A glossy, leather-clad vampire-versus-werewolf action fantasy with a strong visual identity and a cult-friendly attitude. It’s more memorable for mood, style, and star power than for airtight storytelling, but that specific early-2000s swagger is exactly what many viewers come back for.
18% ★☆☆☆☆ (442,210)
Underworld
Where to watch: Buy
Movie · Fantasy · Action · R
2003 · 2h 2m · ★ 18% (442.2K)
An immortal battle for supremacy.
Director: Len Wiseman
Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Michael Sheen
Overview
Vampires and werewolves have waged a nocturnal war against each other for centuries. But all bets are off when a female vampire warrior named Selene, who's famous for her strength and werewolf-hunting prowess, becomes smitten with a peace-loving male werewolf, Michael, who wants to end the war.
Director
Len Wiseman
Production
Screen Gems, Lakeshore Entertainment
Cast
Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Michael Sheen, Shane Brolly, Bill Nighy, Erwin Leder, Sophia Myles, Robbie Gee, Wentworth Miller, Kevin Grevioux, Zita Görög, Scott McElroy, Richard Cetrone, Mike Mukatis, Dennis J. Kozeluh, Todd Schneider, Sándor Bolla, Hank Amos, Zsuzsa Barsi, Andreas Patton
Curator Review
Verdict
A glossy, leather-clad vampire-versus-werewolf action fantasy with a strong visual identity and a cult-friendly attitude. It’s more memorable for mood, style, and star power than for airtight storytelling, but that specific early-2000s swagger is exactly what many viewers come back for.
Best for
fans of stylized supernatural action
viewers who like early-2000s goth/industrial aesthetics
people who enjoy pulpy worldbuilding and franchise setups
audiences looking for a campy but slick cult movie
Skip if
you want tight plotting and emotional depth
you dislike heavy exposition and lore dumps
you prefer practical, grounded action over CGI-heavy fantasy
you’re allergic to overtly self-serious coolness
Overview
Underworld is the kind of movie that knows exactly what it wants to be: midnight-blue, chrome-slick, and aggressively cool. It builds a whole secret-war mythology out of trench coats, gunmetal, and cathedral shadows, then commits to the bit with admirable confidence. The result is less elegant than it is iconic, but the iconography has lasted for a reason.
Worth noting
The action is a little stiff, the romance is thin, and the plot spends a lot of time explaining its own lore. Still, the movie has a strong pulse, and its commitment to mood gives it a strange durability. It feels like a relic of a specific era of studio genre filmmaking, when mid-budget action fantasies could be weird, overdesigned, and unapologetically horny.
Bottom line
If you’re here for atmosphere, costume design, and a lead performance that sells pure predatory cool, it delivers. If you want the story to land as hard as the aesthetic, you may come away frustrated. As a cult object, though, it’s easy to see why it stuck.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Jizzmonkey (2★) · 1360 likes
I came for the leather pants, and I stayed for the leather pants.
David Sims (2★) · 1025 likes
truly amazing how often they say "lycans" in this
Wade (3★) · 953 likes
By the end of the movie I was curled around the tv begging the lord to forgive me and for selene to bite me.
samantha (4★) · 929 likes
god I love that 00s grunge supernatural aesthetic
zoe (5★) · 822 likes
Everybody say it with me: LUCIAN 👏🏻 DESERVED 👏🏻 BETTER 👏🏻