Director: Neil Jordan
Screenplay: Anne Rice
Based on the novel: Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice
Starring: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Stephen Rea, Christian Slater, Kirsten Dunst, Domiziana Giordano, Thandie Newton, Indra Ové, Laure Marsac, George Kelly, Marcel Iureș, Sara Stockbridge
Country: United States
Running Time: 122 min
Year: 1994
BBFC Certificate: 18
The works of author the late author Anne Rice are big business at the time of writing. TV networks and streaming services have given us Mayfair Witches, which has been running since 2023 across two TV seasons with a third on the way, supernatural spy thriller Talamasca: The Secret Order as a mini-series, and The Vampire Lestat, which created huge buzz and met with critical acclaim in 2026.
And then there is the show that paved the way for all the others, leading into The Vampire Lestat, Interview with the Vampire, a 15-episode series which again met with acclaim and has been much loved by audiences.
But before these and other earlier TV adaptations and movies of Rice’s work, came a big screen adaptation of Interview with the Vampire, which was a huge success upon its release in 1994 taking $224 million at the box office, almost four times its budget, and scored two Academy Award nominations.
The film took a long time to make it to the big screen. Rice’s debut novel was published in 1976 and there was such a buzz about it that Paramount Pictures bought the rights before publication yet didn’t do anything with them, selling them on to Lorimar, before they were eventually taken up by Warner Bros.
Fast forward to the early 1990s and the film would finally be green lit, with The Crying Game (1992) director Neil Jordan at the helm, and Rice on screenplay duties, adapting her own novel.
Tom Cruise took on the lead role of Lestat de Lioncourt, supported by Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Stephen Rea, Christian Slater and a young Kirsten Dunst.
The plot sees journalist Daniel Molloy (Slater) interviewing Louis de Pointe du Lac (Pitt), who claims to be a vampire and tells of his life as a wealthy plantation owner in Louisiana in the 18th century. We join his story following the death of his pregnant wife, Louis struggling to come to terms with his loss and taking to the bottle. He drunkenly wanders around New Orleans when the vampire Lestat (Cruise) attacks and turns him into a creature of the night.
We follow the counter viewpoints of the pair – Lestat revelling in the taste of blood and Louis not wanting it and refusing to hunt humans and taste their blood, instead surviving on animal blood. Eventually, the plague comes to New Orleans and Louis feeds on a girl whose mother dies in the outbreak, and turns her into a vampire. That girl is Claudia (Dunst), whom Lestat and Louis raise as their daughter.
I shall not say anymore of the plot other than to say it tackles the impact of becoming a vampire on each of the characters – Claudia can no longer age physically and remains a young girl – and their travels across Europe in search of other vampires. There are some twists and turns along the way.
Now, firstly, the elephant in the room – the casting of Tom Cruise as Lestat. Rice was critical of him taking on the role and had others in mind for that and the other roles, but grew to praise his performance. I think he’s excellent. It was a very different role from Cruise, who had become a heartthrob and icon playing generally good guy male leads. Whilst he gets to retain the heartthrob element his character has shades of varying greys, and he plays the lighter and darker moments well.
Pitt’s fame was growing by the time of the film, having appeared in increasingly larger roles from the likes of Thelma and Louise (1991) and A River Runs Through It (1992) to Kalifornia (1993) and True Romance (1993). He’s good as Louis, tormented by not wanting to kill humans but needing blood.
Dunst is terrific as the child vampire who can never physically age and for that reason increasingly struggles to adapt to being a creature of the night. It’s an outstanding performance and clear from this film, not her first but an early role, that she would go onto big things.
And then there is Antonio Banderas, who is fabulous as Armand, a vampire who appears in the second half of the film. Banderas learnt English for The Mambo Kings (1992) his English language debut just two years earlier, and was fresh from a fantastic performance in Philadelphia (1993). There is also a small role for Thandie Newton, who would also become a big star on screen and TV.
Interview with the Vampire is a film full of standout sequences from the moment Louis is turned, to the arrival and turning of Claudia, and a central moment involving conflict between Lestat and Claudia that I shall not spoil for readers who have yet to see the film. All of the scenes involving Dunst’s Claudia are sublime and I also particularly enjoyed a cinema sequence that shows the passage of time from F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922) and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) through Don Juan (1926), Gone with the Wind (1939) and Superman: The Movie (1978).
There are some unsettling horror moments including the moment Lestat turns Louis and another involving the former, a piano and a jump scare halfway through, but mostly it is played as an opulent period drama involving vampires. There are some light-hearted moments too, like Louis first meeting with Santiago (Stephen Rea) and Armand which is played like mime, which makes sense as the Rea and Banderas characters are from a theatre troupe called Théâtre des Vampires. The first theatre performance we see is also brilliant and very unsettling, and probably the most horror sequence in the film.
