesn't merely decorate the character; it visually announces the moment the darker half of her performance finally takes over.
Look: A severe slicked-back ballerina bun, ghostly matte skin, graphic black-and-silver feathered eye look extending toward the temples and a blackened burgundy lip.
Product Recommendation:
Selene — Underworld: Evolution (2006)
Photo Credit: IMDb
Kate Beckinsale returns as vampire Death Dealer Selene in the second Underworld film, continuing her war across the vampire and Lycan bloodlines alongside Scott Speedman's Michael. Beckinsale won the Scream Award for Scream Queen and received an MTV Movie Award nomination for Best Hero.
Selene helped crystallize an entire strain of Y2K cyber-goth beauty: cold, sleek, monochromatic and almost aggressively unfussy. Twenty years later, her razor-cut hair and cool smoky eye suddenly look incredibly current again.
Look: Razored black bob, icy skin, charcoal smoky eyes, sharply defined brows and a cool nude lip.
Product Recommendation:
Akasha — Queen of the Damned (2002)
Photo Credit: IMDb
Anne Rice's vampire mythology gets the full Y2K goth-metal treatment as Lestat becomes a rock star and inadvertently awakens Aaliyah's ancient vampire queen, Akasha. Aaliyah received posthumous MTV Movie Award and BET Award nominations for the role, while the film was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film.
Aaliyah's performance fused vampirism with an extraordinarily sensual early-2000s beauty language, creating a vampire queen who felt ancient and completely contemporary at once.
Look: Intensely smoked eyes, illuminated bronze skin, sculpted brows and a glossy nude lip, finished, of course, with that extraordinary crown and jewel placement.
Product Recommendation:
Nancy Downs — The Craft (1996)
Photo Credit: IMDb
Four teenage outsiders discover witchcraft in Andrew Fleming's cult supernatural film, with Fairuza Balk's Nancy Downs becoming increasingly consumed by the power they've summoned. Balk earned Saturn and Fangoria Chainsaw nominations for her performance and shared the MTV Movie Award for Best Fight with Robin Tunney.
Nancy gave the teenage witch a grungier, angrier face and became one of the defining alternative-girl references of the '90s. Her beauty evolves alongside her appetite for power, becoming darker and more exaggerated as Nancy herself spirals.
Look: Pencil-thin brows, heavily rimmed black eyes, oxblood lips and a mass of wild black hair. It's gloriously imperfect makeup—the smudge is part of the point.
Product Recommendation:
Eyes: Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-On Waterproof Eye Pencil in Perversion
Lips: Makeup A Murder KISS of DEATH Bloody Lip Stain in Seductress
Morticia Addams —The Addams Family (1991)
Photo Credit: IMDb
Barry Sonnenfeld's big-screen adaptation brought the macabre Addams clan into the '90s, with Anjelica Huston opposite Raul Julia as its magnificently devoted matriarch and patriarch. Huston's Morticia became one of the defining screen interpretations of a character whose influence on gothic fashion and beauty extends far beyond the franchise.
Morticia is essentially Romantic Goth beauty canon. Huston's transformation made her simultaneously severe and sensual, establishing a visual vocabulary—magnetic eyes, razor cheekbones, raven hair, blood-red mouth—that remains enormously influential.
Look: Waist-length raven hair, dramatically lifted and sculpted eyes, razor-thin brows, carved cheekbones and a deep red lip.
Product Recommendation:
Face: Pat McGrath Labs Skin Fetish: Glass 001 Legendary Glow Setting Spray
Face: Rituel de Fille Creature of Light Full-Face Serum Illuminator Moonlit Creature
Eyes: Hung Vanngo Beauty Color Story Eyeshadow Palette in Composed Cool Tone
Sculpt: Rituel de Fille Inner Glow Crème Pigment Intuition Gray Taupe
The beauty of these looks is that none of us has to become an exact replica of the character who wore them. Take Morticia’s razor-sharp liner. Borrow Wednesday’s bruised lip. Add Akasha hauntingly luminous complexion. The fun begins when those references collide with our own aesthetic and become something personal.
For generations of gothic girlies, these characters expanded the beauty vocabulary at exactly the moment many of us needed it. They showed us glamour could be strange and imperfection could make a look even more compelling.
Who was your beauty inspiration?
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