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Anya Taylor-Joy’s Near-Perfect Breakout Folk Thriller Is Officially Leaving Netflix
Robert Eggers’ 2015 folk horror film The Witch, Anya Taylor-Joy’s breakout role, is leaving Netflix on 1 October. The film remains significant for launching Taylor-Joy’s acclaimed career, establishing Eggers as a distinctive director and reimagining the traditional “final girl” through Thomasin’s unsettling surrender to evil.
Set in 1630s New England, it follows an exiled Puritan family whose isolation, religious fears and worsening hardship culminate in tragedy after their baby disappears. Taylor-Joy’s Thomasin becomes the family’s scapegoat before accepting an offer from the demonic goat Black Phillip, an ending that can be read either as corruption or liberation from oppressive society.
In short
- The Witch leaves Netflix on 1 October.
- It was Anya Taylor-Joy’s career-defining breakout.
- The acclaimed folk horror remains powerful a decade later.
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Thomasin’s choice can be read as a disturbing liberation: her family’s rigid religious order leaves her isolated, blamed and powerless, while the offer from Black Phillip gives her a form of agency beyond its constraints. On this reading, the film turns the familiar final-girl story inside out, making her surrender to evil also an escape from a society that has already rejected her.
The case against
The ending can also be read as a genuine corruption rather than liberation: Thomasin accepts a demonic bargain after fear, grief and family breakdown have left her vulnerable. That interpretation preserves the force of the film’s religious horror, while allowing that her family’s cruelty and suspicion are real harms without treating the devil’s offer as freedom.
Explained simply
Set in 1630s New England, The Witch follows a Puritan family living on the edge of a settlement after being forced out by their community. When their baby disappears and hardship deepens, fear and religious belief shape how the family responds to the crisis.
The film was the first feature directed by Robert Eggers and the breakout role for Anya Taylor-Joy, who plays the eldest daughter, Thomasin. As suspicion falls on her, the story draws on folk horror and Puritan beliefs to explore how isolation and fear can turn family members against one another.
Thomasin’s final choice has been read in different ways: as a surrender to evil, or as a way out of a restrictive society. The film is also known for giving its heroine an ending that departs from the familiar pattern of a survivor simply escaping danger.