| Director | Robert Eggers |
|---|---|
| Genre | horror film, mystery film |
| Runtime | 93 min |
| Country | Canada, United States |
| Budget | $1 million |
| Box office | $40.9 million |
In 1630s New England, English settler William and his family—his wife Katherine, teenage daughter Thomasin, preteen son Caleb, and young fraternal twins Mercy and Jonas—are banished from a Puritan settlement over a religious dispute. They build a farm near a large, secluded forest and Katherine bears her fifth child, Samuel. While under Thomasin's care, Samuel abruptly disappears. It is revealed that a witch has stolen and killed Samuel to use his body to make a flying ointment.
Devastated by the loss, Katherine spends her days crying and praying. Insisting a wolf took the child, William takes Caleb hunting in the woods to find and kill it when Caleb wonders if the unbaptized Samuel went to Heaven. In response, William discloses that he secretly traded Katherine's prized silver cup for hunting supplies. At the farm, the twins play with the family's billy goat Black Phillip, who they both say talks to them. Katherine blames Thomasin for misplacing her silver cup and holds her responsible for the loss of Samuel. That night, the children overhear their parents arguing about their possible starvation and making plans to return to the settlement before sending Thomasin away to serve another family.
The next morning, Thomasin and Caleb sneak into the forest to check a trap. Their dog Fowler chases a hare, with Caleb in pursuit; the hare frightens their horse, which throws Thomasin to the ground and knocks her unconscious. Caleb becomes lost and discovers Fowler's disemboweled body. Delving further into the thicket, he discovers a hovel from which the witch, disguised as a seductive young woman, emerges and kisses him. Thomasin awakens and finds her way home by following William's voice. As Katherine berates Thomasin for taking Caleb into the woods, William defends Thomasin by reluctantly admitting that he sold the cup and he had first taken Caleb to the woods.
That night, Caleb returns to the farm naked, delirious, and mysteriously ill. Katherine suggests that Caleb has fallen victim to witchcraft and prays for him. The next day, Caleb goes into violent convulsions and vomits a whole apple, before passionately proclaiming his love for Christ and dying peacefully. The twins accuse Thomasin of practicing witchcraft, but she in turn accuses the two of them for their supposed conversations with Black Phillip and confronts their father on his intentions to send her away. Angered by his children's behavior, William locks them all in the goat house.
In the middle of the night, the twins and Thomasin awake to find the witch, appearing as a naked old woman, drinking the blood of a nanny goat. She turns towards them and laughs, then attacks the twins offscreen as Thomasin watches in terror. In the house, Katherine has a hallucinatory vision in which Caleb and Samuel have returned. She takes Samuel and nurses him; in reality, she has exposed her breasts to a raven, which proceeds to peck away at her body. At dawn, William finds the goat stable destroyed, the goats eviscerated, the twins missing, and an unconscious Thomasin with bloodied hands. As she stirs, Black Phillip gores and kills him. An unhinged Katherine blames Thomasin for everything that has happened and tries to strangle her, forcing Thomasin to tearfully kill her mother in self-defense with a billhook.
Now alone, Thomasin enters the goat house and urges Black Phillip to speak to her. The goat responds in a human voice and offers her the life she desires. When she accepts, he materializes into a handsome, black-clad man, tells her to remove her clothes, and guides her hand to sign her name in a book. Accompanied by Black Phillip in his goat form, a naked Thomasin enters the forest where she finds a coven of naked witches holding a Witches' Sabbath around a bonfire. The witches begin to levitate. Thomasin joins them, laughing hysterically as she ascends above the trees.