Terror at the Academy Awards: 25 Oscar Winning Horror Movies

Alien, directed by Sir Ridley Scott, won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1980 for the work of H. R. Giger, Carlo Rambaldi, Brian Johnson, Nick Allder, and Dennis Ayling on the film. It was also nominated for Best Art Direction (for Michael Seymour, Leslie Dilley, Roger Christian, and Ian Whittaker. Before horror was as accepted as a genre by the Academy, technical award nominations were a way to acknowledge the greatness of a horror film.

Jordan Peele's Get Out was a real breakthrough for horror films, especially for horror films directed by Black directors. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Actor for Daniel Kaluuya. According to some newer Academy members, they met resistance from longtime Academy members who did not consider it award-worthy. It was an example of a horror film being considered a nice little moneymaker without deeper meaning. But time, the audience, and critical reaction have proved them wrong. The film won for Best Original Screenplay. Read more: The Roots Of Get Out Run Long, Deep… And Undead.

William Friedkin's horror masterpiece, The Exorcist, was a huge financial success and a cultural phenomenon after the studio refused to screen it for critics. It was only booked in 30 theaters, thinking it was unlikely to make money. They had no idea what to do with the film. Not only was it Warner Brothers' highest-grossing film of all time for a long time, but since success changes things, it was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound, but took home two. It was the first horror movie nominated for Best Picture, and it won Best Screenplay – Based on Material from Another Medium by William Peter Blatty and Best Sound by Robert Knudson and Chris Newman. Read more: Review: The Exorcist: The Version You’ve Never Seen.

Francis Ford Coppola's gorgeous adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula was a financial success and was nominated for four Academy Awards, all in technical categories: Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup, and Best Sound Editing. It won three of the Oscars for Best Costume Design by Eiko Ishioka, Best Makeup by Greg Cannom, Michèle Burke, and Matthew W. Mungle.

Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow is a Gothic horror film with Burton's stylish, spooky look and atmosphere. It was nominated for three Academy Awards, Best Art Direction by Rick Heinrichs and Peter Young, and the film won in that category. It was also nominated for Best Cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki and Best Costume Design by Colleen Atwood.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, directed by Tim Burton, is an adaptation of the highly successful stage play by Stephen Sondheim. This grim tale of pie makers who make human meat pies was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Actor for Johnny Depp, Best Costume Design by Colleen Atwood, and in the one category that it won, Best Art Direction by Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo.

An American Werewolf in London was nominated for Best Make-Up at the 54th Annual Academy Awards. The incredible make-up effects were by special effects make-up legend Rick Baker. Baker has won the Academy Award for Best Make-Up seven times out of eleven nominations which is a record for both wins and nominations. While he was making artificial body parts in his home as a teenager, his first professional work was as an assistant for another make-up legend, Dick Smith, on William Friedkin's film The Exorcist.

The 2010 remake of 1941's The Wolf Man, directed by Joe Johnston and starring Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, and Hugo Weaving, was not a box office success even with a script co-written by Andrew Kevin Walker. It was still no surprise that Rick Baker and make-up effects supervisor Dave Elsey's werewolf make-up effects won an Academy Award for Best Make-Up at the 83rd Academy Awards.

Death Becomes Her is a satirical horror comedy starring Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, and Bruce Willis. In the search for eternal youth, Madeline Ashton (Streep) and Helen Sharp (Hawn) drink a potion that claims to keep them young forever. The catch is that they are dead. Dr. Ernest Menville (Willis) is a plastic surgeon caught in a love triangle with the two women, who need repairing after they damage each other's bodies. The film was not well received by critics, but was a box office hit. One things that critics did agree about was the the special effects were great and those effects won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Those effects were done by Ken Ralston, Doug Chiang, Douglas Smythe, and Tom Woodruff Jr. of Industrial Light and Magic.

Mia Farrow plays the mother of the antichrist, Rosemary Woodhouse, in this very well-mannered horror film based on the book by Ira Levin. The film won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress by Ruth Gordon as the villainous Minnie Castevet. It was nominated for Best Screenplay – Based on Material from Another Medium; director Roman Polanski adapted the novel but did not win.

The remake of The Fly, directed by David Cronenberg, is a highly regarded film whose graphic and gooey make-up effects won the Academy Award which were created over three months working backwards from the final result, the "Brundlefly." Chris Walas was the make-up effects artist who went on the direct the sequel to the film. Cronenberg's work as a director was praised as artful and touching, but he was not nominated.

The Omen is the film you never quite expected from director Richard Donner unless you know that he did direct episodes of The Twilight Zone, including the celebrated episode Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. It was nominated for two Oscars: Best Original Score and Best Song, Ave Satani, by composer Jerry Goldsmith. Goldsmith's score won, but Ave Satani did not. It was the only Academy Award Goldsmith won is his entire career.

