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(Illustration by Stephanie Jones \/ For The Times; photos Warner Bros. Pictures; Netflix)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n There\u2019s a good chance that a horror movie will be nominated for the 2025 best picture Oscar.<\/p>\n And if Ryan Coogler<\/a>\u2019s \u201cSinners\u201d<\/a> or Guillermo del Toro\u2019s \u201cFrankenstein\u201d<\/a> make the cut, it will be the first time in the Academy Awards\u2019 97-year history that a fright film has been nominated in consecutive contests.<\/p>\n It\u2019s long overdue. And if you believe part of Oscars\u2019 purpose is to promote the industry and celebrate its achievements, there\u2019s no better time for the academy to get over its traditional disdain for cinematic monstrosities.<\/p>\n As most other sectors of Hollywood\u2019s film business look precarious \u2014 adult dramas, the traditional awards season ponies, are dropping like dead horses at the box office, while attendance for the once-mighty superhero supergenre continues to disappoint \u2014 horror has hit its highest annual gross of all time, $1.2 billion, with a good two months left to go.<\/p>\n \u201cSinners,\u201d released in April, remains in fifth place on the domestic box office chart with $279 million. Its fellow Warner Bros. offerings \u201cThe Conjuring: Last Rites,\u201d \u201cWeapons\u201d<\/a> and \u201cFinal Destination: Bloodlines\u201d occupied slots 12 through 14 as of mid-October.<\/p>\n \u201cHorror has been, historically, the Rodney Dangerfield of genres,\u201d notes Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends for global media measurement firm Comscore. \u201cIt can\u2019t get no respect.<\/p>\n \u201cBut horror is very important to the industry on so many levels now,\u201d he continues. \u201cWe have four horror movies in the top 15 this year, all of those generating over $100 million in domestic box office. And to make a significant scary horror movie, you don\u2019t have to break the bank. Look at [\u2018Weapons\u2019 filmmaker Zach Cregger\u2019s 2022 breakout feature] \u2018Barbarian\u2019<\/a>; half of that was shot in a basement.\u201d Similarly, compare \u201cSinners\u2019\u201d $90 million price tag to \u201cBlack Panther\u2019s\u201d $200 million.<\/p>\n Horror\u2019s popularity has gone in cycles since Universal\u2019s run of classic monster movies in the early 1930s. But profitability has been a reliable bet more often than not \u2014 and Karloff\u2019s \u201cFrankenstein\u201d and Lugosi\u2019s \u201cDracula\u201d still resonate through pop culture while most best picture winners of the same era are forgotten.<\/p>\n Still, it wasn\u2019t until 1974 that \u201cThe Exorcist\u201d received the first best picture nomination for a horror film, and ahead of the success of \u201cThe Substance\u201d<\/a> at the 2025 Oscar nominations<\/a> the genre\u2019s fortunes had only marginally improved. Indeed, many of the titles usually cited as a mark of horror\u2019s growing foothold in awards season \u2014 \u201cJaws,\u201d \u201cThe Sixth Sense,\u201d \u201cBlack Swan,\u201d 1991 winner \u201cThe Silence of the Lambs\u201d \u2014 are arguably better characterized as something else entirely, or at best as hybrids. (To wit, the sole monster movie that\u2019s won best picture, Del Toro\u2019s 2017 \u201cThe Shape of Water,\u201d is primarily considered a romantic fantasy.)<\/p>\n Fright films\u2019 reputation for delivering cheap thrills to undiscerning audiences was often deserved, but there were always stellar horror films that the academy overlooked. And more recently, films such as \u201cThe Substance,\u201d \u201cSinners\u201d and Jordan Peele\u2019s 2017 nominee \u201cGet Out\u201d have pierced ingrained voter prejudices against the genre by adding social commentary and undeniable aesthetic quality without compromising gory fundamentals.<\/p>\n \u201cThe horror genre really does seem to be attracting great directors who are immersed in it, have a real auteur point-of-view and make interesting movies that have horror elements but explore other themes as well,\u201d notes The Envelope\u2019s awards columnist, Glenn Whipp. \u201c\u2018Sinners\u2019 is Ryan Coogler\u2019s vampire movie, but it\u2019s also about the Jim Crow South and American blues music. How can you resist that if you\u2019re an academy voter?\u201d<\/p>\n And with horror packing in filmgoers like no other genre, high-profile nominations could help the Academy Awards broadcast attract the bigger ratings its stakeholders have been desperately seeking at least since \u201cThe Dark Knight\u201d failed to make the best picture cut in 2008.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the whole reason we went to 10 potential nominees,\u201d Dergarabedian recalls. \u201cWe wanted to have more blockbuster representation at the Oscars. This may be the perfect storm. If I were an academy voter, I would vote for \u2018Sinners\u2019 and \u2018Weapons.\u2019 I don\u2019t think that\u2019s an overstatement, given the films that have come out this year.\u201d<\/p>\n Even beyond this \u201cperfect storm,\u201d though, Whipp sees a sea change afoot.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything\u2019s an Oscar movie now if it\u2019s well made,\u201d he says. \u201cStudios aren\u2019t really making traditional, grown-up dramas and the academy can only nominate what\u2019s in front of them. Horror is being produced at a rate that is greater than it used to be, and at least two of these Warner movies really landed with audiences and critics. The genre is attracting some of our top filmmakers right now, and that\u2019s something that will trickle down to the Oscars.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not a blip,\u201d Dergerabedian concludes. \u201cIt\u2019s a trend that feels like it\u2019s happened overnight but it\u2019s been a long time coming. Back in 2017 we had our first $1-billion-plus horror movie box office. If they stop making good horror movies it might be a blip, but I think Hollywood should take this and bloody run with it.\u201d<\/p>\n