10 Horror Movies That Were Snubbed at the Oscars (And Why it Keeps Happening)
After being left out in the cold for years, horror fans finally have a reason to follow this year’s Academy Awards. Ryan Coogler’s Sinners has received a record-breaking 16 nominations, but it isn’t the only genre film to be in the running for an award. Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein has been nominated for nine awards, and both Weapons and The Ugly Stepsister have received one nomination apiece. With so many nominations across all the categories, we can only hope that horror finally gets some of its hard-earned flowers.
Contrary to popular belief, this year isn’t suddenly a miraculous upswing in the quality of horror; the genre has always been strong, it has just found itself unwelcome. Rather than a sudden change in the genre, the shifting tides of Academy acceptance of horror are more likely linked to fresher blood joining the voting committee, and it has been desperately needed.
Despite being one of the highest-earning genres, often being relatively cheap to make (especially when compared to superhero blockbusters), and having a devout legion of fans, the horror genre has always been treated as the weird cousin by the Academy. Many, particularly those within the older community, view the genre as being low-brow and not intellectual enough. It was because of these people that the term ‘elevated horror’ entered the lexicon, the moniker allowing more snobbish viewers an excuse to watch films such as Midsommar, The Witch, and The Babadook. In reality, these more emotional and disturbing genre films have always existed – see Possession, Repulsion, and more.
The historic derision towards horror cinema has led to some incredible award season snubs, particularly within the performance category. Whilst it is heartwarming to see the genre embraced (at least for now) by the powers that be, cinema history is littered with horror movies that were worthy of recognition. Here are just a few of the snubs that made genre fans furious.
Ari Aster’s debut feature, Hereditary, was an instant hit with the horror community. The film is drenched in uncomfortable tension, and the story is rife with grief, trauma, and the occult. Hereditary also features a stunning performance from Toni Collette, and it is her snub from an Academy Award that cuts the deepest. Her character, Annie, is thrown through the emotional wringer as she tries to come to terms with the loss of one child at the negligent hands of the other.
Colette’s ‘I am Your Mother’ speech has spawned memes, t-shirts, and more; that scene alone should have at least earned the actress a nomination.
Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is a regular entry into ‘Best Film’ lists. Whether those lists are focused specifically on horror or opened up to all genres, voted for by critics and industry professionals or the general public, The Shining is almost always positioned somewhere within the Top Ten.
Yet upon release, it didn’t receive a single Oscar nomination. Even non-horror fans have to concede that The Shining has impeccable cinematography and production design, and yet the film didn’t even get a look in at the technical awards.
Whilst most of the bigger horror films of 2025 have representation at the 2026 awards, there is one big name missing: Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later. Since he directed 28 Days Later, Boyle has gone on to have a strong relationship with the Academy, winning an Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire, and yet this year, he has been left out in the cold.
A 28 Days film that no one was expecting, 28 Years Later is an exceptionally emotional film, featuring some devastating performances, with Jodie Comer, Ralph Fiennes, and newcomer Alfie Williams all deserving to be contenders in the acting categories.
Coming hot on the heels of Get Out, which earned Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Actor, Director, and Original Screenplay, and a win for the latter, all eyes were on Us. A creepy tale of the have and the have-nots that included eerie doppelgangers, Us was not just a horror film, but provided commentary on the state of America. Us also featured one of the more compelling horror performances in recent history with Lupita Nyong'o playing not one, but two characters to perfection.
With Nyong’o herself a former Oscar winner, and director Jordan Peele being a darling of Hollywood, genre fans were left stunned and confused when the film failed to receive a single nomination.
Bundle 4k
When even big studio horror films worthy of praise struggle to get anything from the Academy Awards, it is no surprise that it is near impossible for independent projects to make waves. Once, such an indie horror that should have walked away with an award or two is David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows.
For horror fans, the film is viewed as a modern masterpiece; it made a star of Maika Monroe (who incidentally should have got a nomination for her work in Longlegs as well) and features one of the best scores of the new millennium. Composed by Disasterpeace, the music in It Follows acts as the pulsating heartbeat of the movie, as well as being a conduit for the ever-present, but not fully seen, ‘it’.
When talking about fantastic horror performances of the last decade, Mia Goth is always mentioned. Across Ti West’s trilogy of X, Pearl and MaXXXine, Goth played both aspiring starlet Maxine Minx and downtrodden farmer Pearl, which was a surprise to a lot of people: Audiences were unable to recognise the young actress under the make-up for the elderly Pearl, but it is in the prequel Pearl that Goth truly shines. The story tells of wannabe star Pearl’s descent into madness and murder, and Goth holds the audience in the palm of her hand throughout.
Playing like a dark, twisted variation on The Wizard of Oz, Pearl is beautiful to look at and could have been a contender for Best Cinematography, but the biggest snub is Goth for her turn as Pearl herself. The movie features a ten-minute monologue delivered straight to the camera, and is a masterclass in acting that many of Goth’s peers would baulk at.
Films that win the Cannes Palme d’Or often find themselves nominated again come the big awards season. Unfortunately, this rule does not appear to translate when the winner is a horror film, with Julia Ducournau’s Titane being cruelly rejected by the Academy. In reality, Titane should have swept the nominations on a similar level to Sinners, as every element of the movie screams perfection.
The story itself was perhaps too ghastly for some of the more sensitive Academy members to stomach, but not getting a single nomination after clearly being good enough to wow Cannes is outrageous.
Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead introduced the director and his lead actors, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, to the world. The horror comedy was a resounding global crowd-pleaser, and the three men behind the project are now a regular feature of Hollywood movies both in front of and behind the screen.
While Shaun of the Dead getting a nomination for Best Picture would have been a stretch, how Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s script missed out on a nomination for Best Original Screenplay is mind-boggling.
After having starred in remakes of Charlie’s Angels and Power Rangers, as well as the live-action Aladdin, audiences were under the impression that Naomi Scott wasn’t a strong performer. The truth, however, is that the star just needed the right project to shine in, and that came in Parker Finn’s Smile 2. A sequel to Smile, Smile 2 saw Scott’s popstar Skye Riley as the new recipient of the series’ deadly curse. With the camera never far from Scott, the performer gives everything to the role, and the result is a performance that turned the horror crowd’s heads.
Not only does Scott prove that she can sing and dance as Skye Riley, but Scott also portrays the unravelling of a paranoid mind expertly. She also nailed downing litres of water, which is a specialist skill that most Oscar nominees can’t claim on their CVs.
Tim Curry traumatised a generation with his portrayal of Pennywise the Clown in the ‘90s miniseries, It. His performance was so good that news of a movie adaptation of Stephen King’s bestseller was met with upset, but the resulting movie, It (later titled It: Chapter One), proved those naysayers wrong. The film, set purely with the younger version of the Loser’s Club, captured the tone of King’s novel beautifully and gave a new generation a very different Pennywise to be afraid of.
Given the attention to detail and respect that was paid to the source material, director Andy Muschietti’s film should have been present in the Best Adapted Screenplay if nowhere else. It’s a similar story this year, with The Long Walk also being shut out of the adaptation category.
