Horror Movies Had A Surprisingly Strong Showing At The 2025 Oscar Nominations

Horror movies tend to be frowned upon by the bigger players of the award season, but that has never once meant that the genre is without artistic merits. While it’s true that the scary segment of cinema has its share of happily cheesy slasher shlock, many of the best horror movies ever are stunning affairs with plots that can leave the viewers on the edge of their seats — even discounting all the scares.

There have been occasional Academy Award nods for horror projects over the years, but the 2025 Oscar nominations shower a surprising amount of prestige on the genre. Both Robert Eggers’ vampire film “Nosferatu” and Coralie Fargeat’s body horror trip “The Substance” have landed nominations in several categories. Additionally, “Alien: Romulus” was nominated for a Best Visual Effects Oscar, bringing this year’s Academy Award horror representation to a very respectable three movies.

The stylishly terrifying “Nosferatu” has been nominated in four categories — namely, cinematography, costume design, make-up and hairstyling, and production design. Elsewhere, “The Substance” has done even better by itself. Star Demi Moore’s Golden Globe win already (correctly) implied that she might land a Best Actress Oscar nod. Apart from that, writer-director Fargeat has been nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, while the actual movie is among the 10 candidates vying for this year’s Best Picture award. Add a well-earned nod for Best Make-Up and Hairstyling to the list, and “The Substance” can claim a total of five Oscar nominations to its name.

While horror movies can’t even hope to compete with biopics or prestige drama when it comes to the sheer number of Oscar nominations, the genre can boast a few high-profile nominees and even winners over the years. The most notorious recent one is no doubt Jordan Peele’s stellar 2017 psychological horror piece “Get Out,” which was nominated for four Oscars at the 2018 Academy Awards — the same categories as “The Substance,” minus Best Make-up and Hairstyling — and won Peele an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Similarly, in 1974, William Friedkin’s supernatural horror classic “The Exorcist” raked up an impressive 10 nods, ultimately winning two golden statuettes for Best Sound and William Peter Blatty’s adapted screenplay. Then, in 1991, Kathy Bates took home the Best Actress Oscar for the horror-adjacent (but admittedly thriller-leaning) “Misery.”

It’s been a whole quarter of a century since we saw as much horror representation on the list of Oscar nominees as we do this year. The last time more than one horror film made a serious impact at the Oscars was all the way back in 1999 when Tim Burton’s “Sleepy Hollow” (three nominations) and M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense” (six nominations) made waves. “The Sixth Sense,” in particular, racked up nods in some seriously impressive categories thanks to its Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Film Editing, and both its Best Supporting Actor (Haley Joel Osment) and Best Supporting Actress (Toni Collette) nominations. However, at the end of the ceremony, “Sleepy Hollow” was the only one to win anything (netting the prize for Best Art Direction). Horror fans will no doubt be hoping that the combined might of “Nosferatu,” “The Substance,” and “Alien: Romulus” can do better at the Dolby Theater on March 2, 2025. Solana Token Creator