15 Top Horror Movie Performances That Deserved Oscar Nominations

Florence Pugh has been a talented actor since she was a teenager, but it was Ari Aster's 2019 folk horror Midsommar that truly marked her as a star for the ages. In her performance as Dani Ardor, a young woman shattered by the deaths of her parents and sister, Pugh had to go to some incredibly dark places, and she did so with such realism that it's uncomfortable to watch.

It's this vulnerability that Pugh so excellently portrays which makes her indoctrination into the Hårga cult so believable and heartbreaking – yet, as an audience we can't help but feel some sense of happiness for her that she has found a new place to call home. Her iconic smile at the end of the movie contains multitudes, and makes Midsommar a film that is still ripe for debate to this day.

As the first African-American lead in a horror film, Duane Jones' performance as Ben in George A. Romero's zombie classic Night of the Living Dead has rightfully gone on to be recognized as a groundbreaking role in cinema history, but it should come as no surprise that upon release in 1968, the film was overlooked entirely by the Academy Awards, despite being a box office hit.

As Ben, Jones reinvented everything audiences had come to expect from a horror protagonist at the time, not only by breaking down racial stereotypes but also acting with a clear head and maintaining a rationality and calmness while the zombie chaos unfurls around him.

Much imitated but never bettered, Isabelle Adjani's performance in Andrzej Żuławski's domestic horror nightmare Possession still hits just as hard 45 years since the film was released due to its rawness and viscerality. As the troubled housewife Anna, Adjani gives a deeply personal performance that's at times often hard to watch.

The subway scene where Anna has a violent breakdown is rightfully touted as one of the greatest horror set pieces of all time, but Adjani's performance outside of this moment should not be overlooked either, especially moments where she and husband Mark (an equally brilliant Sam Neill) are having their vicious arguments. God speed to whoever has to try and live up to this performance in the upcoming Possession remake that's happening, for some reason.

Mary Harron's American Psycho might just take the record for most memes spawned from a single horror movie, and most of those in part come from Christian Bale's absolutely iconic performance as serial killer yuppie Patrick Bateman.

As Bateman, Bale perfectly toes the line between downright terrifying and pathetic, a sinister blend that perfectly encapsulates the toxic male ego on play in Bateman's work. Not to mention his signature method-style body sculpting, that makes Bateman so believable as self-obsessed, but deeply insecure, narcissist. Whoever's set to take on the role of Bateman in Luca Guadagnino's upcoming American Psycho remake certainly has big, Armani shoes to fill.

Pulling off dual roles in the same movie is a tricky task for any actor, and doing it well is even harder. Generational talent Lupita Nyong'o's performances as anxious mother Adelaide and her own ‘Tethered' doppelgänger Red are so distinct from one another you could even be forgiven for thinking they were bought to life by different people entirely.

To master Red's terrifying raspy voice, Nyong'o worked with an ENT doctor, a vocal therapist, and a dialect coach for a nightmarish reveal that stands in complete contrast to how she speaks and holds herself as Adelaide. The Oscar success of Jordan Peele's Nope was a tough act to follow, but Us should have at least got Lupita the nod.

A gender-bending cult classic horror-musical like The Rocky Horror Picture Show certainly didn't have Oscar winner written all over it in 1975, sure, but we'd argue that as the cross-dressing mad scientist Dr. Frank-N-Furter, Tim Curry deserved recognition for it being his debut role, no less.

While Curry did get to celebrate 50 years of The Rocky Horror Picture Show with a talk at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures last year, we still think they should've given him a retroactive reward for sparking much sexuality-questioning in viewers of his iconic performance.

Mia Farrow not having an Oscar nomination for Rosemary's Baby feels just wrong, frankly. While she rightfully secured a BAFTA nomination for her role in Roman Polanski's 1968 maternal horror, Farrow's breakout role went ignored by the Academy, even though it's still one of the best portrayals of a woman gradually being beaten down by patriarchal expectations, lack of bodily autonomy and (justified) paranoia in all of cinema.

Farrow's refusal to give up her career for her marriage to Frank Sinatra at the time (her being 21 years old, him 50) was a bold move for the time, and even bolder when you consider she chose a shocking demonic horror movie over holy matrimony. We're biased, sure, but we think she made the right choice.

Despite only having around 10 minutes of screen time in Longlegs, Nicolas Cage's turn as the sinister Dale Kobble was the performance on everybody's lips in 2024. From his pallid, surgery-bloated face to his breathy, eerie voice, Cage totally transformed for Osgood Perkins' serial killer thriller, so much so that co-star Maika Monroe had a physical reaction to seeing him on set for the first time.

