Movies of War

Mar 16, 2026 2:40pm PT Horror’s Big Night: ‘Sinners’ and ‘Weapons’ Oscar Wins Have Filmmakers Celebrating the Genre By William Earl Plus Icon William Earl @beautifulbill Latest ‘Bridesmaids’ Star Wendi McClendon-Covey Missed Oscars Reunion Due to ‘Neck Lift’ and Says There’s ‘No Drama’ 17 hours ago Oscars Snubs and Surprises: Timothée Chalamet and ‘Marty Supreme’ Win Nothing, ‘Sinners’ Casting Director Misses and More 19 hours ago Paul Thomas Anderson Wins Best Director Oscar for ‘One Battle After Another’: ‘You Make A Guy Work Hard for One of These’ 19 hours ago See All Courtesy of Everett Collection / Quantrell Colbert When Amy Madigan accepted the first Oscar of the night during the March 15 ceremony, she shouted out her “Weapons” writer and director Zach Cregger for creating her witchy role of Aunt Gladys, saying he “wrote a dream part, and he let me just grab it by the throat.” It seems that, after decades of being othered and ignored at the Academy Awards, horror films are also sinking their teeth into the throat of critical acclaim. At this year’s ceremony, there were four wins for the vampire tale “Sinners,” three for Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” as well as Madigan’s statue for “Weapons.” Beyond that, indie horror fable “The Ugly Stepsister” received a makeup and hairstyling nod, making for a hearty night for the genre — and that’s not even counting nominations and wins for movies with horror in their DNA, like “Bugonia” and “KPop Demon Hunters.” Related Stories ‘The Miniature Wife’ Trailer: Elizabeth Banks Is Shrunk to Doll Size in Peacock Dramedy With Matthew Macfadyen (TV News Roundup) Netflix Shares First Look at Drama-Action Series 'Man on Fire' (TV News Roundup) Xero Gravity, a genre journalist and co-host of the podcast “Blerdy Massacre,” says she is happy — but not necessarily surprised — that horror finally had a big night at the Oscars. Popular on Variety “We’re in a horror renaissance right now, where it’s becoming absolutely unavoidable,” she says. “That’s thrilling for me as a fan to see the rest of the world wake up and realize that horror is this multidimensional genre. It’s a force that can’t be stopped.” It’s true that in the last decade, horror has found a bit of an on-ramp to be a part of the conversation. Jordan Peele’s 2018 original screenplay win for “Get Out” seemed to signal that so-called “elevated horror” was allowed into the award conversation, be it work from Academy favorite Del Toro to momentum for Demi Moore in “The Substance.” Yet last night’s ceremony seemed built around horror, from “Sinners” nabbing the all-time nomination record, to host Conan O’Brien’s lengthy opening built around Aunt Gladys. Ted Geoghegan, an indie horror filmmaker whose work includes 2015’s “We Are Still Here” and 2023’s “Brooklyn 45,” says the whole horror community is uplifted by having big visibility at the Oscars. “Independent horror and the people who create it need to see successes like this,” he says. “They need to see this visibility because, for so long, the Academy has overlooked horror films, even though they have been a fixture at every major studio since the dawn of cinema. In many cases, such as the Universal movies in the ’30s and even some of the tentpole films throughout the ’80s and ’90s, they kept the lights on at a lot of these studios while they are making their prestige pictures. While horror does have a very big footprint in the zeitgeist, it still never sees that critical adoration that we all hope it will receive.” Emily Gotto, SVP of Shudder acquisitions and production, agrees that the high-profile celebration for this genre is important given the level of artistry of filmmakers and craftspeople — especially when a horror distributor and streaming platform like Shudder can secure a nomination for a small title like “The Ugly Stepsister.” “The horror genre is being recognized for its artistry and its storytelling and is no longer a genre that is seen as something that sits on the side,” Gotto says. “It’s very much a genre that is in the highest echelons of storytelling, being led by the crème de la crème of storytellers, as you could see last night. It not only crosses cultures and language barriers, but is filled with creative minds and storytellers.” Before the mid-2010s, it was jarring how infrequently horror films won Oscars. For example, only six performances had won in any acting category prior to last night: Fredric March in 1932’s “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”; Ruth Gordon in 1969’s “Rosemary’s Baby”; Kathy Bates in 1991’s “Misery”; Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins in 1992’s “The Silence of the Lambs”; and Natalie Portman in 2011’s “Black Swan.” Gotto says that this broadening of awards attention to include horror runs parallel with changing and broadening audience tastes as well. “It’s the kind of gradual, progressive opening up of the consumption habits of the audience,” she says. “When you’ve got the global, phenomenal success of a film like ‘Sinners,’ which was ultimately an out-and-out vampire movie that has a huge amount to say in a very entertaining and deep way, all of that kind of comes to the same positive outcome that we are seeing audiences take more risks with what they’re watching. They might be braver in taking a chance on a genre or a sub-genre that they may not have taken a chance on before, or a foreign language film. I think consumer habits are slowly changing in that way, and we’re delighted to see it because there’s so much more that the genre has to give, and so many more filmmakers that are coming through and bringing us their voices.” Ultimately, genre has the ability to bring audiences together through the universality of fear, and by celebrating artists who bring these visions to life, it creates even more power through art, Gravity says. “There’s horror everywhere we turn in life,” she says. “By exploring these stories from different perspectives, from different people who live different lives, we can really agree through terror that we actually share a lot of the same experiences. That’s humbling and pretty comforting, because it puts us all on a similar level.” Jump to Comments Middle East Broadcaster MBC Group Posts 28.5% Revenue Jump as Streaming Side Expands Vancouver Film Festival Launches Institute for the Moving Image, New Year-Round Hub for Artist Development and Industry Innovation Judy Collins Announces Farewell Tour Michael B. Jordan Wins the Oscar and Shouts Out Denzel Washington, Halle Berry and More: ‘I Stand Here Because of the People Who Came Before Me’ Jane Fonda Asks Why Barbra Streisand Did Oscars Tribute to Robert Redford and Quips: ‘She Only Made One Movie With Him. I Made Four! I Have More to Say’ Marion Cotillard and Walton Goggins to Star in ‘Job,’ Reimagining the Biblical Book (EXCLUSIVE) JavaScript is required to load the comments. Loading comments...