Sunday Scaries: The Best Performances in Horror from 2025

Welcome to another installment of my countdown of the year’s best performances in horror movies! Last time, I went with the general consensus and declared Demi Moore the best horror performer of 2024. Not the most idiosyncratic pick, but what can I say? Sometimes the masses and the Academy get it right. They may get it right once again when it comes to a particular breakout role in a horror hit from 2025, but more on that later.

For now, I want to give a brief shout-out to a “performer” who I ultimately felt wasn’t really eligible for consideration as an actual feat of screen acting the way humans understand it, though it would also be untoward of me to not mention him at all. Behold, the only Honorable Mention of 2025…

Honorable Mention) Indy in Good Boy

And such a good boy he is! Indy had no formal training in movies before being cast in the lead role of this low-budget but formally ambitious indie horror project from Ben Leonberg. Which is pretty amazing, considering just how expressive this Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever was throughout the entire 73-minute feature, with impressively natural-looking, fluid facial reactions in closeups that actually convince you he’s looking at some sort of malevolent apparition. He is right up there with Uggy in The Artist and Messi in Anatomy of a Fall in the annals of 21^st century canine acting. According to the film’s director, getting this kind of performance from Indy required a lot of patience and adaptability over a 400-day-long shoot… and that kind of shooting style ultimately convinced me not to include Indy in my top five. Still, it’s an impressive feat of animal performance that I had to commend in this column.

Now, on to the humans!

5) Delroy Lindo in Sinners

This will be the most controversial decision I make for this countdown. Not because I chose Delroy Lindo for Sinners, but because – spoiler alert – he’s the only member of Sinners’ ensemble I felt was worthy of this list. Look, I think Michael B. Jordan is one of the most commanding movie stars of the Millennial generation who delivered what I thought was an Oscar-worthy performance a little over a decade ago. But I never found him more than serviceable here in a dual role that’s so lacking in meaningful interactions or even distinctions between Smoke and Stack that nothing would have really changed the characters that much if they had just been brothers played by two different actors (for a far more impressive twin performance, just watch Dylan O’Brien in Twinless). Really, the only actor in the movie who stood out to me was Lindo’s consistently warm, funny presence as the old town musician. Well, okay, Jack O’Connell’s rendition of “Rocky Road to Dublin” was very energetic and memorable, but that alone is not enough for the top five in my eyes.

4) Patrick Wilson in The Conjuring: Last Rites

3) Vera Farmiga in The Conjuring: Last Rites

Look, I’m not happy about it any more than you are, okay? These movies, as entertaining as they are, have set out on a truly odious mission to glorify and whitewash the true story of two shameless grifters who conned people into believing they were legitimate paranormal investigators when, in reality, they just repeated stuff they got from movies (Fun Fact: they always found ghosts in their “investigations” until 1973, then they almost exclusively encountered demons as the source of hauntings; I’ll give you one guess as to what happened that year) to become quack celebrities and help families escape from houses they couldn’t afford. Also, Ed Warren was a literal predator and groomer fully enabled by his wife. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga portraying some loving couple waging a righteous holy war is so at odds with those two horrible people that we might as well consider them both just straight-up playing entirely fictional characters.

But, in that light, their performances, and especially their on-screen chemistry, is unimpeachable. Especially in this movie that portrays both of them as an aging couple who have been through their fair share of personal trials and tribulations, both struggling in their own ways to confront the reality of not only becoming too old for paranormal adventures, but also being parents to an adult daughter about to get married and start a life on her own without them. Wilson’s taciturn stubbornness pairs off well with Farmiga’s more glassy-eyed fear for their daughter, and provides the interpersonal anchor needed to end this mainline series on an emotionally satisfying note… god dammit.

2) Jacob Elordi in Frankenstein

I have a lot of issues with the latest movie version of Frankenstein. And Guillermo del Toro’s post-Oscar career trajectory in general. But luckily, his adaptation of the classic horror novel is not totally without merit. Chief among them being Jacob Elordi’s genuinely inspired and committed take on the Creature. Though I’m not thrilled with just how much this version of the character was softened in what was ostensibly a more faithful adaptation of the book while also giving him superpowers, I can’t fault the actor for inhabiting such an approach to the iconic character as successfully as he does, especially in his early scenes where he’s more or less a child who can only communicate through faint physical gestures and expressions of confusion at his master’s cruelty. If he’s the frontrunner for Best Supporting Actor, I’ll be perfectly content.

1) Amy Madigan in Weapons

I mean… could it have been anyone else? Obviously it had to be Amy Madigan for Weapons, the most fun I had watching any horror movie last year. It was already pretty good early on (even if it’s a real stretch to believe a small town where seventeen children all disappear under such mysterious circumstances wouldn’t have attracted literal international attention, an overwhelming federal law enforcement response, and relentless media coverage), but when she shows up, it takes on a more otherworldly feel. She isn’t some tired Metaphor For Trauma, she is a Grimms’ Fairy Tale wicked witch of suburbia. More remarkably, despite her literal clownish makeup, she doesn’t take the obvious route of playing a clown. She can be silly and over-the-top, as in her first on-screen proper introduction, but in key scenes, she locks into a stone-faced seriousness to intimidate poor Alex into going along with her obsessive quest to cheat death. The oscillation between comedic and terrifying registers for a character that seems straight out of a campfire story is one of the major reasons why Weapons works as well as it does, capturing the imaginations (and nightmares) of so many moviegoers, critics, and industry figures that she’s deservedly become the Cinderella story of the awards season this year.

What was your favorite horror performance last year, readers? Actually, let me rephrase: what was your favorite horror performance from last year other than Amy Madigan? Let us know in the comments.