The finale is also memorable, setting us up for a sequel that would kind of come with a different cast in Queen of the Dammed (2002). How a sequel starring the cast of Interview with the Vampire would have fared is tantalising to think about. I would have loved to have seen Jordan and cast and crew continue The Vampire Chronicles, the subtitle of the film and the book series.
The film was mostly shot at night and darkness plays a key role, as does the use of light. For example, in the introductions of the major characters. Louis and Lestat as vampires are both seen in the darkness first before we see their faces lit.
The production and costume design are also of the highest quality, which is no surprise given who was involved – the production designer was Dante Ferretti and the costume designs were by Sandy Powell.
The sumptuous visuals, lensed by Philippe Rousselot, are wonderfully supported by a classical, at times opulent and at others quite haunting and ominous orchestral score by Elliot Goldenthal which opens with some sublime choral elements.
The film also benefits from special effects from the great Stan Winston that are so good that I did not feel I was seeing effects.
Neil Jordan’s film adaptation of Anne Rice’s novel Interview with the Vampire is, for me, vastly underrated. It’s a really good film, an opulent period piece about vampires, which features one or two excellent horror sequences, strong performances from its cast, particularly Tom Cruise and a wonderful young Kirsten Dunst, and beautiful production and costume design. The new Warner Bros 4K edition gives it new lease of life.
Film: 
Interview with the Vampire is released on 4K UHD in the UK by Warner Bros on 5th October 2026. The 4K transfer looks outstanding throughout, with rich detail and a very natural colour scheme. The sequences involving candles for lighting look brilliant, and I can’t imagine the film looking any better. It also sounds excellent.
Special features:
Eternal Night and Deadly Light featurette
Interview with the Vampire: Creating the World featurette
Commentary with director Neil Jordan
Introduction by Anne Rice, Neil Jordan and Antonio Banderas
In the Shadow of the Vampire featurette
Lestat, Louis and the Vampire Phenomenon featurette
Deleted scenes
Warner Bros include two new featurettes on this release. The first, Eternal Night and Deadly Light runs for eight minutes and is essentially an interview with director Jordan and editor Mick Audsley who give an overview of the look of the film, which was mostly set at night. They talk about the lighting, inspiration for shots, and the challenges of night-time shooting. They also touch on the visual introductions for the main characters and the differences in height for Lestat between novel and film. It’s a brief but insightful piece.
The other new featurette is the 11-minute Interview with the Vampire: Creating the World, which features interviews with Jordan, and production designer Dante Ferretti. A real highlight is the chance to see some of Ferretti’s production sketches, which are gorgeous. It’s another brief but welcome new addition, showcasing the design of the sets, costumes and look and feel of the film. The two new featurettes complement each other well, though given who is interviewed, it’s a surprise that the new content only really focuses on the look of the movie.
The rest of the extras are archival, beginning with a commentary by director Jordan. Jordan’s commentary is superb, providing a wonderful run through the making of the film from how he became involved, to casting, the production and some of the scenes. It’s a really good track.
Next is a one-minute introduction featuring very brief quotes from director Jordan, author Rice and actor Banderas. It’s not really an intro, more a very, very brief promotional piece.
The In the Shadow of the Vampire featurette runs for 30 minutes and is a making of, that contains the then contemporary retrospective interviews with Jordan, Rice and Banderas that the intro was taken from. Rice explains the background to her novel, Jordan explains how he came on board, and we hear reflective thoughts from Banderas, and comments from Cruise from the time of the filming. Other interviewees include actor Stephen Rea and Kirsten Dunst, the latter who is very glowing about the film, and concludes with the popularity of vampires. It’s a decent retrospective.
A more recent retrospective from 2014 is Lestat, Louis and the Vampire Phenomenon, which runs for 24 minutes. It is a pretty good piece that goes into the background of the film, and the character of Lestat, via a brief history of vampires in home media. Rice is very complementary of Cruise’s portrayal, and if you’ve not read the books this will give you a bit more insight into the characters and the world to enrich the film more.
A total of eight minutes of deleted scenes are included, and whilst they’re not a ‘new’ feature, they are new to home video, having not appeared on previous editions. They’re in rough shape but are a fascinating inclusion. They mostly provide character moments. The best being a church confessional sequence involving Brad Pitt’s Louis character.
Warner Bros have provided a marvellous 4K presentation for the 1994 adaptation of Anne Rice’s novel, Interview with the Vampire. The picture looks and sounds fantastic, there are two short but insightful new featurettes, a chance to see some interesting deleted scenes for the first time, and some solid archival pieces including a great commentary by director Jordan.
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