Rosemary's Baby · reception & legacy
1968 · Roman Polanski
How Rosemary's Baby has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
A massive hit and critical success on release in 1968 — Ruth Gordon won the Oscar for it — so there's no reappraisal arc, just steady ascent: it's now enshrined as the film that made Satanic horror prestige cinema, paving the way for The Exorcist and The Omen.
What's debated
It's the ultimate 'separate the art from the artist' flashpoint — every Letterboxd review section eventually becomes a debate about whether one can (or should) still champion a Polanski film.
Its footprint
Mia Farrow's pixie cut — 'It's Vidal Sassoon. It's very in.' — became one of cinema's most iconic haircuts, and the film's paranoid, gaslit-heroine template echoes through decades of horror; the Dakota building exteriors gave New York's spookiest address its screen legend.
Where it stands
Absolute horror canon — a 'you must have seen this' cornerstone that sits comfortably in Letterboxd's highest-rated horror of all time.