How To Watch Every Ed And Lorraine Warren Movie In Order

While Ed and Lorraine Warren weren’t directly involved with the events in The Nun, our journey begins here as the prequel serves as an introduction to the events in The Conjuring sixteen years later and gives us vital background information on the spectral sister herself. Set in 1952 Romania, the Corin Hardy flick sees Father Burke (Demián Bichir) and Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) sent by the Vatican to investigate the death of a young nun, confronting malevolent demon Valak (Bonnie Aarons) in the process.

In reality, Ed and Lorrain’s son-in-law Tony Spera revealed to Esquire that the titular Nun bears a resemblance to an apparition the Warrens encountered at Borley Church in Essex, England, in the 1970s. The couple ventured to the supposedly haunted religious institution after hearing stories of ghostly goings-on taking place, including the aforementioned Nun walking around at night. They claimed they came face-to-face with the ghost, who centuries ago, it is rumored, was buried alive in the very walls of the convent after having a romantic relationship with a monk.

Watch The Nun on VOD.

Annabelle: Creation sees us jump three years into the future, and we still haven't dived into a Warren casefile just yet - but all of this context is key, I promise. The fourth installment in The Conjuring franchise, the film reveals how the terrifying haunted doll, the subject of one of the Warren's most famous cases, came to be. We begin in 1955 California, where Samuel and Esther Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia and Miranda Otto) welcome Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) and a group of girls from a shuttered orphanage into their home twelve years after the traumatic death of their daughter. However, when young orphan Janice (Talitha Eliana Bateman) finds a mysterious note that leads her to a forbidden bedroom in the house, she soon discovers the possessed doll with devastating consequences.

Though everything from the plot down to Annabelle's porcelain appearance is a work of fiction, horror fans will know that the doll is all too real and was given to the Warrens in 1971, where it remained in a glass box at their Occult Museum in Monroe, Connecticut, until its closing in 2019.

Watch Annabelle: Creation on VOD.

Farmiga and Aarons returned to their roles to face off once more in last year's sequel to The Nun. One year after the events of Annabelle: Creation, Sister Irene has faded into anonymity while Father Burke has sadly passed from cholera. But she is thrown straight back into a nightmarish existence when she travels to Tarascon, France, to investigate yet more mysterious deaths attributed to Valak.

The Nun II is not tied to any real-life tales of the paranormal, but it draws on the real story of Saint Lucy, or Lucia of Syracuse, who died during the Diocletianic Persecution. She is often pictured holding her own eyes because, as legend has it, she either plucked out her own eyes to avoid marrying a pagan or that her suitor pulled them out himself after being spurned. In The Nun II, St Lucy becomes important to The Conjuring Universe as it is revealed both Sister Irene and the fictionalized Lorraine Warren are descendants of her bloodline, and Valak is desperately searching for the powerful eyes to claim as its own.

Stream The Nun II on Max.

We're getting to the Warrens, honestly. Annabelle takes us to 1967 Santa Monica, California where Doctor John Form (Ward Horton) gifts his pregnant wife Mia (Annabelle Wallis) a porcelain doll, something they would soon come to regret as supernatural events plague the arrival of their daughter Leah. The film ends with the devilish Annabelle being bought from an antique shop by a woman who gifts it to her daughter Debbie, a nursing student.

The Warrens claimed that student nurse Donna gave the doll to them after she and her housemate Angie were subject to several strange, unexplained occurrences which they put down to the doll. After becoming suitably frightened, they contacted a medium who alleged the doll was possessed by a benevolent spirit who just wished to be cared for. However, the women did not share the same desire and hastened to rid their home of the doll, calling in the supernatural experts.

Stream Annabelle on Netflix.

Finally, we get to follow Ed and Lorraine Warren on one of their infamous ghostly expeditions. The Conjuring is our first introduction in the acclaimed franchise to the ghostbusting couple and joins them in 1968 as Debbie relinquishes Annabelle into their custody. Skip to 1971, and the Warrens hit the road to visit the Perron family in Harrisville, Rhode Island after a vicious poltergeist claims the life of their pet dog and makes living in their new farmhouse unbearable.

One of the reasons this film immediately achieved stratospheric success is the notion that it was based on a true story. Carolyn and Roger Perron did live in the Harrisville farmhouse, known to them as the Arnold Estate, with their five daughters from 1971 until 1980. The couple claimed they experienced increasingly terrifying phenomena until the Warrens came to investigate numerous times in 1974. Lorraine, who acted as an advisor on The Conjuring alongside the Perron family, is adamant that some of the horrifying things depicted in the film did occur more than fifty years ago. In 2013, she said (per USA Today): "The things that went on there were just so incredibly frightening. It still affects me to talk about it today."

Stream The Conjuring on Max.

After being introduced to Judy Warren (McKenna Grace) in The Conjuring, Ed and Lorraine's daughter becomes a focal point of Annabelle Comes Home. This is where the timeline becomes a little bit complicated, thanks to a pesky music box. We begin once again with the Warrens placing Annabelle in their Occult Museum, which puts us in 1968, before skipping forward a year to 1969 as Judy finds herself terrorized by the doll. However, the presence of the music box placed in the museum by Ed in The Conjuring, set in 1971, means that we could also be jumping between this date and 1972.

