Back in 2019, film journalists and cinephiles alike felt assured that at least one horror movie was going to be nominated for an Academy Award: Ari Aster’s Hereditary, on the strength of its Best Actress-worthy performance from Toni Collette alone. When that didn’t happen, it felt like further proof that f the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is bizarrely out of touch. After all, how could work that staggeringly raw and impactful go so ignored by a body intended to recognize creative efforts of such caliber? Horror fans were less surprised by the snub, as AMPAS seems to make a habit out of overlooking genre films, seemingly tacitly subscribing to the age-old notion that horror, science-fiction, fantasy, and all permutations of such are lesser forms of storytelling.
That bias isn’t entirely true, of course, as the Academy Awards have recognized numerous genre films and the people who made them over their existence. You don’t even have to look that far back in time, as The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King swept the Oscars in 2004, and Mad Max: Fury Road collected a number of awards in 2016. When it comes to horror movies specifically winning Oscars, however, you do have to go back a ways for wins in the major categories: The Exorcist won Best Adapted Screenplay in 1974, and The Silence of the Lambs won the “Big Five” of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Although a horror film of undeniable quality like Get Out winning Best Original Screenplay has happened, most recent Oscar wins for horror tend to be for technical awards: Best Make-Up for 2010’s The Wolfman, or Best Visual Effects for Godzilla Minus One this year, for instance.
At risk of shooting my thesis in the foot before I even say it: in all honesty, horror cinema should never be striving for complete acceptance by mainstream society. For maximum effectiveness — not to mention integrity — horror movies should be able to shake up an audience’s morals and comfort in order to let their social commentary sink in. Yet the genre existing on the margins of the industry shouldn’t mean that awards-worthy work within horror films should go unrecognized, either. Just as some films are undeniable, some years can be filled with such good work that an awards body can’t in good conscience dismiss it on the basis of genre alone. 2024 is just such a year for horror movies, and a large number deserve recognition.
To begin with, just because horror films have mostly received nominations (and some wins) in technical categories lately doesn’t mean the horror movies of 2024 should be ignored in those categories. Tim Burton has stated that he deliberately sought to make Beetlejuice Beetlejuice with an eye toward old-school filmmaking craft, and its makeup design, costumes, and production design should absolutely be nominated. Same goes for Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, which brilliantly presents a monochromatic world shot in color through set decoration and cinematography. Sound is, of course, a major element in horror filmmaking, and it’s honestly a little surprising that none of the Quiet Place films have yet won in this category given how much attention to detail is paid to their soundscapes, so A Quiet Place: Day One should finally get the win there. Music is vital to horror, too, and no other horror movie in 2024 has been as musically rich as Parker Finn’s Smile 2; not just the original pop songs performed in character by actress Naomi Scott, but the experimental score by Cristobal Tapia de Veer deserves to be honored. Imagine, a horror movie winning Best Original Score and Best Original Song in the same year!

Granted, the Oscars aren’t the only awards game in town, and some other awards bodies would be better suited to recognize some of 2024’s horror offerings. To wit, the nominees for next year’s Independent Spirit Awards just dropped, and amongst them are movies like I Saw the TV Glow, the screenplay for Heretic, and actors like Demi Moore for The Substance and Hunter Schafer for Cuckoo. Unfortunately, it looks like Arkasha Stevenson and The First Omen were not nominated, which is a shame — sure, the film is the sixth Omen movie and a prequel to the original three films, but it remains one of the strongest debuts in a while, especially within the genre, even if it is a pre-existing IP. It’s also too bad that Strange Darling, which features an astonishing leading turn by Willa Fitzgerald and gorgeous, shot-on-film cinematography by Giovanni Ribisi, was shut out, especially because its grassroots theatrical release may be too under the radar for the Oscars. Additionally, when it comes to the success that Terrifier 3 was this year, it’s harder to say where such a film could be nominated to best respect what it achieves; such an envelope-pushing horror film would feel somehow diminished if it were embraced by the mainstream, wouldn’t it?
When it comes to the horror movies released this year that have the most legitimate Oscar buzz, it’s honestly impressive that all three are as nasty, daring, and horrifying as possible. In other words, their status as awards contenders isn’t because they’re “safe” in any way. Longlegs, The Substance, and Nosferatu have all begun Oscar and awards campaigns in earnest, and each have a legitimate chance for recognition. In the case of Longlegs, the many comparisons it’s garnered to The Silence of the Lambs (an intentional connection, according to director Oz Perkins) might help voters see it in a similar light, even if it’s only to give Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage his second Oscar. For The Substance, it’s possible that the film might get looked at in everything from Best Makeup to Screenplay (which it won at Cannes), Director, Actress, and maybe even Best Picture. Honestly, a nomination in any of those categories would be a triumph for such a beautifully daring movie. As I said earlier, Nosferatu could easily be seen in all of the technical categories being such a triumph of craft, as director Robert Eggers’ films reliably are. Yet perhaps its prowess and connection to a classic of silent cinema might warm voters to such a gorgeously chilly, bleak movie.
Whatever ends up happening during awards season, hopefully the horror films of 2024 won’t be completely shut out. Again, it doesn’t diminish the achievements of these movies and these filmmakers one whit if that should occur, and in some ways, it’s almost better that horror continues to poke at the bastions of taste with a bloody needle. Yet it’s apparent this year more than ever that the genre is a pillar of the film industry, and it’s high time that its efforts be publicly lauded rather than be used as fodder for bizarrely tone-deaf op-eds parroting the musings of clueless studio executives. Sure, the horror genre is not the easiest to embrace for so-called average people; after all, as Dr. Loomis states in 1981’s Halloween II, “we’re all afraid of the dark inside ourselves.” Yet it’s always healthier to bring some of that darkness into the light, and the shadows are growing mighty full.