10 Amazing Horror Movie Performances That Should've Won Oscars
The Academy infuriatingly slept on these all-timer performances.
In recent years, there's been plenty of discussion online about the Oscars' perceived bias against horror films, that unless a genre offering is an epochal cultural event - like, say, The Exorcist, The Silence of the Lambs, or most recently Get Out - it's probably going to be ignored by the Academy's voting body.
Even though 2025 saw grotesque body horror The Substance rack up five Oscar nominations - including a Best Actress nod for Demi Moore - this feels more like the exception that proves the rule rather than a sign that times are a-changing. After all, The Substance is still a film very much about Hollywood, and is there anything the Academy loves more than a movie about itself?
So, by poring back over decades of incredible horror movie performances, the following are just some of the pictures that were egregiously ignored by the Oscars, no matter that they were electrifying and brilliant enough to have earned the gong outright.
As the Academy's membership diversifies, the institution's attitude to horror may start to change, but at present, it's clear that they've slept on some truly astonishing performances in the genre.
10. Lupita Nyong'o - Us
Unlike most actors on this list, Lupita Nyong'o already had an Oscar nomination to her name before she ever starred in a horror film, though the moment that Jordan Peele's Us premiered, critics and audiences alike vocally called for Nyong'o to receive a Best Actress nomination for her storming dual performance.
Nyong'o had the challenging task of portraying not only embattled protagonist Addy, but also her terrifying Tethered doppelganger, Red. As two sides of the same traumatised coin, these roles gave the actress a hell of a lot to sink her teeth into, and to say she rose to the occasion is quite the understatement.
Nyong'o is particularly excellent as the imposing, raspy-voiced Red, especially once the particulars of Red's nature are revealed at the film's end and we know precisely what we've been dealing with. Though Nyong'o picked up her fair share of regional commendations for the performance, the historically horror-averse Academy sadly wasn't having it.