Judy isn't just a character haunted by Annabelle in The Conjuring World, she is a real person who first met the doll as an adult as Ed and Lorraine kept her childhood as firmly away from the world of the supernatural as possible. In 2019, she told USA Today that the real Annabelle, a red-haired Raggedy Anne, is much more horrifying to look at: "It's much easier to look at the movie Annabelle. The real one is so innocent-looking and yet so evil."

Rent Annabelle Comes Home on VOD.

The Conjuring films are not the only big-screen adaptations of the Warrens' career. In 1975, Stuart Rosenburg released The Amityville Horror which sees newlyweds George and Kathy Lutz (James Brolin and Margot Kidder) and their three children move into a home infested with the tormented spirits of the DeFeo family murdered one year prior within its walls. It was the first film in the extensive and fairly ludicrous Amityville franchise and is loosely based on the infamous Amityville murders.

On November 13, 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr murdered his entire family - including his father, mother, two brothers, and two sisters - with a rifle at their home at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York. The Warrens entered the picture in 1975 when they were called by the real George and Kathy Lutz who claimed the spirits of the DeFeo family haunted the home.

Stream The Amityville Horror on Max.

The Conjuring 2 touches on two of the Warrens' biggest cases, beginning in Amityville as Lorraine has a terrifying vision of Ed being impaled while aiding the Lutz family in their time of need. Fast forward to 1977, and the couple travels across the pond to Enfield, London, to assist the Hodgson family after their child Janet (Madison Wolfe) plays with a Ouija board and becomes the subject of eerie goings-on at home.

The Warrens did investigate the notorious Enfield Haunting in 1977, though parapsychologist Guy Lyon Playfair has insisted that The Conjuring 2 greatly exaggerates their involvement in the investigation, claiming they showed up "uninvited" for just one day in a bid to "make money" from the case (per Week In Weird).

Stream The Conjuring 2 on TBS, TNT, or rent on VOD.

The most recent installment in the main Conjuring franchise, The Devil Made Me Do It, takes us to 1981, when Ed and Lorraine take on their most ambitious mystery yet. In Brookfield, Connecticut, the pair attend the exorcism of eight-year-old David Glatzel (Julian Hilliard) alongside his family, including his sister Debbie (Sarah Catherine Hook) and her boyfriend Arne Cheyenne (Ruairi O'Connor). Shortly after, Arne is accused of killing his landlord, with Ed confessing to Lorraine he witnessed a demon entering him during the exorcism. The investigation leads them to Katie Lincoln (Andrea Andrade), who was killed similarly, and they soon uncover an underground cult that they must stop to prevent any further murders.

The story seems too surreal to be true - and much of it is fictionalized for the movie - but the bizarre 'Devil Made Me Do It Trial' is indeed true with the Warrens investigating the alleged demonic possession of David and, in turn, hearing about the strange events that had also plagued Arne after he allegedly called to the demon possessing the youngster to enter him during one of his exorcisms. On February 16, 1981, Arne stabbed his landlord, Alan Bono, more than twenty times during an altercation at Debbie's workplace. When he went to trial, he attempted to plead Not Guilty by Reason of Demonic Possession but was unsuccessful and sparked a media storm in the process. He was convicted of first-degree manslaughter and was sentenced to ten to twenty years in prison, but only served five before his release.

Stream The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It on Prime and Max.

Arguably the most obscure entry on the list, the television film The Haunted tells the terrifying story of the Smurl family and their house of nightmares, which took place between 1974 and 1989. Directed by Robert Mandel, the film follows Janet and Jack Smurl (Sally Kirkland and Jeffrey DeMunn), who move with their family to an old mansion in Pittston, Pennsylvania, which is rumored to be haunted. They soon find this out to be true as each member of the family witnesses increasingly threatening phenomena. At her wit's end, Janet turns to her neighbors, Ed and Lorraine Warren (Stephen Markle and Diane Baker), for help.

Though they weren't neighbors to the Smurls, the Warrens visited the house in 1986 after reports that the couple and their four daughters had experienced terrifying occurrences, with Jack and Janet even claiming to have been sexually assaulted by a spirit. They claimed the house was haunted by a powerful demon as well as three other spirits, and communed with them to leave the house.

We leave the Ed and Lorraine cinematic universe (for now, at least) in 1987 with The Haunting in Connecticut. In it, we follow Sarah Campbell (Virgina Madsen) and her family after they are forced to relocate due to her son Matt's (Kyle Gallner) cancer treatments. She drives past a 'for rent' sign outside a beautiful property and snaps it up, unaware that something evil lurks inside. As Matt witnesses increasingly disturbing visions and the family is under siege by an unknown entity, a sinister history behind the house is uncovered, leaving them in mortal danger.

The Haunting in Connecticut is loosely based on events that occurred at the Snedeker house in Southington, Connecticut. In 1986, Allen and Carmen Snedeker, along with their son and two daughters, moved to the home, a former funeral parlor, which they claimed was haunted by demons. The Warrens arrived at the property in the same year, agreeing that the house was indeed possessed, and launched a media campaign around the spectacle. However, the story's authenticity has repeatedly been questioned, with horror author Ray Garton claiming that during his involvement with the family and the Warrens, he was given different versions of events and implored to sensationalize their accounts.

Stream The Haunting In Connecticut on Netflix.