NEON did launch a For Your Consideration campaign for Cage, but sadly he never made the Oscar shortlist. Don't worry though, he took home Best Supporting Performance at the 2025 FANGORIA Chainsaw Awards, and we all know those are more important anyway.

It's hard to believe that before Mulholland Drive, Naomi Watts was an unknown actress who was actually about to give up on the profession entirely. Luckily for her, and for all of us, the late, great David Lynch saw something special in her, and thus, an iconic performance was born. Watts does double duty in the surrealist thriller as Betty and Diane, a bright, aspiring actress and a depressed, struggling actress respectively, giving a mesmerising and totally distinct performance as both.

Watts did rack up a number of nominations for her performance in Mulholland Drive, with the American Film Institute, Boston Society of Film Critics and Los Angeles Film Critics Society and more giving her nods and wins. Lynch did nab a deserved Best Director nod, but frankly the film should've got far, far more.

The late, great Tony Todd was so iconic as the titular role in 1992's Candyman that even Nia DaCosta's sequel thirty years later didn't dare really recast him. As the legendary urban legend spirit, Todd bought presence and power to the role, elevating Candyman beyond just a simple slasher and into something far more magnetic.

While Candyman‘s first set of sequels, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh and Candyman: Day of the Dead, were less than positively received, Todd's skills were never questioned. We're proud to have nominated him for a FANGORIA Chainsaw Award back in 1993.

From X to Infinity Pool, scream queen Mia Goth has given some of the most iconic performances in all of modern horror, but it's her starring role in Ti West's Pearl that really deserved recognition from the Academy. As the titular farm girl, Goth swings from sympathetic to terrifying with the greatest of ease, while also making Pearl a hugely relatable character despite her temper.

Adding so much texture to the character of Pearl also made Goth's performance in X more impressive in hindsight, as audiences had a deeper understanding of an antagonist previously seen as just a “crazy old lady”. Once again, we at Fango had it right where the Academy didn't, giving Goth the award for Best Lead Performance at the 2023 Chainsaw Awards.

The second entry on this list from a David Lynch movie, because the late auteur sure did know how to choose immensely talented actors to work with. While 1992's Twin Peaks prequel was initially panned by critics, Fire Walk With Me was eventually reappraised for being the masterpiece that it is, thanks in huge part to Sheryl Lee's harrowing, raw performance as troubled prom queen Laura Palmer.

Due to Laura already being dead at the start of Twin Peaks, it was Fire Walk With Me that gave Lee the chance to fully embody the character and flesh out her story, and in doing so managed to deliver a performance that's all at once moving, tragic and terrifying.

Willem Dafoe is widely regarded as one of the greatest living actors, and the Academy have recognized his talents a number of times, but the fact that his role as salty sailor Thomas Wake in Robert Eggers' ‘weird tale‘ The Lighthouse is nothing short of a crime against the arts, frankly.

If you want more proof that Dafoe and his roaring, raging Wake should've been up for Best Actor, remind yourself of the incredibly intense and epic Sea Curse monologue, delivered in one take during which Dafoe doesn't blink once. HAAAAAARK, indeed.

Yep, you knew it was coming, but there's a reason Toni Collette's performance as Annie in Ari Aster's Hereditary is consistently mentioned in lists like this – because it really was that good. From the gut-wrenching wailing after the discovery of her Charlie's body to that dinner table monologue, Collette put her entire heart and soul into bringing Annie to life, cementing Hereditary as one of the all time great modern horror movies.

While Collette did receive a Best Supporting Actress nomination in 1999 for her role in the aforementioned The Sixth Sense, she should have been an easy contender for Best Actress 20 years later for Hereditary. Once again, the FANGORIA Chainsaw Awards got it right though, and she took home Best Actress at the 2019 ceremony.

Nope, it's not recency bias speaking – Ralph Fiennes as Dr. Ian Kelson in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is a performance for the ages, and deserves to be recognized as such. As the last doctor on earth, Kelson brings peace and respite to a world lost to madness, and Fiennes brings his kindness to life with a deep, melancholy sincerity.

Fiennes' work with Chi Lewis-Parry, who plays the behemothic Alpha infected Samson, is some of the most moving of his career – and that's before we even get into that Iron Maiden set piece, for which Fiennes deserves a Tony for too, if we're being perfectly honest.