Last Updated on January 5, 2026 by Angel Melanson
It’s been a wild year at the box office, full of insanely high highs and dreadfully low lows. We had welcome smash hits like 28 Years Later, but we also had to suffer major disappointments like M3GAN 2.0. Broadly speaking, the domestic box office is going to finish below $9 billion, meaning that the continued recovery of the theatrical business in the aftermath of the pandemic is far from steady. Rather, it’s an up and down rollercoaster that appears to have a relatively low ceiling.
See also: 2025 Is A Good Time For Big-Budget, High-Concept Horror
Throughout all of it though, horror has been there to help prop up the industry. Horror has been there to help save theaters when they’ve been in need of saving. Unsung, lowkey theatrical successes like Until Dawn and The Long Walk have been there to help fill voids. Constantly and always, genre fare is there to help ensure that the tide rises.
But what were the biggest of the big horror movies in 2025? Which of these movies emerged as the cream of the crop in terms of sheer dollar amount earned from ticket sales? What movies were people most willing to shell out hard-earned folding money to watch outside the comfort of home? We’re going to run down the list of the five biggest horror movies at the box office from the year that was. Let’s dive in, shall we?
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- Weapons
Zach Cregger emerged as a voice to pay attention to in horror when Barbarian arrived in 2022. That made his follow-up, which arrived over the summer in the form of Weapons, a hot commodity. It did not disappoint. Hailed by critics and ranking as one of the biggest original movies of the year of any kind, it was a home run for Cregger and Warner Bros. Not to get too ahead of ourselves here, but it was a very good year for Warner Bros., in no small part thanks to horror.
A major surprise, the movie topped the charts domestically in four out of its first five weekends. Against a budget of $38 million, very reasonable by big studio movie standards, Weapons pulled in $151.5 million domestically and $117.5 million internationally for a grand total of $269 million worldwide. Cregger has since confirmed that a spin-off focused on Aunt Gladys is in the works. Look at that! We’ve got a new franchise.
Only two original movies made more in 2025 (one of which we’ll talk about in a moment), with one of them being F1. Though an original story, it is based in the world of Formula One racing, so it’s not purely original. In that way, this twisted mystery involving a bunch of missing kids was a breath of fresh air.
- Final Destination Bloodlines
Final Destination Bloodlines (Credit: Warner Bros.). The Final Destination franchise had been dormant for years dating back to 2011’s Final Destination 5, which brought things full circle back to the original 2000 horror classic. But in the realm of successful horror franchises, nothing stays dead forever. Enter Final Destination Bloodlines from directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, which set a new high bar for the series.
With a new set of characters, raised stakes and even an IMAX release, Bloodlines was a smash success. Fueled by generational nostalgia and pent-up demand, the movie earned a hugely impressive $138.1 million domestically to go with $177.7 million overseas for a $315.8 million global total. Not bad even with a $50 million production budget. And to think, this movie was originally set to go directly to HBO Max.
Even more amazing is the fact that the previous highest-grossing entry in the series was The Final Destination with $187 million. That’s a hefty increase. To the surprise of nobody, Warner Bros. and New Line are developing Final Destination 7 as we speak. It’s fair to say this franchisee is firmly back in a big, bad way. Death has more work to do, it seems.
3. Sinners
Sinners (Credit: Warner Bros.). Circling back to Warner Bros. yet again, the studio took a big, risky bet on Sinners, a big-budget, original vampire movie starring Michael B. Jordan set in the 1930s. With a budget of $90 million, there was never any guarantee that this was going to work. But with Black Panther and Creed director Ryan Coogler at the helm, it was a bet that WB was happy to make. It paid off rather handsomely, to put it lightly.
Sinners over-delivered at every turn, from a killer opening weekend to then becoming a word-of-mouth sensation. It pulled in a downright astounding $279.6 million domestically to go with a surprisingly low $88.3 million internationally for a grand total of $367.9 million worldwide. Not unlike Bloodlines, it was aided greatly by IMAX. It’s one of Hollywood’s biggest original hits in years. For those who don’t count F1 ($631.6 million worldwide), this would count as the biggest original movie of 2025 overall. To say that it defied expectations would be an understatement.
More than just a money-maker, Sinners has also raked in a ton of Golden Globe nominations and is likely to be a major contender at the Oscars as well. Of all the movies that WB made this year, this may rank as the most well-rounded success of them all. That’s saying something.
- The Conjuring: Last Rites
The Conjuring: Last Rites (Credit: Warner Bros.). It’s hard to believe, but The Conjuring Universe has been a part of the cinematic landscape for over a decade at this point. The Conjuring was a massive hit in 2013 that spawned an entire universe based on the case files of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorriane Warren. There are grown ass adults now who were teenagers forming their love of horror when that first movie came out. That helped make The Conjuring: Last Rites a true cinematic event. While it would be a stretch to call it the Avengers: Endgame of The Conjuring Universe, you get the idea.
Audiences turned up in droves to see Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson say goodbye as the Warrens, so much so that Last Rites now ranks as far and away the biggest movie in the franchise. With $177.7 million domestically and a massive $316.9 million internationally, director Michael Chaves’ paranormal epic made a whopping $494.6 million worldwide. Not bad for a $55 million budget. It cannot be emphasized just how hard Warner Bros. crushed it this year, as four of the movies on this list hail from the studio. That’s nothing shy of impressive.
Even though Last Rites was sold as a finale, Warner Bros. is unsurprisingly already developing a Conjuring prequel to keep the party going. There’s something to be said for ending a thing, but it’s also hard to walk away from that kind of money. There’s clearly a healthy appetite for stories in this universe.
- Jurassic World Rebirth
Jurassic World Rebirth (Credit: Universal Pictures). Look, I can feel the eye rolls on the screen right now. There are those who are going to say “Jurassic World is not horror damn it!” But monster movies are horror. Dinosaurs made by man who are very capable of eating people are monsters of a sort. Giant animal attack movies are considered horror. Being PG-13 doesn’t preclude something from being horror. In a lot of ways, dating back to the original Jurassic Park, this franchise has been gateway horror of a sort for multiple generations now. And these movies remain remarkably popular, now seven entries in.
Directed by Gareth Edwards, Jurassic World Rebirth offers up something of a new start for the franchise, bringing us to a new island, with new dinosaurs, focused on a new set of human characters. While it couldn’t quite match the billion-dollar high of Jurassic World Dominion in 2022, Rebirth still managed to become one of the biggest movies of 2025 overall.
With $339.6 million domestically and $529.5 million internationally, the seventh Jurassic movie earned $869.1 million worldwide. That makes it the fifth-biggest movie of the year as of this writing, behind only A Minecraft Movie ($958.1 million), Lilo & Stitch ($1 billion), Zootopia 2 ($1.4 billion) and Ne Zha 2 ($2.15 billion). Granted, Avatar: Fire and Ash is going to pass it any day now, but that’s good company to be in.
Jurassic World Rebirth (Credit: Universal Pictures).
