When “The Exorcist” was nominated for 10 Oscars in early 1974, it became not only the first horror movie to earn recognition in so many categories, but the first one ever to get a Best Picture nomination. Sadly for fans of the genre, “The Exorcist” wasn’t a new beginning for the Academy but an exception that proved the rule: When it comes to the Oscars, horror just doesn’t get the respect it deserves.
There have been outliers over the years — Brian De Palma’s “Carrie” snagged nominations for Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie, Jordan Peele won a screenplay Oscar for “Get Out,” and the makers of “The Silence of the Lambs” took home a couple armfuls of bald swordsmen back in 1992. But even with movies like “The Substance” attracting attention from Academy voters, horror’s limited presence at the Oscars stands in stark contrast to its prominent position in the culture at large.
2025 has been one of the best years for horror in recent memory, from bold auteur swings like Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” and Zach Creggar’s “Weapons” and highly original debuts such as Drew Hancock’s “Companion” to series-best franchise entries (“Final Destination: Bloodlines,” “I Know What You Did Last Summer”) and experimental works that push the boundaries of the genre despite poor reviews (“Him”). Will the high degree of artistic achievement translate to Oscar gold?
Michael B. Jordan’s subtle, complex turn as twin brothers in “Sinners” and Amy Madigan’s gloriously unhinged role as the villain of “Weapons” have already generated Oscar buzz, and both performances are unquestionably worthy of awards consideration — but they’re not the only ones. Academy voters shouldn’t sleep on the great work done by actors in less widely acclaimed horror fare; some of the best acting of 2025 can be found in franchise gorefests and indie oddities.
Here are six horror performances that should be considered alongside more conventional prestige releases as Academy members ready to fill out their ballots, and other awards voting gets underway.
[Editor’s note: Spoilers to follow.]
Meghann Fahy, “Drop”
In director Christopher Landon’s nifty limited location thriller, Meghann Fahy is asked to play every emotional note on the scale — and she nails each of them perfectly. Fahy plays a widowed single mom whose date night with a prospective new beau turns to horror thanks to an anonymous stalker who communicates only via text. The premise means that Fahy is often playing her most emotional and expressive moments not opposite another actor but opposite a glowing screen in her hand; it also means she has to constantly keep things from her date, and her stalker, without keeping them from the audience.
Aided by Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach’s ingeniously structured script (which itself ought to be in the conversation for an original screenplay nomination), Fahy takes the viewer through her character’s complex emotional journey. She employs a series of gestures and expressions that never devolve into the obvious or predictable, and she proves to be the perfect partner with whom Landon (“Happy Death Day”) can make yet another movie that’s serious about trauma without sacrificing entertainment value.
Theo James, “The Monkey”
Like “Sinners,” Osgood Perkins’ “The Monkey” boasts a bravura performance by an actor playing twins. This time, it’s Theo James as brothers whose lives have been destroyed by the demonic toy of the title, a wind-up monkey that inspires incredibly gruesome deaths everywhere it goes. Like the movie itself, James’ performance is a marvel of horror and comedy operating simultaneously — this is the funniest scary movie and the scariest funny movie since “An American Werewolf in London” in 1981.
James finds the wit in every line of Perkins’ script, playing his characters straight and with emotional depth while still showing an unerring instinct for where to place his verbal emphasis for maximum laughs as well as horror. There’s no glee in the characters, yet somehow James manages to convey a sense of delirious glee for acting — a glee that proves contagious for the audience by the film‘s end.
Freddie Prinze Jr., “I Know What You Did Last Summer”
Jennifer Kaytin Robinson‘s requel was one of the real treats of the summer, a scary, stylish, and hilarious follow-up to the 1997 original that both paid tribute to its source and improved upon it. One of Robinson’s smartest moves was bringing back series stars Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt in roles that went far beyond the typical self-conscious (and self-congratulatory) cameos to create a fascinating conversation between the new film and the original.
Both actors take the assignment seriously, thoughtfully filling in the gaps between where their characters were in the late ’90s and where they would be now, but Prinze’s role requires an exceptionally heavy lift. Robinson’s decision to make Prinze’s character the villain could have been an implausible disaster, but Prinze brings a surprising emotional resonance to the reveal, conveying genuine anguish and bitterness as he lays out his reasons for transforming from victim to killer. Movie scenes where bad guys explain their motivation have been a cliché going back to early James Bond movies and before, but Prinze’s heartfelt delivery breathes new life into the convention.
Sophie Thatcher, “Companion”
As the title robot purchased (actually, as he mentions at one point in the narrative, leased) by aggrieved misogynist Jack Quaid to fulfill his sexual and emotional needs, Sophie Thatcher follows her excellent work in last year’s “Heretic” with another powerhouse performance in a completely different register. The fact that her robot is programmable by others means that Thatcher has to be keenly aware in each scene of where her shifting levels of intelligence, empathy, and expressiveness should be, and she calibrates it all perfectly to create a character who is ultimately the monster, victim, and heroine all in the same movie. Like James, her comic timing is exquisite, but she has the added challenge of playing a character who isn’t human — yet who, in one of writer/director Drew Hancock‘s many sly jokes, turns out to be the most humane character in the movie.
Tony Todd, “Final Destination: Bloodlines”
Tony Todd created one of the most indelible characters in horror movie history when he played the title role in “Candyman,” but for fans of the “Final Destination” franchise, his ongoing work as coroner William Bludworth — a man with a very unsettling knowledge of death in all its permutations — has been just as memorable. When Todd came aboard “Bloodlines” to play Bludworth for the final time, he and the filmmakers knew he was dying of stomach cancer and tailored the role accordingly; this time, when Bludworth talks about death, he’s not just frightening but also contemplative and wistful. Todd improvised some of his dialogue in the scene, which ends up being both his farewell to the character and to movies — and the world — in general, and it makes for a beautiful, elegiac moment. “Final Destination: Bloodlines” is a gleefully chaotic parade of gruesome deaths played largely for darkly comic laughs, but in Todd’s final lines it becomes something one would never expect: a slasher movie with the power to make you cry.
Marlon Wayans, “Him”
Justin Tipping‘s surreal combination of sports and horror was a little too wild for audiences (and many critics) to process on its initial release, but this Lynchian fable about a rising football star (Tyriq Withers) who falls under the spell of a terrifying mentor who might or might not have supernatural powers was one of the most original and visually sumptuous films of 2025. As the aging veteran who terrorizes his protégé, comedy great Marlon Wayans slips back into “Requiem for a Dream” mode to remind us how dark he’s willing to go in the service of his art — he’s chilling here, but also oddly vulnerable at times, and occasionally veers between contradictory emotions within the same scene without losing credibility.
The hallucinatory, subjective nature of “Him” demands that Wayans play the entire role operating on two levels at once, playing not only the character but the character as his mentally and physically disintegrating young charge sees him; it’s a horror high wire act as outrageous and accomplished in its way as Wayans’ go-for-broke comic performances in “White Chicks” and “Little Man.”