King Kong is a remake of the 1933 film directed by John Guillermin. It stars Charles Grodin and Jeff Bridges and was Jessica Lange's feature film debut. The film was nominated for Best Sound by Harry W. Tetrick, William McCaughey, Aaron Rochin, and Jack Solomon, and Best Cinematography by Richard H. Kline. The third category it was nominated for was Best Visual Effects by Carlo Rambaldi, Glen Robinson, and Frank Van der Veer). The result was a tie between King Kong and Logan's Run, so the effects artists of both films shared the award.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? , the psychological horror movie directed by Robert Aldrich, starred Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, two actresses who supposedly had a real-life feud. Best Sound by Joseph D. Kelly, Best Cinematography – Black-and-White by Ernest Haller, Best Supporting Actor - Victor Buono, and Best Actress - Bette Davis, but won only for Best Costume Design – Black-and-White by Norma Koch.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is an adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novella about a doctor who creates a potion that unleashes his inner evil. It is directed by Rouben Mamoulia and stars Fredrich March, one of the most famous stars of the pre-Hayes Code era, and Miriam Hopkins. It was nominated for three Academy Awards, Best Adaptation Writing, Percy Heath and Samuel Hoffenstein; 1932; Best Cinematography, Karl Struss, but won an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for lead actor Fredric March, which was a tie between March and Wallace Beery for The Champ. Read more: March Madness: The Academy Awards And Mr. Hyde.

Phantom of the Opera is a romantic horror film based on the Gaston Leroux novel and a remake of the 1925 version directed by Arthur Lubin. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, the only Universal monster film that was nominated, including Music Scoring of a Musical Picture by Edward Ward and Sound Recording Bernard B. Brown. The movie won two awards for Art Direction in Color by John B. Goodman, Alexander Golitzen, Russell A. Gausman, and Ira S. Webb, and Cinematography Color by Hal Mohr and W. Howard Greene. Nelson Eddy, Susanna Foster, and Claude Rains star in the film.

Black Swan was directed by Darren Aronofsky and stars Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, and Winona Ryder. A critically acclaimed film, it was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing. Only Natalie Portman won for Best Actress. It is a psychological horror film about a ballerina who descends into madness under the pressure of competing for the lead role in Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky atr the New York Ballet.

Misery is the only Stephen King adaptation to win an Academy Award and it won for the terrifying performance from Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes, the murderous and obsessed, self described "Number One Fan" of writer Paul Sheldon (James Caan.) The film is one of the best loved and critically acclaimed King adaptation aside from The Shawshank Redemption, which was nominated for more Oscars but did not win any of the awards.

Adapted from a novel by Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray tells the story of a man who is cruel and selfish but never ages because a portrait painted of him ages instead, showing the depravity of his character. It was directed by Albert Lewin and stars George Sanders, Donna Reed, Angela Lansbury, Peter Lawford, and Hurd Hatfield as Dorian Grey. It was nominated for three Academy Awards, Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White by John Bonar, Cedric Gibbons, Hugh Hunt, Hans Peters
and Edwin B. Willis, Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Angela Lansbury but only won in the third category, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White by Harry Stradling.

Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs, adapted from the novel by Thomas Harris, is one of the horror films nominated for and won the most Academy Awards in history. It won the "Big Five" awards, including Best Picture, produced by Edward Saxon, Kenneth Utt, and Ron Bozman, Best Director for Jonathan Demme, Best Actor - Anthony Hopkins, Best Actress - Jodie Foster, and Best Adapted Screenplay - Ted Tally. It was nominated but did not win Best Film Editing by Craig McKay or Best Sound by Tom Fleischman and Christopher Newman.

Aliens, directed by James Cameron, was nominated for a total of seven Academy Awards, mostly in technical categories. It won for Best Sound Effects Editing by Don Sharpe and Best Visual Effects by Robert Skotak, Stan Winston, John Richardson, and Suzanne Benson. Sigourney Weaver was nominated for Best Actress and Best Original Score for Horner, Best Art Director for Peter Lamont and Crispian Sallis, Best Editing for Ray Lovejoy, and Best Sound for Graham V. Hartstone, Nicolas Le Messurier, Michael A. Carter, and Roy Charman but did not win in those categories.

Jaws was Steven Spielberg's breakthrough film. He had directed his feature film debut a year before, but Jaws changed everything. The film, which starred Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, and the malfunctioning animatronic shark Bruce, won three Academy Awards for Best Film Editing by Verna Fields, Best Original Dramatic Score by John Williams, which is one of the most iconic scores in film history, and Best Sound by Robert Hoyt, Roger Heman, Earl Madery, and John Carter.

Beetlejuice, the outrageous horror comedy about the afterlife that stars Michael Keaton, Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, and Winona Ryder, was directed by Tim Burton. It was his first horror film, although he would go on to make many more after his debut feature, Pee-wee's Big Adventure, which admittedly had one very scary sequence. Large Marge has gone down in horror history as a favorite frightening scene. The Academy Award for Best Makeup by Steve La Porte, Ve Neill, and Robert Short was the nomination which the film won.

Guillermo Del Toro's sixth film was nominated for six Academy Awards. The story of a young girl in Franco's Spain who discovers an underworld of fairies and fauns where she is told she is the reincarnation of a princess. This world differs greatly from the dangerous world where she grew up, so she tries to fulfill the three tasks that would give her back her throne. The film was nominated for Best Original Score by Javier Navarrete, Best Foreign Language Film, and Best Original Screenplay by Del Toro, and won three Oscars for Best Makeup by David Martí and Montse Ribé, Best Cinematography by Guillermo Navarro, and Best Art Direction by Eugenio Caballero and Set Decoration by Pilar Revuelta.

Peter Jackson's second remake of the classic horror film King Kong stars Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Colin Hanks, Jamie Bell, and Andy Serkis. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, only losing one category, Best Art Direction by Grant Major, Dan Hennah, and Simon Bright. The film won Best Visual Effects by Joe Letteri, Brian Van't Hul, Christian Rivers, and Richard Taylor, Best Sound MixingChristopher Boyes, Michael Semanick, Michael Hedges, and Hammond Peek, and Mike Hopkins and Ethan Van der Ryn.